Hey everyone,
we need to talk about randomness, fairness and decision-making, but let me get started with some great news. I did not want to make this the headline of this devlog, because I already shouted it all over social media: We won yet another award!
In the course of the DevGamm awards 2022 we were selected for the special nomination award "Versus Evil Victor" sponsored by Versus Evil. We are super proud and honored!
I had planned to talk more about tower crafting in this devlog, but then decided to cover one of our core mechanics and the recent slight, but important changes I made to it. Those of you who already played the game might spot something new in this gif:
That's right, I added a preview of the next four flasks you will draw. You can call it a "magazine". I added this to give players the chance to make more informed decisions, which means more fun in my eyes.
While working on the flask system, I thought about randomness quite a bit. I watched people play the game and get frustrated because they did not draw the flasks they wanted to draw. Such a frustration is okay for me, if the player built their deck of flasks in a "bad" way. But what if they are just crazy unlucky? Let me put it like this: Wouldn't you get frustrated or feel treated unfairly, if you had tossed a coin 9 times, it landed on heads 9 times, you toss it again and the 10th time is heads yet again? BattleJuice Alchemist is not a casino simulation, so I decided to accommodate for this unfairness. The change can be explained very simply: in the past you drew a card, put it back, then I shuffled your deck. Now you draw a card and don't put it back, so the remaining cards will be drawn first, before you can possibly draw your first card again. It feels a lot less frustrating to me and I'd love to hear what you think, once this change is patched into the game.
That's it for today. If you have not yet, make sure to join our Discord and have a great weekend!
Alain