Changes:

• We’re back to the shooting input being swipe and not changing in rebound mode. Drag is still available as an option, but all input will be one or the other.
• O-hit bricks are available, with a new “breakout” mode functioning as a tutorial.
• “Endless” mode is now “BounceBreaker” (BB) mode. It’s still endless, though.
• The tutorial was simplified and moved to Breakout mode. The BounceBreaker mode may change drastically between versions, so I won’t tutorialize it for now.
• The pre-defined levels in BB now make more use of high-damage bricks to reinforce the damage mechanic.
• I’ve turned off scores since they need more features (like tracking or explanations) to mean anything.
• I’ve turned off the shot-available indicator.

Playtesting discussion:

I tested with two new players in-person and combined observation and interviews. Though it’s a very small sample, this early on I’m looking to test basic mechanics and logic. i.e. Are players doing something I would never have done or making some assumption I wouldn’t think of?

With that in mind, the major takeaways were:

• The tutorial is way too much too early. I’m modifying a bunch of breakout mechanics right away and tutorializing it in text in the first seconds. The players don’t remember most of what they read anyways. An actual tutorial is low priority this early since too much can change.
• Both players were always shooting from the UI element I intended to mean as the number of shots available. However, since there’s only one by default and it’s in the middle, they assumed this is where you have to shoot from. This is a classic example of players assigning meaning to something abstract on their first play.
• The players both expected there to be “0-hit” blocks, or standard breakout blocks, that break on hit. Especially early on they’re just trying to get the gratification of the shooting mechanic, and the bounce-is-damage mechanic is not important this early.
• After a little while the bouncing mechanic was fun, but eventually the novelty wears off and there should be something else going on to break up the repetition.
• The drag-to-shoot mechanic as the rebound mechanic was weird, especially because the input direction would switch. It was actually confusing to me too but I was curious what would happen. Luckily it did expose a major drawback with the pool-like shot mechanic: When rebounding, players want to shoot the ball directly at the bricks. When the ball is next to the wall, players won’t be able to aim in that direction and are forced to aim into the wall to make a bounce shot. I actually likes that it forces thinking about the distance to the wall as part of the mechanics, but it adds a lot of difficulty right away. I would expect that if I rendered the bounce path trajectory players would start using bounce shots much earlier. Swipe-to-shoot has a similar issue with trying to rebound next to walls when trying a bounce shot, but a bad shot usually happens when the ball bounces off a brick without enough damage and not because the player couldn’t aim where they wished. Basically the lesson here is as long as the ball went where the player wanted it to, failures are less frustrating.