Moving parts and intuitive design

General discussions related to the official Elasto Mania 2 game and the iOS version.

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kuchitsu
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Moving parts and intuitive design

Post by kuchitsu »

After playing through all internal levels, I have mixed feelings about the moving parts. They're obviously a cool mechanic, but what worries me is how arbitrary their behavior is. Many people complain about gravity apples with no arrows in the first game, but they are nothing compared to Elma 2's moving parts. With gravity at least there are only a few possibilities, but here you can expect virtually anything. Usually when I touch a trigger object for the first time I have absolutely no idea what will happen, so I have to stop and carefully observe everything. You could say it adds a mystery element to the game and makes you feel even more like an explorer in an unknown land, but another point of view is that it is flawed and totally non-intuitive design. So if you're going to make levels for the game, please think about this a little bit and consider developing a system of signs that would help the player understand the purpose of triggers. Maybe we could even come up with it together. Again, arrows in Elma are an almost universally accepted convention, so why not invent something similar for Elma 2?
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Orcc
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Re: Moving parts and intuitive design

Post by Orcc »

Are there any background masks to line out the forecoming platforms?
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Lousku
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Re: Moving parts and intuitive design

Post by Lousku »

Yeah, this can be a problem if we can ever have moving polygons in ff balles and sach. In Elma2 you can draw cosmetic polygons in the background at least.
then again i don't know anything
maybe easier not to think abouut alöl things thought than not things thought ... or something..=?
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pawq
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Re: Moving parts and intuitive design

Post by pawq »

To be fair I just tried the editor and it was mega horror. Ultra unintuitive and unergonomic functionality. Can use mouse, but so what when still can't select most things as could expect in any program from the last 15 years. Gotta go to a different tab, click "add to selection" and then "move"...

More on topic tho, I think in normal levels this isn't really a problem. The first ride is more like reconnaissance even in Elma, when you're getting to know the polygons, so I have no problem with just finding out what polygons do by checking it out. But, as lousk said, in FF levs that might be a problem, so it'll be up to designer to make it fairly intuitive. Can probably use arrows in most cases, and just not do excessively wild stuff. Maybe post signs such as "wait" or "door".
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Ruben
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Re: Moving parts and intuitive design

Post by Ruben »

Can draw a little version of the moving polygon, and draw an arrow over it mimicking its movement. Doing that well enough and following some common conventions you can make catapults and all sorts of stuff in ff's without worrying that people will die.
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