First use of skills and tricks

[Proxima]

For the last year and a bit, I've been working on a collaborative DROD levelset, similar to the community pack in that it aims to require no previous knowledge of the game, and works its way up from easy to difficult while gradually introducing the game's elements and mechanics. I've also watched DROD forum member Alex Diener (whom I hope to interest in the Lix set when it's ready) play through several other puzzle games on Youtube. All this has made me much more aware than I used to be of the importance of introducing game mechanics.

So, as I'm playing through the community set at the moment to check for any problems with playing the levels in D Lix, I decided to draw up a list, for each skill, of when the skill is first required by the main solution of a level. This isn't like the "skills you can't live without" challenge -- for instance, I consider basher required in S2 even though the level is solvable without, simply because the main solution is to use bashers and the level design strongly encourages this.

(S1 is irrelevant as it has so many solutions, we can't know which the player will pick.)
Basher -- S2
Builder -- S3
Blocker, imploder -- S5
Walker, jumper, climber, floater, batter -- S6 (it's good that this level has a low save requirement, considering how much it introduces!)
Digger -- S8
Platformer -- S9 (reinforced immediately by S10, this is good)
Miner -- S15 (reinforced by S16, and S17 is reinforcement of all skills up to this point, excellent)
Runner -- S26
Cuber -- Q9 (a late introduction, but reinforced by Q13 and Q14)
Fling-bomber -- C26

Yeah, about that last one....

I've proposed to Simon that we change S13 "Let's block and blow?" to use a fling-bomber, so the player necessarily observes what it does. Q1 "The Adventure Playground" is a lots-of-skills level that gives them the chance to play around with it.

What about tricks -- are there any tricks that are not introduced well? This is much less clear-cut since it's not clear what constitutes a "trick", or which ones should be introduced.

One that comes to mind: the knockback from fling-bombers resets falling distance, so a faller can survive thanks to a fling-bomber, even if it's directly above her and accelerates her downwards. This counterintuitive trick is required in D12 "Alternative Methods Required" with no previous hints that it's possible -- and it's only the second level (third if we change S13) that requires fling-bombers at all.

Is this a problem? What does anyone else think?

[Simon]

This is important, yeah, because we advertize this pack to beginners.

In general, not all packs need a gentle introduction. For most packs, we can assume that the player is proficient in the game rules. You can have easy levels, but need no ordering geared to absolute beginners. If you want to be suitable for beginners, you must spend 10 to 50 levels on basic ideas. Most packs cannot, and should not, afford that many.

The lemforum pack is an exception, because Lix, as a game, treats the lemforum pack as an introduction to Lix itself. Maybe we should even scrap the dedicated tutorial levels, at least for the skills. But that's material for an extra thread.

D12 "Alternative Methods Required": [I confused this with "Alternative Methods Recommended", that voids this paragraph. I blame the similar name.] You can tunnel through the many thin lines with exploders. Once you're on a low level, hack and slay your way to the exit with builders and bashers. I don't believe the fling route is the main route. At least my instinct hasn't led me to this fling route yet.

Tricks are difficult to assess, yeah. For whom do we rank levels? For experienced players, or for people who know the basic rules? Tricks should flow into the main level difficulty, thus into the ordering. If a level uses a weird, rare trick, it should be ranked difficult, no matter whether the trick has come before.

It's nice to see a trick in its pure form early on. Do you want to design the pack around such introductions? Then you can afford to rank trick levels lower, but must be extremely careful in the design. We aren't starting afresh with the pack design now -- we have 240 levels built and de-backrouted, with only a little consideration towards trick introduction.

-- Simon