I fire up Eclipse once again. Nothing has been gained so far and all my losses have only made me mad! But getting mad doesn’t mean you should lose your eye on the target. There is much to be done and multiplayer campaign mode is one of them but you have to start with essentials, better explosions.
When humans have a basic need for seeing that they make a difference in the world, the enjoyment a computer game can provide resides on its ability to give that feeling. When the most frequent form of interaction in your game is: push of a button -> the ship representing you emitting a bullet -> said bullet hitting an enemy -> explosion, it pays to make that interaction as rewarding as possible.
That means better explosions! Shit must get broken! This is what happens in the original Goldwingu, but it isn’t enough, it’s just random movement of the pixels that made up the enemy ship, there is no apparent force behind it. Better explosions should give you:
- An application of force (e.g. acceleration, perhaps affects on other entities)
- Awesome display of the color range from bright yellow to dark red.
- Badass sound effects.
Right now I’m concentrating on #1, with the others following in that order.