Fractal Block World
Version 1.01.16 Remarks
Back
The youtuber MarriedToMyChair made a video on youtube
with many great suggestions.
We will explain here some of the changes we made.
Intended Game Difficulty
After his analysis, we made the "purple cat" difficulty
the standard difficulty, and all harder difficulties require a password.
The next harder difficulty was called "normal", but the name was
misleading. It is hard. It is now called "gateway".
Backing Rocket and Nuke Better in Mid Game
At the end of this 30 hour play through, the farthest MarriedToMyChair had gotten to
was I2 but his rocket and nuke were not very useful.
There was also not enough ammo for them.
The rocket and nuke are improved at a fast rate in I3, and when we play the game,
we usually try to go quickly to I3 without using our rocket or nuke at all
before this point.
With this strategy, we skip many areas leading up to I3.
The game was not designed for the player to stay in one area until
it is easy, and then the player goes on to the next area.
Instead the player must push forward and go ahead, doubling back as certain weapons
are advanced in later areas.
We see that this is counterintuitive, and we also see the appeal of
the strategy where the player stays in the midway part of the world
improves their rocket weapon (at a medium rate).
For this reason, the rocket (and nuke) now have more upgrades in Midway
(and even a couple in the Ying World).
Many treasure areas have one or two rocket/nuke upgrades
in addition to their main upgrades, so that the rocket and nuke
gradually get better no matter what strategy the player uses.
Also, the rocket and nuke now have a higher starting velocity.
One-Way Shrinkers
MarriedToMyChair wanted an indication of when a shrinker would
be "one-way", causing the player to immediately not be able
to enlarge back. This is a great suggestion and so we created
the shrinker with the skull and crossbones.
White Box Devices and One-Way Waypoints
I am counting this as one thing, but two very
closely related things MarriedToMyChair did not like
were one-way waypoints and white box devices.
First, let me explain why we had these:
- One-way waypoints (and one-way doors)
create the sensation of being trapped / being in a dream where
you go from one thing to the next, but you never go back.
- One-way waypoints and white box devices
break up the world into biomes that would be difficult to travel
between. So, the player would spend more time in any given biome.
- One-way waypoints and white box devices control the flow of ammo.
For example, we did not want people
overusing waypoints to get respawned ammo.
One way to deal with "ammo next to waypoints" issue is to "
simply not have ammo next to waypoints.
However this would in many cases negatively impact level design.
The solution we devised was, in certain places, to have
a new kind of ammo that does not respawn when you pick it up.
Note in some places we had an in-only waypoint next to ammo because we
DID want the player to travel back there to get the ammo
but then go on an interesting journey to leave with the ammo.
As a result of the change made in 1.01.16, there are now less one-way waypoints
(which gives the player a feeling of control as they more through
the world).
In terms of white box devices, MarriedToMyChair
suggested replacing them with doors that you have to pay a toll
to get through.
We made these doors stay open forever once the player pays the toll.
We wanted to do this for a while, but I finally got around to it.
These doors which go away once you pay the toll are the first
examples of places in the xar game where blocks change!
This technology did not exist in the game until 2023.
In some places we simply replaced a white box device with
a toll door.
In other places, we kept the white box device but gave the
option to use a toll door right next to it.
There are now only a few places with a white box device
but no toll door.