I’m starting to plan out a new game. Its a platformer and I have an idea but I want to get some thoughts on if it might lead to player frustration.
I’m going to add cheat codes in the game that unlock when the player beats the game. I also have trophies that the player can collect in game. My idea was to have one of the trophies somehow unattainable until the player enables a specific cheat. For example, have the trophy surrounded by walls so the player can’t get in. Then have one of the cheat codes give the player the ability to walk through walls so they can get the trophy. I was also thinking of somehow drawing the players attention to that trophy somehow in a different way than others so they can see something is different about it.
My question is could this lead to player frustration as they try to figure out how to get that trophy and not being able to figure it out? I could put it towards the end of the game to avoid some frustration, if there even is any. I’m not planning on telling the players beforehand how to get it. Just hopefully the ah-ha moment when then cheats are unlocked and they go oh yea I can get that trophy now. So I’d like to see what other people think about something like this.
It sounds like it’d function similarly to the old/new Halo games and how they handled skulls with unique content. Not sure if any achievements were tied to it, but I wouldn’t imagine it’s frustrating if there is a way in game to accomplish it.
Cool that’s along the lines I was thinking too. But I thought it would be nice to get other viewpoints on it as well before I started to implement it that way in the game.
I think that as long as the player dosent know about the secret collectibles before getting acess too the chat codes needed to get them it wont cause frustration.
But if they do i know someplyers like not check every inch of a area while they are playing to find everything, those players might spend alot of time searching for something
they cant find and get frustrated. So i think adding info about the trophy once the player can find it using the codes is the best way to go.
Yes my plan was that they would be able to see the collectible but not be able to get it until they finish the game and unlock the cheat codes. Any ideas on how I could go about this without frustrating too many players? I could maybe advertise 9 collectibles and completely hide the 10th one that would need the walk through walls cheat enabled. Then advertise when the player finishes the game that there is a 10th one somewhere. Would that work at all?
“I could maybe advertise 9 collectibles and completely hide the 10th one that would need the walk through walls cheat enabled. Then advertise when the player finishes the game that there is a 10th one somewhere. Would that work at all?”
IMO its the best way to go so you dont get angry players that feel they wasted time searching for something they cant find.
I dont think it would cause too much frustration as long as its clear that the Player will get new “Abilities” or cheats. I think about the old Megaman X games on the SNES and how they purposely would have Heart Pieces in high places that you could see but not access. However, because I knew Megaman got new abilities every level I didnt get frustrated because I knew I would get something in the future that would help.
So if you give the player a cheat after the first level, hopefully he/she will know that they’ll get new cheats often and wont be frustrated when they see a trophy out of reach at first.
These are good ideas thanks. I have never been the gamer that covers every square inch of a every level so something like this wouldn’t irritate me I would just skip it and move on. But I do know that a lot of gamers like to cover and get EVERYTHING. So I was thinking my original thoughts might leave these types of gamers irritated.