From what I can parse, when the number of remaining Bricks reaches the Reset Threshold, the board Resets. If you lower your Reset Threshold, you need to destroy more blocks before the board resets, if you raise it you need to destroy less.
Okay this game was actually really fun to watch. Gotta say though, I understand 100% that it is much more difficult to play a game & comment during it, than to backseat and be critical. But man oh man did some moments watching this have me on the edge of my seat or in tears. I think a good pro-gamer move would be to constantly track the main ball with the paddle because I noticed there were a lot of cases where it fell into the abyss simply just cause the paddle was on the other side. (Though what do I know, it's probably harder than it looks.)
You keep passing up poison, poison would be so helpful by doing damage over time to the last enemy, which usually are ranged attackers and has low hp, and during boss fights is free extra damage
Oh yeah, it’s CLEAR that peglin was a BIG inspiration for this game. It’s not a peglin clone, it’s doing it’s own thing. There also seems to be a suprising amount of depth, so theres that!
As others have commented, I think when the amount of remaining bricks gets to the reset threshold, you would reset. So with a higher threshold you would need to break less bricks to to reset. With the recall, I believe you’d use it when the ball is too far to get with your paddle so you don’t take damage. Or also, if there are projectiles in your way, so you don’t have to sacrifice your ball to avoid the projectiles
This game looks really cool but I think the physics could be improved somewhat. The physics isn't buggy or anything, it does exactly what it says it does, but it doesn't follow the geometry. Instead of reflecting like a projectile incident on a surface, the ball is simply redirected radially. I get why that would be done for the paddle as it gives the player more control, but doing so for the bricks makes some of the bounces unsatisfying or nonsensical. Very promising roguelike though, I'm curious to see how it progresses. Great video as always, Olexa!
Hey! that's a very interesting observation, thanks for taking the time to point it out and for providing me the opportunity to talk about it. (I'm the guy who made the game btw and I love talking about gamedesign ^^) I experimented with different kind of physics, and the current implementation allowed for more strategical depth, both in designing the layout of the different levels and in rewarding the player actions. The issue with the more traditional ricochet is that it works well with layers of stacked bricks, but it has some important issues in more complex brick layouts featuring open spaces. It doesn't reward the player choices and skill because the ball tend to do all the work by itself. (imagine in the hydra level, the player would just throw the ball in between the "heads" and the ball would bounce left and right all the way up until it reaches the top then bounce it's way back down. It would pretty much always act in the same way making the player input feel irrelevent). Basically all levels would have had to be layers of stacked bricks with minimal variations if the ball ricocheted as a projectile instead of bouncing away from the center of its collision target. And as a player it would feel as you would have very minimal impact when maneuvering the ball. It was a counscious decision to have it act that way, I knew it could look weird for players who are used to the classic breakout games, and I honestly thought this would be one of the biggest complaint I would see about the game, but it surprisingly hasn't been mentionned much currently, so good job for spotting that in a video :) And I 100% agree with your final sentence, thanks Olexa for the amazing video =D
@@TheBrickOdysseyGame That makes so much sense, thanks for telling me about it. Now that I think about it, the chaos that the radial redirection brings is actually a good thing because the true uncertainty it brings is actually quite minimal for a single bounce but increases after every bounce. My meaning is that you know how the ball is going to bounce in a general sense before it has even hit a block but once it bounces you'll know it's trajectory to the next block but unless you are very good at eyeballing linear motion you won't know exactly where it'll bounce from there. This means that the player is constantly on their toes. Additionally, it raises the skill ceiling by making the player's inputs so much more valuable. The main bit I mentioned about the bounces being unsatisfying was the fact that the ball kept coming right back when it bounced on the side of the block, however that was because it was hitting quite low on the side of the block, making it bounce down, but if it hits higher on the side of the block, it'll bounce up, which will give the player time to dodge things or collect a blessing. Sorry for the ramble, I really just had to fangirl real quick because now I realise it is most definitely a better system for a roguelike.
@@IsStillVicarious Haha don't worry I love the rambling, I felt the same with my previous message, felt like I had to cut it short ^^ But yeah you're exactly right, and I think you're spot on when you mention chaos. I really like that term I'm gonna steal it. It is chaotic but not random, and this is another advantage of the current system: there is no need to add a random value to the angle after a bounce (usually with the ricochet style you would sometimes add a small random value to the angle of the ball just to make it less predictable/repetitive -> more chaotic) But with the radial redirection the chaos comes naturally so the ball movement doesn't need randomness to be added on top of it, so on a shorter timeframe the ball movement is actually more predictable/consistent, and as you correctly pointed out it gets harder and harder to predict it over longer bounce streaks. So on the initial throw you can aim at the right side of a brick and you'll be 100% sure the ball will go right, and then with enough practice a good player will have the skill to predict/calculate several bounces ahead. (For exemple: in the first level if you throw the ball in a very specific position and angle, the ball will always bounce in the exact same perfect pattern that will beat the level in one go, without the ball ever coming back to the paddle. No RNG involved. It used to reward a secret "Intended" achievement, there's a video of that somewhere^^) And you're so right about keeping the player on their toe, it was definitely a consideration: with this system the bounces can sometimes feel surprising/unnatural at first, but once you are used to it you actually start to understand where the ball will go and where you will have to be before it hits a block. It's actually quite satisfying when you get used to it. It brings a real improvement to the skill ceiling, and the game is definitely more than just a casual & chill brick-breaker in my opinion. Well that was the objective at least, and I'm always so happy when I see the players starting to realize it :)
Hey it's been a few weeks so i doubt you'll see this, but I had a suggestion. I also thought the ball should bounce the traditional way, but your explanation convinced me that it's a good sacrifice for gameplay. So, I'm wondering if the issue can be solved graphically? If the bricks were changed from rectangles to ovals, the radial bounce might be more intuitive. Like pool/billiards/bowling. It would probably be the easiest to implement, but another possibility is to add a tiny particle effect showing the brick pushing the ball somehow. That would take programming though so it would depend on your implementation. I don't know if either method would even look good. It's just a guess.
@@Melissanoma Hey thanks for the suggestion! I experimented with rounded angles on the bricks during the early development. (for this exact issue) I didn't get much outside feedback on it but personally I thought it looked weird (it's not what we are used to see in a block-breaker) However your comment got me thinking, at first I thought maybe I could add an option to have oval brick (would only change the visual, not the physics or hitbox in any way) But I'm not sure I like the idea of adding too many new options for every details, so then I thought, maybe I could add unlockable Brick Skins (rounded angles, oval, different colors, etc.) I'll have to do some testing and think about it some more, but I kinda like the idea, I think it would be the most elegant approach to this problem. I'll also experiment with particles, adding a subtle wave-like shape after a bounce is a very good idea. We'll have to see if I have the ability to make something that looks good ^^ Thank you very much for making those suggestions, great ideas, really appreciated!
awesome game! i think the curse blocks kind of suck really bad because they're mostly luck-based, but otherwise its surprisingly mechanically tight. would love to see more!
this one looks intresting! A bit too... unpolished for my liking but it seems like it could be a lot of fun, if this got updated it could be really cool! if you're in the ball park to take suggestions you should check out a game called Shoot Trip Die, I worked on it and it's on sale atm! Hope you do more 4 souls content too!
Fun game it looks like style of a Hero of Might and Magic its good You really need to learn about using recall better You clearly did not read what it said about the Hydra
The game looks fun but not going to lie the graphics remind me of an old flash game, so if i get it, it's be hard for me to justify it if it's too expensive.
Love the content but I did pain me to see you skip a great multi ball relic and then skip like 6 multi ball bricks and then pick up a worse multi ball upgrade
