Random Seed preset (Not random)

[Sailsman63]

Noticed that every time I launch the game, I get the exact same starting conditons/asteroids. I've tested this on two browsers:

Firefox 76.0
Chromium 81.0.4044.138 (Official Build)

Both Arch Linux 64 bit/up to date

[justinmimbs]

Thanks for the report; that's intentional though. I like the consistency of having each level start with the same asteroids every time, and I don't find it detracts from gameplay. Do you think there's an advantage to having different asteroids every time?

[Sailsman63]

At this point, possibly not. However, I'm already finding that I am deliberately optimizing my opening moves for the (known) starting state, rather than improving my flight skills.

I get the feeling that this is at least partly a learning exercise for you. It might make more of a difference if this was a release-game, where higher-skill players would get bored with always starting in the same condition.

(It would be a while before this comes up. This is a challenging one! And even better because it plays fair!)

[justinmimbs]

Thanks for the feedback! Indeed, this was an exercise in learning Rust. But I don't play many games, and that's probably why I prefer the same starting conditions every time, so that I can build up that plan of opening moves.

It sounds like it would be nice to have the option of random starting states for players who prefer the challenge.

I'm glad you say it plays fair! Did you notice the scoring? I decided the score should be based on how efficiently with blasts you clear the level, so your score can go down as you fire and only goes up when you destroy asteroid pieces. If you end up playing a lot, I'd be curious what kind of score you get up to!

[Sailsman63]

At this point, I've only cleared level one once!

I did notice the scoring. I was thinking that this might be an interesting arena to test various AIs against, if there was an API. (not something I would be in any position to try, so don't try to accommodate that just for me!)

[justinmimbs]

Cool! The game is implemented as a library exposing a small interface, so should someone want to connect an AI to it, I would think it's already feasible, though I don't have experience with that myself.