Over the weekend I upgraded multiplayer to fix some of the gameplay issues I had last time, and I had 3 friends test it out last night. Here’s how multiplayer works now:
- You start off with half of your energy gauge filled
- Everything costs energy: making blocks, freezing blocks and attacking
- Each time you achieve a goal, a ‘move up’ icon appears at the top, and the level is extended vertically. You can move the camera up or down by flying your character to the top or bottom of the screen.
- You win by getting points; currently you gain a point every time you score a goal, and every time a minute passes without your opponent scoring a goal. This prevents endless games where both players are stuck.
- You generate energy by holding down X; the more blocks you have onscreen, the faster you can make energy.
- Attacking still consists of shooting fireballs and melting blocks, but energy management during attack mode was simplified. You now get only two fireballs, but they’re more powerful; you have to aim them well to do damage, and your opponent can block them with his body if he’s fast enough.
Playtest results: players felt that this version of multiplayer was much more fun than the previous version. The altered focus (multiple goals instead of one goal) removed the problem where attacks were overly annoying and frustrating, and the new energy setup made attacking or freeing blocks a bigger investment than before.
Playtester suggestions:
- Fireball is still a little too weak, given that you only get two
- Attack mode should start with you on level with your opponent, not on the bottom of the screen.
- time-based points should depend on how many + signs you have covered; that way attacking has more immediate results.
- better instructions; a pause screen listing controls would help.
- large blocks are disproportionately expensive.
My goals for thursday are to fix these issues, finish sound, and compile to xbox.
I also fixed some lingering farseer problems with block freezing. If you set a block to be static while it is resting on another static object, farseer freaks out and flings any non-static objects also resting on that static object up into the air. This was most noticable with the player character, who generally got thrown off the screen. I solved this problem by assigning a collision handler to all of the frozen blocks which ignores collisions with other static objects