I’m going to hold off on writing much about the third arc. Partly because it depends on the first two being successful, but also because this is where a lot of the questions would get answered, so I’d rather just keep them in the notes for now.
Honestly, at this point I’ve written more than is necessary, and should have gotten into actual game-building for a while now. Unity is installed, and I should start on the tutorials, then start on basic gameplay prototypes.
On the mechanics side, I started into Mega Man X6, and have found it frustrating. I think there are a couple of problems I’m seeing with it: there are things that if you mess them up, they are permanent unless you restart the game. I’ve seen that in other games, and it was a lesser issue in X5. For this type of game, I’m thinking that just doesn’t work. For Roguelikes, the idea is to go through the game repeatedly, adapting to the random events, and player choices made. However, in a non-randomized platformer, the point is to develop perfection through repetition. That doesn’t work when an error means you need to hard restart the game.
The MMX6 level design also seems to trap the player in situations that they can’t win any more. There’s a falling ice-blocks puzzle, and the idea is you’re supposed to kill the wolves on the ice blocks, and then climb the growing pile of ice blocks out of the pit. On paper its a tricky buy doable puzzle/platform/shooting section. The random block patterns just make it less predictable.
There’s a catch, though: X can only just one block high: the puzzle needs you to be at least 3 blocks high to get out. And, because the blocks drop at random, and you can’t climb them, it is possible for X to become trapped in a 2 block well, at which point, you need to just wait until enough blocks fall to kill you so you can try it again. As near as I can tell, you can’t destroy the blocks either, so you just sit and wait.
So, the lesson here is, in action games, don’t trap the player. Even if they are actually doomed, they need to have the tools to at least try to get it sorted, so that they are active right until they die. Otherwise it feels cheap and annoying.
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