How's everyone doing during the (hopefully!) last weeks of the social lock-downs that many countries are experiencing? As a game designer/developer working from home is quite normal for me. Although I will be glad when everyone is more free and we can have friends over again/visit people.
We thought it was about time we updated BFF or Die. I keep an eye on any comments people leave about the game across various communication channels so decided to make the adjustments below.
Controller Options
Alex made a really cool new intro animation more clearly shows you can have:
- Shared controllers (two people on each pad)
- Separate controllers (one person on each pad)
- One person on keyboard
- Two people on keyboard
- Any combination of the above
I think the flexibility of the controls is really cool. I was quite proud of the team for coming up with how it works after a lot of different ideas and testing. However some people didn't realise all those options have always been possible and without having to faff about with any option menus (which i am not a fan of). Let's see if the new intro animation clears that up..!
Difficulty
It's really hard trying to make a difficulty curve that suits everyone. When I used to go round to gaming events and watch people play there would always be a big difference between the skill level of players. We could have gone the old way of doing "easy mode, normal mode, hard mode" but I think that's not optimal because how can you know what mode you should play if you've never played it before? What we have instead is a dynamic difficulty that responds to how you do in the game. Ideally we want everyone to have the experience that is right for them, whether they are an experienced gamer or someone who just started playing PC games recently.
So, this update increases that range. Whether you are super skilled or just learning how it all works, the difficulty should adapt to you and be fun for you. By default, the game is a bit more exciting/harder in the earlier levels now because I think most people on Steam are in the "experienced gamer" category.
For the challenge seekers, the "infinite mode" (random levels, keep going until you die once) which unlocks after you complete the story game is pretty damn hard. Even I can't get more than 8 or so levels into it before I die and have to restart. Especially now that I've forgotten all those different level configurations I designed! (I do play it 2-player mode by myself though, two characters on one control pad, for extra challenge).
Environments
Just a small change - we swapped some of the environment art around for a bit more visual variety.
That's it for now.
See you later
Shaz
(The game designer)