At 01:16 PM 1/11/2004, you wrote:
Also, broad up and down movement is more important than in Joust,
where the up and down movement was a different kind of finesse...
but in it, you didn't have to constantly fly from what part of
the screen to another. I worry that peoples fingers might give
out if they had to flap so dang much...
If the movement is too touchy then the main technique of playing the game
is to make the Joust ponger "jump" or "leap" or richet off the wall into
the ball rather than hover him at the right Y to catch the ball. This
really changes the dynamic of the game to have it so springy. I like to
lead the ball in Pong games by keeping my paddle on the same Y as the ball
as it traces and I just can't do that because the player never wants to
hover unless the timing is just right in-between fire button presses. If I
wait too long the gravity takes hold and I get ripped downward. If you
press too soon I go shooting to the top of the screen only to hit it and
bounce back unpredictably. The interval between too-soon and too-late is
really brief, and therefore hard to control.
I actually feel the opposite way about your Java version of Joust Pong. In
that version the birds seem to take too long before gravity pulls them back
down, which is a liability if the ball is moving towards them diagonally
down. You sit there hopeless, unable to let gravity pull you down. I also
noticed in the Java version that there is more vertical motion on the ball
than there is on the 2600 version. The diagonals are steeper. This
compensates for the hang-time because you can glance into the egg more
easily because it's crossing much more of your path on its way to the edge.
I can only speak for myself, but I'm so familiar with the way gravity and
flapping interact in Joust, and thinking of hitting the ball like catching
an egg or lancing a pterry, that I'd have a much easier time of it if it
reacted closer to Joust than if it were springy, and since the game is
called Joust Pong, you'd think that your target demographic would also be
expecting a more authentically Joust feel.
At the very least I would try to find a medium where you can support both
movement styles as options.
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