0.5.0 Experiments with mechanics and level design

This version sees small steps toward features I’m planning for while still prioritizing exploring the ball mechanics and level layouts for playtesting.

During this week’s playtests I wanted to see how players responded to the following design choices:

• If the default input is the billiards style drag-to-shoot mode, is it more intuitive to players?
  • A: Not really, at least for these players.
• Does it feel better for the rebound mechanic to be more generous?
  • A: Yes, though understanding why and when it activates is still fuzzy. It’s still too subtle and overcomplicated, but player feedback was more of a “motivated frustration” type than a “disappointed” type, which is a step in the right direction. (e.g. “I made a bad shot and lost my progress, but I’ll go again.” vs. “I am trying to catch it and I can’t, why?”)
• How do players respond to much more complicated BounceBreaker mode levels?
  • A: Pretty well, though right now the game can feel too random.
• How do players respond to the less developed secondary mechanics, like multi-ball, zooming out, zombie.
  • A: Multi-ball is still the most visceral fun, but isn’t a viable mode at this point. Zombies has little context in this version. Different zoom levels was a little confusing but players adapted very quickly.

Major Changes:

• Renamed to “BounceBreak!” to avoid a name conflict on the App Store.
• Default input mode is the “drag” type in this version.
• BounceBreaker mode has a new set of levels and is more difficult.
• You can rebound (catch) the ball any time it hits a brick, but you’ll lose half your bounces.
• Rebounded balls’ bounce counter can’t be less than the number of times you caught it.
• Combo text now goes to a 10-combo, with an 11-combo being a “BounceBreak”.
• “BounceBreak” combo gives an extra shot, in modes with total shot rules.

Minor Changes:

• Ball animates away immediately when the round ends, so you don’t have to wait for it to fall before the round ends.
• Cleaned up combo text display to avoid overlap in some cases.
• Included a endless “zombies” mode with multi-ball enabled.
• There’s now a separate tutorial mode so the basic gameplay tutorial doesn’t depend on whatever else happens in the other modes.
• Balls can’t collide with each other.