Sunday, September 21, 2014

Kirby Kid's advice: Where's my momentum ?

I've been expecting Kirby Kid's "tuning list" like a kid expecting his birthday, checking my mailbox every now and then until I finally got his feedback on the two-level edition of "Bilou: rush to completion". I've got many items to review, so I won't try to give you all of that at once, but I'll rather reveal them once at a time as I address them.My major action point here will be to harmonize things.

input, moving

If there's a run button it either needs to be a dash like MegaManX or a constant state like Super Mario. Having to repress the button every landing and every turn around is annoying.
Where is my momentum going [related to air control]? Sometimes I get to move forward smoothly and continue moving. Other times jumping off of things and even landing kills all my momentum. Momentum is so very important in a game like this especially because the movement and fall speed is very slow/floaty.

Kirby Kid m'avait annoncé une 'liste de choses à améliorer' dans Rush to Completion (2 niveaux), et j'avoue que j'attendais ça excité comme un gamin la veille de Saint-Nicolas. Je l'ai enfin reçue, et il y a vraiment plein de choses dedans. Je ne vais donc pas essayer de faire tout en un seul post. Ici, on va se concentrer sur les déplacements de Bilou.

Premier point faible, la course de Bilou. Pas tout à fait un dash qui se déclenche d'une simple pression de bouton, ni un état permanent tant qu'on garde un bouton enfoncé à la Mario. Enfin, si, il y a un bouton à la SMB: le bouton R. Mais il y a aussi un mécanisme de course à la Kirby, et lui je dois admettre qu'il fonctionne bizarrement. Et bien sûr, s'il y a deux moyens de se mettre à courir, les deux devraient fonctionner de la même manière, pas demander qu'on ré-active la course après chaque aterrissage ni à chaque demi-tour.

Well, funny enough, there *is* a Super Mario constant state running: the R button. But the most straightforward way to RUN -- double-tapping the DPAD -- indeed works weirdly. Anyway, whether you activate it with a double tap on the DPAD or holding the R button shouldn't matter: the mechanic should work the same. Why has my mind so far accepted that people using double-tap dash should get a more annoying RUN than people holding the R button, who would keep constant speed upon landing ? Meditate on that I will. Meanwhile, I'll fix the code so that you can keep running as you land even with the double-tap.

Kirby Kid pointe aussi un contrôle en l'air qui casse toute l'inertie horizontale. C'est le cas quand on se fait jeter d'un encrier (enfin, je suppose que c'est ce qui lui arrive). J'avais voulu limiter la marge de manoeuvre du joueur dans ce cas-là (et aussi quand on rebondit sur une gomme), mais visiblement j'y ai été trop fort.

I will have some more tuning on the "thrown up" move, I guess. I thought it would be nice to restrict how much control you have over your trajectory when you take big air with a pink-bumper or a inkjet. That stresses the player to gain momentum first (on the ground), jump, and then bounce to clear the jump. It was already a tricky thing to achieve in the anniversary level, but it apparently turns into a nuisance in this game.

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