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Show HN: Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist

breakout.lecaro.me

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Re: Show HN: Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist

#181

Post by nonninz »

This is amazing. I started playing it with my morning coffee and somehow it became 1pm...

Despite what other people commented, I really liked not really knowing what happens with some (most?) of the updated and having to try them to understand what they do and how to combine them. The last part is especially true: it was just SO SATISFYING when I realized that a perk I hated became my favourite once I was able to pair it properly and catch waterfall of coins :)

One thing I still don't get at all are the white and red ball "paths" that briefly appear from time to time. I don't get what they represent nor how are they triggered, especially as it doesn't look like the ball will actually do that exact path after it hits the puck (if I don't move it). It's a little annoying for the red one, that resets your coin counter, because I can't understand if I can avoid it somehow or do I have to take it as a "random debuff".

Re: Show HN: Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist

#182

Post by lecarore »

nonninz wrote: post #181

This is amazing. I started playing it with my morning coffee and somehow it became 1pm... Despite what other people commented, I really liked not really knowing what happens with some (most?) of the updated and having to try them to understand what they do and how to combine them. The last part is especially true: it was just SO SATISFYING when I realized that a perk I hated became my favourite once I was able to pai…

Thanks. I guess one perk i could add is "3 random perks" where you have to figure out what you got haha. The flashing lines you see are signaling that you missed the bricks and didn't hit any. That will reset your combo. If you manage to never miss in a level, you'll get and extra upgrade and choice. If you miss less than 3 times, you'll just get an extra choice.

Re: Show HN: Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist

#183

Post by kruffalon »

lecarore wrote: post #179
kruffalon wrote: post #176

Hello, This a tremendously good game, very clean in all ways that matter. Merci beaucoup! Below is me wilding out a bit, feel free to ignore. The take home message is: great game, thanks!! I do however wish for two things down the road: More focus on the run A) some kind of tracker for where you are in the run (level 2/10) B) a perk that lets you chose (2-4 choices) what level to go to next (so you can pick ones you…

Merci for the feedback. A/ I had a current level display before, but now the menu is in its place. I guess once you pass level 1 i could display your current level instead of "menu" at the top right. I also want to show the score and multiplier, i'll have to do hard choices. B/ Yes, letting users pick the next level is a great perk, it's a bit of a code change but not that hard, i added it to the possible new perks l…

It seems I misremembered about mario or that i'm just bad at searching, the only thing I could find now is that the trigger for the fireworks is ending on specific number, oh well :)

Obviously you know your game better and have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish. For me it was mostly a case of seeing a long list of unlocks and the only way forward was play another game (repeated a lot of times).

One thing I like about Vampire Survivors is that you can try to figure stuff out and for me that is a much more enjoyable way to play "just one more" run (even though I still haven't found even close to everything, which I would have if it was only time that was needed)

Anyway, thanks again for the game and good luck going forward!

Re: Show HN: Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist

#184

Post by vessenes »

bcantrill wrote: post #129
vessenes wrote: post #6

This is super fun, and it works on mobile. Thanks for making it! If you want some ideas for multiplayer, see if you can dig up “BattleTris” - it was a brown university cs student game that allowed networked Tetris play in the 1990s. I could be wrong but I think Bryan Cantrill was one of the people who made it. Anyway, my memory is that it had a lot of fun ways to mess with the opposing player, and you might find some…

Yes -- great memory! Amazingly, Adam and I talked about BattleTris on Oxide and Friends just two weeks ago[0] -- and specifically how BattleTris almost prevented ZFS from coming into being. (!) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbLz79trgz8#t=14m12s

Love this. I'll look forward to reminiscing!

Re: Show HN: Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist

#185

Post by lecarore »

whitehexagon wrote: post #172
lecarore wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, I guess the a?.b syntax is also quite new, and as a grumpy many myself, i didn't feel like adding a js preprocessor. This syntax is used 25 times, i think at that point it would be more reasonable to write my game in typescript or something else kids do these days haha. The run should complete at level 7, unless you extend it with the "+1 level" upgrade up to three time. If you stop at level 4 or 5 it means y…

I'm glad you have no stats, especially for hours spent playing! I have a better feel for it now, and still really like it. Although it can be a bit jarring to have crazy upgrades and clear a level in 3s, only to have completed the run, and be back to 60s+ level 1. I worked out the extra levels thing you mentioned (it was probably always 7 but felt shorter because of the fast pace!) and I hit 10 levels on a few runs,…

The stats are kept in localstorage, but i forgot to ask for permanent storage, i'll add this to the todo.

Re: Show HN: Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist

#187

Post by whitehexagon »

lecarore wrote: post #185
whitehexagon wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you have no stats, especially for hours spent playing! I have a better feel for it now, and still really like it. Although it can be a bit jarring to have crazy upgrades and clear a level in 3s, only to have completed the run, and be back to 60s+ level 1. I worked out the extra levels thing you mentioned (it was probably always 7 but felt shorter because of the fast pace!) and I hit 10 levels on a few runs,…

The stats are kept in localstorage, but i forgot to ask for permanent storage, i'll add this to the todo.

some more feedback, hopefully still welcome,

The '+1 choice permanently' is maybe '+1 choice until run end', I knew it sounded too good to be true hehe It would be nice to see which level I am on between levels since that influences choice. 11,531, but more than 10k score from a single level in a few seconds, but it was seriously overloaded! Might be worth to merge 50 coins into fat coins when that happens? The +1 level shows level count only sometimes. mouse/paddle gets stuck sometimes, not sure on this one, maybe out-of-play could pause? until back within the play zone. I got a catch rate 119% I think I had a level with caught more coins than 'out of n' sturdy? bricks was a fun pick with 3 balls, oopsi!

In summary, still hooked.

Re: Show HN: Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist

#188

Post by kelo-hn »

Renan, this is absolutely captivating!

I randomly downloaded it from F-Droid a few days ago, and I've played it a lot (100% unlocked and 66k high score so far, still looking for even more strategies though).

I wanted to bring to your attention a bug that can abruptly end a run: the Respawn perk may cause the ball(s) to keep floating in the void, with no bricks left to hit (it has happened twice, I suppose it's related to Respawn but can't be 100% sure).

Also, I've read in a few comments about features and stuff: I think they're not really needed and even potentially harmful. I love the game simplicity.

What could be improved, in my opinion, is that:

1. The onboarding feels weird

It took me a while to understand how the game really worked. As an example, the metrics for getting upgrades and choices is not explicitly stated in the app, I had to figure it out myself (although I later found some details on the mechanics after digging your website and other sources like HN). A quick optional tutorial may be helpful.

(Other things that were unclear to me at first were the combo and miss indicators. I've notices that the web version does a much better job at signalling misses, I guess probably F-Droid lags behind as usual.)

2. Players can't choose the initial perk

Random is great, but if I'm going for a specific strat I may have to reset a bunch of times to get something I can work with. Which brings us to...

3. Players can't easily reset the run

If I want to restart, I have to (1) find out what perk I have and (2) literally lose the ball. It would be nice to (1) know in advance the starting perk and (2) have a reset button or option in the menu.

Last but not least, there's the game balancing aspect. I feel that some perks are really detrimental to your score, which makes some strategies are clearly superior and others just not viable unless you're optimizing for some other metrics (i.e. you're speedrunning, so time becomes more valuable than coins).

An idea would be to refine the combo increase/decrease and/or upgrade system and/or the ultimate goal of the game, i.e. making top score categories for "most coins", "less time", "least bricks broken", etc.

All in all, the game is already great as is – so I hope it won't change too much.

Thanks for your efforts!

Re: Show HN: Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist

#189

Post by kelo-hn »

kelo-hn wrote: post #188

Renan, this is absolutely captivating! I randomly downloaded it from F-Droid a few days ago, and I've played it a lot (100% unlocked and 66k high score so far, still looking for even more strategies though). I wanted to bring to your attention a bug that can abruptly end a run: the Respawn perk may cause the ball(s) to keep floating in the void, with no bricks left to hit (it has happened twice, I suppose it's relate…

Update: the bug happened one more time, even if I did not choose Respawn. Also, the app crashed on startup once (I couldn't reproduce that, though). Also, new high score (152k), but the run statistics comparison of best 10 run looks kinda glitched (it won't show all the scores).

Re: Show HN: Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist

#190

Post by lecarore »

kelo-hn wrote: post #188

Renan, this is absolutely captivating! I randomly downloaded it from F-Droid a few days ago, and I've played it a lot (100% unlocked and 66k high score so far, still looking for even more strategies though). I wanted to bring to your attention a bug that can abruptly end a run: the Respawn perk may cause the ball(s) to keep floating in the void, with no bricks left to hit (it has happened twice, I suppose it's relate…

Hi Mick,

1. I'll improve the onboarding, but it's a balance between too much text and too little. I think i'll "unlock" some things like the default perk, extra upgrades by playing better, etc.. after a while, and explain them at that time.

2. You can click menu/unlocks/perk name to try the perk, but only for one level. Maybe i could instead start a normal run with that perk.

3. clicking the score at the top right lets you see what perk you have and restarts the game. The button didn't work at some points, but in the latest version (web) it definitely works. Again, it's a "missing tutorial" issue, more than "missing features"

4. The game indeed has a dominant strategy, I haven't reached 66k high score at all, but I can see some perks work better than others. I was thinking about a challenge of not using a perk. So, high score without multiball. High score without hot start. This would make alternative strategies more interesting to develop. Another option would be "hard mode", where the bricks take more hits, perks are rarer, missing resets the level score, missing a coin reduces score... some new level of challenge basically.

I think all those points can wait a bit though, except the ball stuck one, where i'd love to have more details. If you play on web, you can turn game recording on in the menu, and share the video of any odd behavior. This bug is at the top of my todo, but I also have a job and it's not easy to reproduce, so it might take a little while to fix it.

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