[Feature request] Bounce counter

[jneidel]

How it works:
A counter somewhere at the top of the screen, keeping count of how many times the ball has bounced on platforms.

Purpose:
Motivate the player to go through the levels as fast as possible, optimizing for long fallthroughs, minimizing the hops per platform, etc.
In combination with a local highscore, this will give the player a metric on how he is performed in a given round.

Incentive:
To raise the incentive for players to optimize for bounces, you could add a multiplier to the score of that round.

Proposed multipliers:

Bounces, Score multiplier
>100, 1.0
<80, 1.25
<70, 1.5
<60, 2.0
<50, 4.0
<40, 8,0
<30, 16.0

These probably have to moved up a bit (1.25 at 100, etc), but that can be figured out in player testing.

Example: at the round end you have 80 bounces and a score of 1000, applying the multiplier (1.25) will lead to the round result of 1250.

[Ertain]

This may be a good addition to race mode. But I'm uncertain about the numbers at the top of the screen. It has the score, and it could include the "bounce counter". I was also thinking of including a timer (race the timer, you know), yet that may put too much clutter at the top of the screen.

[jneidel]

This may be a good addition to race mode.

The bounce counter doesn't affect the gameplay, so I wouldn't couple it specifically to the race mode. The incentives, as described, also work should work on their own.

It has the score

It does, but the score is only good for keeping track of how far you have come. Not on an individual level basis. It has a different function.

I was also thinking of including a timer (race mode)

I read #3 and I think it addresses the same issue as the bounce timer. Both try to get the user to go as fast as they can. But race mode requires participation (that's why it should be a different game mode), whereas the bounce counter can just be ignored, if you don't want to go for speed.

The bounce counter also has a key advantage over the race modes timer: The timer goes down, the counter goes up.

[This is based on the assumption that the countdown timer starts at x and goes down to 0.]
The timer will be too slow for those who are really good, while it will be too fast for the beginners. How do you calculate a 'fair' timer for everybody? What if they are not on the top of their game?
The bounce counter just goes up, not fine tuning needed. It's always relevant/fair as it is not based on assumptions (this player is good, their timer is fast), but just displays a statistic.

[Ertain]

The bounces are something to keep track of, but the score can also keep track of that. Maybe have a platform counter, too? Also, I was thinking of integrating multipliers into the falling mechanic (i.e. the "meteor" fall).

I don't know. While it would be nice to show progress like that, the top of the screen may become too cluttered.

[sm4rk0]

Given the fact that the ball bounces in a constant pace, there's a strong correlation between the time(r) and the number of bounces. That makes one of them unnecessary.

[jneidel]

@Ertain

The bounces are something to keep track of, but the score can also keep track of that.

The score does not work as performance indicator as, you may have guessed, it has nothing to do with performance. It just says you went through x platform (that why you don't need a platform counter) and even this is does in a convoluted way (global score, not level score, so you have to do the math to check how many platform you did). It has no relevance to determining the skill of a player.

Also, I was thinking of integrating multipliers into the falling mechanic (i.e. the "meteor" fall).

Yeah, that should be included. But also going >3 platform, have it really scale up.

While it would be nice to show progress like that, the top of the screen may become too cluttered.

I'm not thinking of a big counter like the score on, but a small one.
Something as simple as this should do (top-right):

In my opinion the score is way too big anyway, considering how irrelevant it is to normal play (when is the score ever gonna tell you something relevant in-game?).

@sm4rk0

strong correlation between the time(r) and the number of bounces. That makes one of them unnecessary.

I think so too and I think the bounce counter solves it more elegantly (both from a developer and user perspective).

[sm4rk0]

How about decreasing the score by 1 (or another value) for each bounce (in special, timed mode) with zero as a minimum value?
That would keep screen less cluttered and include the speed performance in score.

[jneidel]

@sm4rk0

How about decreasing the score by 1 (or another value) for each bounce (in special, timed mode) with zero as a minimum value?

This would required a different game mode, as participation is not optional.

That would keep screen less cluttered and include the speed performance in score.

It would make the screen less cluttered, but I think it's a poor performance indicator. Again this has to do with the function of the score, which in my opinion, is to give feedback on how far the player has come in the game overall, not on the performance in a given round (because the score starts at the end score of the last round and on the fly it's hard to see how you are doing in the current round).

Example - 3 hops on 3 platforms (falling once per hop) using both techniques:

Reduce score: (initial 33990)
1: 33999
2: 34008
3: 34017

Bounce counter: (initial 3)
1: 4
2: 5
3: 6

With the reduce score you will save screen space, but expend much more mental energy to be of any use.

Also I wouldn't punish the player for not speed-running (penalty points if they failed), but rather I with give them an incentive to do so (bonus points if they succeed).