It's a fair point, I don't disagree and I doubt I'll include another power up system in future games, unless it's something interesting like Border Down's energy bar.kane wrote:
That's the thing with power down mechanics, it's no longer a problem for me because I am at a point where I can no miss most stages. I don't think it adds anything of value for dedicated players, it's not an added challenge nor a detriment.
It was frustrating when learning the game. You inevitably get blindsided by a new enemy and get hit, and suddenly you need to practice the rest of the section in a state you are not supposed to be in, inventing non-optimal throwaway routes and reinforcing bad habits. Resetting to the default gun has a big impact in particular. It feels backwards to me to have rules/mechanics that stump newcomers but have no effect on refined play.
Anyway, none of this is unique to Redpulse of course. I mostly wanted to pick your brains and see what your thought process was. In Kane's happy place all shooters do it like Crimzon Clover, guns blazing start to finish.
To be more exact about my reasoning, the idea was to have many different mechanics that funnel the player into playing full levels and hopefully going for a 1cc and scoring, because the initial assumption is that most players won't go beyond credit feeding without incentives. From that perspective, seeing the damage difference (which can sometimes make bosses quite trivial) and the extra utility from special attacks might encourage players to try out the game again but try to keep their power level and obliterate bosses that gave them trouble. I believe this playstyle is why classic checkpoint shmups tend to have more casual appeal. But my game didn't quite go far enough with the idea. It used to reset the weapon and special energy meter to nothing after 1 death but that made it too punishing when you're playing for 1cc/score, and special energy gain was more deeply connected to your multiplier. And as you say, it ends up making players who already go for a 1cc by default and want to practice for it suffer a bit. It was sort of pointless to try and appeal to the "casual" players with what's a very niche game to begin with.
If nothing else it's gives an easy idea for a challenge run.