Toaster Launcher Dev Diary - Week 05 (July 23 - 29, 2023) - Planning the Power-Up System: Spawning

     As the polishes were progressing, let me discuss on how the Power-Up system would be implemented. While the plans are on paper for now, they are many and a few considerations and details have been taken into account.

    Power-Ups is something that the original Toaster Launcher lacks, restricting much of gameplay to pure luck and skill. Introducing power-ups would at least expand, since the gameplay is still based on the two said factors. There would be good power-ups as well as bad power-ups and the introduction of the latter would result in uncertainty and a greater need for avoidance, making the gameplay more challenging.

    Power-ups usually spawn at random places at random intervals. However, I was thinking that it could be innovated upon. So instead of chance, a system requiring skill would be used -- a power-up would spawn via a special type of enemy: a firework.

    Unlike the others raining from the sky, the firework would spawn from below, exploding once it reaches high enough, spawning a power-up in its place. Due to its festive aesthetic and its willingness to blow itself up, this opens up a possibility for a special condition: should the firework be destroyed by the player?

    This could introduce as a challenge for the player as they have to hold their fire to be rewarded and destroying it would yield nothing or worse. However, this could also mean that it would break the game flow that its focusing on shooting enemies up, not to mention those said enemies could exploit it either by spawning at the firework's direction, risking the player to pass up the opportunity by destroying it or letting a firework spawn in amidst of a crowd full of enemies that could disrupt player focus.

    This flow risk had to be proven though, so I would let this incentive in and see if it would prove necessary or not. Otherwise, then a power-up would be guaranteed regardless on when the firework was destroyed.

    Another question is the criteria that must be met in order to spawn a firework. A random system would ironically result in the same effect as a power-up spawning by chance. So it could also be done outside of chance as well. If the player destroys a large amount of enemies, then a firework would spawn as a reward. This also allows a possibility for the system to be scaled based on player performance: If the player is low on lives, less enemies are required to be destroyed to spawn a power-up and good power-ups would result more frequently. If the player is performing very well, then more enemies are needed to be destroyed and bad power-ups would then be frequent.

    With these plans in mind I think that this would balance out the flow, should the incentive for the power-up spawning does not break it. Polishing would continue as well as the expansion of the power-up system.

Make sure you stay tuned for updates on the game's development! 🍞💣

- Arolf Delano Santos