Hopworld devlog 3

January 7, 2023

During the Christmas break i finally had some time to address some issues around Hopworld. From all the comments there have been, i distilled some user stories and (tried to) fixed some of them.

The world is too big, too empty...

Let's start with the most difficult one. There is just not enough content in the game for the size of the map. So for now i made the map smaller. Previously you had to collect about 40 maps to get to Mount Hop. Now you only have to collect 15 or 16 maps.

This also means you will find power ups faster. This needs to be balanced again in the future. But therefore i need to change the algorithm that places the power ups.

The only new content i added for now, are moving platforms. They are a bit experimental. In the beginning they still moved through walls, but this is fixed now.

Where to go?

Players indicated they sometimes didn't know where to go next after they found some power up. So they just strolled around in circles. Even having found some map pieces, they where pretty much in the dark.

To mitigate this, i added the coins as points of interest on the minimap. When you haven't collected the coin yet it will be on the map. When it is a coin for a power up which is crucial for your progress it will be spinning.

Other improvements to the map functionality are that you can open the map from the inventory even when you have no map pieces yet and that it will always be the first thing in your inventory so you can access it in less keystrokes.

The rope gun feels buggy!

There have been some improvements to how the rope gun works, although there are still many other glitches in that functionality that have to be resolved.

One useful improvement is that you can steer the rope with all four cursor directions. Up will speed up going up. Down will lengthen the rope again. Left and right will let you swing left or right.

Another important improvement is that rope gun doesn't disconnect when going to the next room.

Fall damage?!

The fall damage annoyed a lot of players. So i made the lethal drop distance a lot higher. I couldn't remove it completly, because that would make the slide grip gloves and the parachute power ups a lot weaker.

Wrap up

Besides these four recurring complaints, i also fixed a lot of other small glitches and probably also introduced some new ones. It was a good idea to pick up the development of Hopworld again by starting with looking at the feedback. But the main focus for the future should be to add more content. So if there are suggestions, please comment below or on the itch page.