Re: [stella] Climber5 prototype...comments???

["Paul Slocum" <paul-stella@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I spent some time playing it this weekend on a Cuttle Cart.  It looks great 
and the control is fantastic, but I think the gameplay needs 
improvement.  I don't think that simply increasing the speed alone is a 
good way to make the game harder.  It appears that you're increasing the 
speed of the man and the bars, but not the frequency of the bars.  I found 
that if you can work your way through the first few levels, your guy gets 
fast enough that you can sometimes pass a bunch of levels simply by holding 
the joystick in the upper left corner!  I got to level 14 or so this 
way.  However, if you just make the guy slower or make the frequency 
faster, the game is simply going to be impossible after a few levels.

Also, I think something needs to be done about the bar on the top row 
because many times you seem to get to the ball but die in the very last 
frame.  It's left up to chance too much.

One idea I had was to borrow a little from "Spider-Man" and make the levels 
scroll upward.  It's usually pretty easy to modify a kernal for vertical 
scrolling.  And it would be interesting to make the levels more complicated 
-- like have gaps in the floor in some places or other obstacles like "Hard 
Hat Mack" or "Miner 2049er".

I suggest checking out the similar 2600 game "Fast Eddie" which is similar 
but allows you to jump over obstacles, and the items you have to get to 
complete the level move from floor to floor.

http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=171


BTW: Yeah, I'm still around.  I was about to unsubscribe when Space 
Instigators got posted and then a slew of other cool new prototypes 
starting coming and I got hooked again.  :^)

-Paul

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