Hello! In today's post, I will introduce the new scoring system that was implemented after the game presentation at the Steam Next Festival. I will also discuss the upcoming release date, the available content on the release day, and share some insights about the game's development post-launch.
New Scoring System
In the current scoring system, which has been with me for 10 months since the prototype's inception, I always felt that there was a lack of additional rewards for players achieving long combos. While it's true that a player would receive n+1 points for each consecutive tile on a path, a one-time score boost for a long combo was not entirely satisfying for more advanced players.
The old system, as I mentioned earlier, rewarded players with n+1 points for each path and added new tiles to the stack when a tile was filled, increasing the pool of available tiles.
For example, if a player created a path of length 6, their score would increase by 1+2+3+4+5+6=21 points. For a length of 20, the score would increase by 210, and for a length of 70, it would increase by 2485 points.
However, combos didn't have much strategic significance when it came to acquiring new tiles. It was always more valuable to place tiles in a way that filled an empty tile and earned an extra one rather than aiming for a higher combo with the risk of running out of tiles later. The only exception was when a player was specifically trying to complete Combo challenges, but in many cases, they still had to prepare a reserve of tiles to fill closed maps safely, which limited the variety of effective strategies to one or two. As someone not particularly skilled at these games, this started bothering me quite late, and it took me even longer to come up with an interesting solution that would address these issues, enhance the game's mechanics, and not deviate from the style presented earlier.
So, today I present to you the novelty: Metal Tiles, either shiny or medal tiles, I don't have a specific name for them. For simplicity, I'll refer to them as "metal tiles." These tiles look dazzling and shimmer beautifully, increasing the player's desire to acquire and fill them!
How to obtain these treasures? Let me explain! A bronze metal tile is obtained after achieving a combo of at least 6. Now, the first tile placed by the player will be a bronze tile. What does this give us? Each passage of our flame through this tile will increase the combo point multiplier by 10%. It may seem like a small increment, but remember that you can pass through each tile up to 6 times. And there can be many metal tiles on the board. This allows the player to plan their routes, not just place tiles as they please. It's a great aid for beginners who may need a point of reference for expanding their paths. Now, after achieving a combo of 6, they receive a gift, complete with a suitable sound and graphic interface animation.
You might be thinking, "Okay, but what about silver and gold tiles?" Let me tell you. If your combo exceeds 12, the next tile will be silver, and if it's 18, it'll be gold. It may seem like a small change, but it has a gigantic impact on gameplay. Passing through a silver tile increases the player's multiplier by 25%, and for gold, it's a whopping 50%! As a result, the point total can skyrocket, and new thresholds for unlocking challenges and achieving medal values will be set for each map. Unfortunately, I won't be able to transfer scores from the demo due to situations where a player may have already achieved a gold medal in a challenge that they wouldn't receive after the update.
Here's how increasing the multiplier looks:
Okay! But did I leave anything for players who prefer filling tiles? Yes! Now, when you fill metal tiles, you receive additional tiles for your stack! For bronze, it's n+1, for silver, it's n+2, and for gold, it's n+3, where n is the number of tiles received as a reward for your stack. On some maps, this value is 0, which means that filling a metal tile is the only way to acquire a tile!
What if I achieve a combo of 24? 30? 36? In the game, there are places where you can create combos exceeding 100. I don't know how many types of metals and metal alloys there are in the world, but players would quickly get confused about which is better than the other. That's why I limited it to 3. If a player reaches a combo of 18 and obtains a gold tile, the next tile will be upgraded by one level after gaining another 6 combo points. If the next tile is already gold, then the NEXT ONE will be upgraded, and so on, indefinitely. This will look like this:
To summarize:
- Players receive metal tiles for combos greater than 6.
- Each metal tile increases the point multiplier in combos.
- Filling a metal tile gives even more additional tiles.
- The new system will be available in the demo on the day of the new version's release.
This also solved another problem that I, at least, had: the absolute need to fill all tiles on the map without leaving any closed loops. Thanks to the new system, this need has drastically decreased because the reward in the form of a significant multiplier and a greater number of additional tiles is often more profitable than maximizing the length on the board.
Phew, that's probably all for now. I still had to write about new sounds and improved music as well as plans for post-launch development, but I'll do that in a week and two weeks!
Release date
The game will be released on November 22nd for PC and Mac.