Down here in the cave, life is tough, believe me! I’m working hard (at the moment I’m creating the LAST level -freakin’ amazing honestly!) but in the last weeks, as some of you know, I also re-worked the GUI and learning curve.
The history of Albedo difficulty level: Easy to tell. I wanted to do an old-school game. A difficult game. Does anyone remember those games where you have to spend lots of time and make many attempts, trying to solve a puzzle or a level? I do. I loved these kinds of games. A real challenge for my brain. Honestly, I don’t like the drift of games to a super-easy level so much; where the player gets to win at any cost. I grew with video games that would punch me with their difficulty; and yes, I liked it.
Anyway: For this, me, Luke and Ivan decided to release on Early Access. To get thoughts on this thing. To understand which level of difficulty, you (my beloved players) prefer. How the game needs to be.
A game developer is nothing without players.
I admit: I wanted to develop a difficult game. But I didn’t think about how you nowadays players have a lot of things to do, games to play, billions of new ones every day (A rhyme! I have to write a song about it!). And I have to offer you the best game experience in the time you’ll spend playing my game. My aim is not to waste your time. My aim is to provide entertainment, and to create a wonderful new 60's Sci-Fi experience around you!
So, 3+1 words: surrender to reality, Z4G0.
OK.
YESTERDAY: The game was too difficult.
TODAY: Now it is less difficult, I hope.
I listened to a lot of you players, I read a lot of reviews. As you know we worked a lot with the community, on the Community Hub Especially James, thank you mate!
Now you have to choose the difficulty level before starting the game: Obviously, you’ll able to change it during the same game. If you play in HARD MODE, then you won’t find tips and suggestions and hint systems and help buttons and mummy cleaning your brain leaks :D If is too difficult, you should try easier levels.
Specifically, mini-games are/were honestly difficult. Ten thousand years ago, when I started developing Albedo; I decided to create special new mechanics. In my humble opinion quite original ones. NOW, you can decide (in EASY mode) to skip them. If you really are in crisis (or you don’t want to spend your time on it), you’ll be able to skip it. AS IVAN DOES (monkey player). Also, I’m adding hints directly from John T. Longy. “Maybe I’ve got to do this” “Perhaps I’ll do that” and so on.
As ALBEDO is an Adventure-Escape the Room-FPS crossover, it’s not easy to fit all players’ expectations and skills in one way. So the game lets you tune two difficulty levels (under OPTIONS/GAME): Adventure and Action.
What a pain, the first 3-4 negative reviews :( I was waiting for them, as it is impossible to have none, especially when player’s number grow. But my heart sunk, I cried a lot of tears from my lonely eye! No…that’s not true...I have 2 eyes.
Now I try to put my mind at ease, hoping that more people like ALBEDO :)
NOW: In the upcoming weeks I’ll update the game till the final release. In the current version, some of difficulty issues were fixed…In the coming update, lots of hints, texts and descriptions have been changed to smooth the learning curve. The first room should be a lot of easier to pass now.
BTW Let me know, specifically, what you think about difficult. Give me suggestions advice. Be part of development with me. The ancient meaning of ‘Early Access’ was this one. I believe in it.
Immediately after this DEV DIARY, I'll post to collect specific suggestions about difficulty level.
It is always difficult to close a post, I love to write for you and receive your feedback, but the cave is calling me. I have to finish ALBEDO.
Time is running out, but now I have a time machine!
ROCK’N ROLL and HF!
