Power-up systems and Repair kits
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Hello, I am Hampus Bergström, the game designer for the team Wendigo that works on the game Umibōzu. This week I have redesigned how the health pack (called repair kit in our game) works and with that also changed how the whole power-up system works for the game as they are connected. Originally all power-ups and repair kits originated from the same asset, that of a crate. When the player collided with the crate it would either randomly give them a repair kit that would instantly restore a certain amount of health or it would give them a power-up of some kind that gave the player some sort of positive effect. As the power-ups only gave positive effects and the repair kit instantly healed the player, the player never felt that they were in any real danger. We could just have reduced the number of crates that contains these power-ups/repair kits, but they would still be to powerful because the enemies themselves aren’t that difficult to defeat. The first enemy was already implemented in the game, so it would just be easier to redesign the power-ups/repair kit rather than the enemies. The redesigned repair kit and all the power-ups now have some sort of small drawback to them, the repair kit for example now takes some time to fully heal the player and while it does so, immobilizes the player. This redesign came with some problems though, when the player picks up a crate and get a health pack or power-up it could sometimes feel as a punishment instead because the drawback themselves could be devastating for the player if they were activated at the wrong time during gameplay, especially the repair kit if an obstacle that would damage the player came towards them. This problem was solved by changing how collecting and activating a power-up works. Instead of instantly activate when picked up, the power-up/repair kit is now saved in a list which saves the power-up to be used for later when the player really needs it. The player can only save one of each power-up and one repair kit in the list and can toggle between them freely, so they are not forced to for example use a repair kit when at full health. When used they are removed from the list. This helped the game and the power-up/repair kit system to become a lot more interesting and challenging without making the player feel punished for picking up crates.
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