Bipolar Blocks [2 player]

[sny]

Well, I'm finally done with my first LBP2 level. Took me about 55-60 hours, and now I'm hoping the fine folk of this forum can give it a try and tell me their thoughts. Please excuse the weird characters in the level description, the LBP2 unicode extensions don't display quite well on the forums it seems, but they help a lot in the in-game description.

Level name: Bipolar Blocks
Level type: Versus
# of players: 2 only

Sample screenshots:




Description:

This is a fast-paced versus level where both players control a crosshair (one player controls red, the other blue) and aim to get to the target score as fast as possible by shooting blocks of their colour while avoiding the ones of the opponent's colour. There are a number of things to make this more exciting:

Golden blocks give 100 points to the first player to shoot it (just for comparison, the normal blocks give 10).
Skill blocks grant a skill point to the player that shoots it. One player can have a maximum of 3 skill points.

If a player has skill points unspent, he can unleash one of four skills. All skills become more powerful when used at a higher skill level, so a level 3 skill will be much more effective than a level 1 version. The skills are:

Polarize (Circle button) - inverts the colour of red and blue blocks in a certain radius determined by skill level.
Cascade (X button) - triggers a chain of explosions originating from the player crosshair, the range of which is determined by skill level. Blocks of the opponent's colour give positive points instead of negative, although not as much as those of your colour.
Inhibit (Square button) - locks the opponent crosshair in place for a short period of time, determined by skill level.
Amplify (Triangle button) - temporarily doubles the score granted from red, blue and golden blocks. Effect length determined by skill level.

Using these skills wisely is the key to gaining the edge over the opponent and finishing first.

So there you have it. If you have nobody to try the level with, feel free to drop me an invite when I'm online and I'll more than happily give the level a spin with you. That's the best way of squashing bugs anyway, when you can see them in action.

As for feedback, please let me know which level you want me to leave feedback on in return, I'll try to comply within a few days, as work and daily chores permit.

Updates based on player feedback:

+ Added a target score chooser in the options menu with 3 distinct values - thanks, Fobstar49!
o Muted the level entrance sound to give the illusion that the game starts at the main menu - thanks, ForcesWerwolf!
o Fixed a bug that would spawn spectators (player 3 & 4) who joined a game in progress off-screen when
the target score was reached
o Fixed a bug where a player would not receive the right number of skill points when hitting skill blocks
with the Cascade skill
o Made the crosshair stand out more when in front of blocks of the same colour, adjusted colour when using Amplify skill - thanks, tommywiseau!

http://lbp.me/v/yny8yw

[Bender]

Just played it with a friend! Man, this is a really fun and competitive level When the yellow blocks or power-ups appear, it is a frantic race to get there first because they are so valuable lol. I might suggest making the controls just a bit faster and creating the possibility for 4 players in the future. That would be pretty interesting. Great job

[sny]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll experiment with making the crosshair a bit faster and see how it goes. I wonder why I haven't done that already...

As for the 4-player mode, that could be tricky, since the skill that inverts the colour of blocks currently relies on the on-off functionality of the material, which obviously only has two states (and thus two colours). To circumvent that I'd need to add a lot more emitters which would probably overheat the level (or at the very least cause a lot of video lag), but I might give it a try if there's a high demand for a 4-player variant.

[DominationMags]

Ill queue as soon as the playstation network log in page is up and running again .

[ForcesWerwolf]

i played it right now

tipp:
- you can shut down the sound if you set the level on no sounds, than after a time of a second you start a sound tweeker with normal sounds: thats how you make the level start checkpoint sound disapper

+++:
- very good menu glowing effekts - i like them
- i did not now that you can make the colors fade into another for the glas background on your tutorial - thats good tn know ^^
- i played it alone ( in know i know ) but the gameplay worked brillant and i got nothing to say
- nice use of lights!

rating:
- yay
- heart (to get it fast found if i play next time with a friend)

F4F:
i think it's a bit long against your versus level - so you don't have to do it of course if you don't like!
it's skunk bunny adventures and it is linked in my signature thank you!

~Forces

[sny]

Thanks for the feedback and especially the tip, ForcesWerwolf! That's a neat little trick, I'll be sure to try it next time I get some create time.

I've queued your level series and will give it a go tomorrow, if all goes well.

[Fobstar49]

Hiya sny,

Great versus level and a wonderful analog-stick workout!

I agree with Bender -- all players make beelines for the special blocks (and I leave behind my crosshair a trail of -100s because I am poor at aiming) and it makes the game surprisingly hectic. The visuals and sound are great, and getting to choose the background music was a great bonus.

To be honest, though, I looked in the options menu to see if the score target could be reduced. 5000 was a long time, especially since the four people who were playing had to take turns at the two-player level. If it isn't a hassle, I would appreciate the option to play until 2500 or so. I might also suggest making your block emitters (or however you get blocks to spawn) visible. It looked to us as if the blocks always spawned in rows, which to us seemed somewhere halfway between an element of the gameplay and incomplete randomisation. I think showing the block emitter's horizontal position would make it firmly a deliberate property of the game that new blocks are always spawned in rows. Obviously, not a big deal though.

Anyhow, keep plugging away at it! You deserve more traffic.

[tommywiseau]

Hello,
I liked your level. Only cons I can think of were that I sometimes lost my crosshair in the chaos, and like Fobstar49 said, perhaps, if possible, make the target score changeable. Very minor things. Otherwise, pretty solid level and I'm going to play it again definitely. Good job.

[Foofles]

Queued up for when I am in with a friend

[sny]

Thanks, Fobstar49 and tommywiseau, that's some excellent suggestions and feedback you gave me there! I went ahead and implemented the target score chooser in the menu - I'm kind of ashamed why this never occured to me in the first place, since I also thought some people might not like the target score of 5000. Now you get to choose between 3 values, hopefully these will satisfy both players looking for quick matches and those aiming to battle it out longer against a friend.

As for the spawning of new blocks, at this point spawning them in rows is almost a requirement not to overheat the level, since the logic controlling the random block placement is already taking up at least 4/5 of thermometer usage. I tried making the order in which rows are updated random, but encountered some weird bug where an emitted sequencer set to 20 seconds would have a loop time of 19.666 seconds... which resulted in my random row picker going out of sync after a few minutes of play. Until I figure out a workaround for this bug, I'm afraid there's not much I can do to make it work just right, since I can't set 1/33-rds of a second precision on most of my logic components. I've not forgotten about this idea however, and will keep it on the to-do list for the level.

[Fobstar49]

Heh,

Honestly, sny, the level is so polished and you seem so logic-savvy in your other suggestions around the forums, I assumed it was a technical limitation. Like I said, it doesn't negatively impact gameplay - just a semi-intended feature (or something).

Also, LBP2 rounding gives me nightmares, too.

[LukeLukeLuke]

F4F YES
Queued. Will review asap.

[Spikehead777]

I finally got around to playing this. Unfortunately, I was alone at the time I played this, so this review may not be fully accurate.

You have a pretty good game mechanic here. Shoot the blocks of your color, avoid the blocks of the enemy's color, and make a mad dash for the special blocks. How much more simpler can it be? Well, there are the skills you can use, and that adds another layer of complexity as well. The visuals were simple, but they do get the point across. To be honest, anything more complex would probably get distracting. I really liked what you did with the main menu. That's some very nice visual work. I didn't find any bugs when I played this.

The online thing I will suggest is 3- and 4-player multiplayer, if that's feasible.

I hearted this, mainly because it's a mini-game that I liked. =P I'm definitely showing this to some of my friends online.

[matt54123]

looks cool, queued it. ill leave a review in the game.
F4F-http://www.lbpcentral.com/forums/sho...138#post807138

[sny]

Thanks for the feedback, Spikehead777.

Unfortunately the intricacies of the multiplayer gameplay don't come across at all when attempted alone so I can understand why you feel it's simplistic. If possible, give it a try with some friends, as skills - when employed at proper moments and locations - can add a lot of strategy to the gameplay and potentially empower you to make big comebacks or turnarounds. Inhibiting your opponent just as he's about to shoot a treasure trove worth of golden/skill blocks or "sneaking up" and changing the colour of the blocks he's about to shoot can be lots of fun, especially once both players learned how each skill works.

Currently I have no idea how to implement 3 or 4 player mode without overheating the level to the point of unplayability, but maybe once I've grown some more as a creator I'll attempt adding support for more players as well.

Thanks again!