Jetpack Joyride (by Halfbrick) Universal [v1.3- Air Barrys, Flying Pigs & More!!]

[P.T.]

Happy halloween Muscat!
And the whole of halfbrick and toucharcade!

[gunxsword]

Originally Posted by Psac42

Very serious. A two or three static page tutorial like "Tap to thrust, release to fall!" "Avoid these!" "Grab these!" would do wonders. No user should ever have to figure out how to play a game on their own. That should be game design 101. Even if this is a super amazing game, best game ever, whatever, that doesn't change.

My 8 year old cousin learnt to play the game in his first flight.

How many brain cells do you need to understand:
AVOID dangerous looking stuff (lasers? Missiles?)
Collect coins
Place a finger on the screen to see what happens?

[dinoeggs777]

Originally Posted by gunxsword

My 8 year old cousin learnt to play the game in his first flight.

How many brain cells do you need to understand:
AVOID dangerous looking stuff (lasers? Missiles?)
Collect coins
Place a finger on the screen to see what happens?

My 6 year old brother learned how to play this game... He just opened up my dad's iPad and when i looked over, he was at 800 feet...

[Muscat]

Originally Posted by Psac42

I finally bought the game after all the endless attention... and you can QA a release for 150 hours but not put in ANY sort of tutorial, instructions, etc??? Come on. Really cheap.

Yes, I get it, tap the screen to thrust. But I shouldn't have to spend 5 minutes figuring out what the hell is going to on to figure that out. Tell the user!

Hey Psac!

It's interesting that you bring this to the table.

I actually had a tutorial in the game at one stage, but I intentionally removed it. The main thing I wanted here was a certain degree of self discovery for the player.

I really wanted players to have that 'aha!' moment when they figure out all the systems. Humans a naturally built learning machines, and we all get a kick (consciously or not) out of understanding a new system.

There is an obvious risk in my approach, as player frustration is a real possibility should the barrier of entry into understanding the system be too high. To help mitigate this risk, I made several deliberate design decisions:

• The player is always presented with a set of coins first. This allows them to have an obvious spatial goal to shoot for, in a low risk environment. This should encourage player curiosity and discovery of the fly up mechanic.
• This is followed by a set of 3 zappers that are in a very deliberate order. The first is at the top of the screen. Most players will see the danger and stop entering input, causing them to fall and miss the zapper!
• Whenever you collect a vehicle, 2 sets of coins are presented. This is for the same reason again, giving spatial no risk goals to promote player discovery.
• One touch for everything, with no locational context to maximise discovery and ease of understanding.

Other steps I took to further mitigate the frustration risk is by creating an extremely low friction retry loop (its super easy to start again), coupled with a low time and emotional cost of failure (game sessions are short, and you even get rewarded for failing via the polaroid photos, missions etc).

Sorry that this system didn't mesh with you, however A lot of thought and design went into the omission of a tutorial, and I'm pretty proud of the overall result for the vast majority of players! If you want to discuss this further, I am more than happy to!

[gunxsword]

Hey Muscat, why don't you test the game with some monkeys (I'm being serious)? Don't forget to publish the results! It could give the game some recognition for "the most accessible game ever created".

The level design sounds very intricate now that you've explained it. Can't believe so much thought has gone into making the game accessible for all players!

[Psac42]

Originally Posted by Muscat

Hey Psac!

It's interesting that you bring this to the table.

I actually had a tutorial in the game at one stage, but I intentionally removed it. The main thing I wanted here was a certain degree of self discovery for the player.

I really wanted players to have that 'aha!' moment when they figure out all the systems. Humans a naturally built learning machines, and we all get a kick (consciously or not) out of understanding a new system.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I appreciate you sharing your thought process. I look forward to playing the game more.

[Doffie]

When you, dear Muscat, helped me with my first problem, you told me to sign in to OF and you would fix it. I *thought* my OF account was in my name (Doffie), but you said it wasn't. So it gave me a random number account which I'm using now, not so happily.

Is there a way for me to either get my original named account back or to change this string of numbers to a real name?

Sorry if this is silly, but I'm used to GC only, although before there was a GC I'm sure I checked into OF for other games.

[mikeg123]

Originally Posted by Doffie

When you, dear Muscat, helped me with my first problem, you told me to sign in to OF and you would fix it. I *thought* my OF account was in my name (Doffie), but you said it wasn't. So it gave me a random number account which I'm using now, not so happily.

Is there a way for me to either get my original named account back or to change this string of numbers to a real name?

Sorry if this is silly, but I'm used to GC only, although before there was a GC I'm sure I checked into OF for other games.

I'm not Muscat, obviously, but I might be able to help you out.

1.) Go into OF and click on the middle tab at the bottom (person outline).
2.) Click on "Settings".
3.) Scroll down and press "Switch Account"

When you do #3, you should see an account named "Doffie". Go ahead and select that. I hope that helps.

[Junpei]

Maybe that's a stupid question, but how do i complete the "Reach 1,000m without using the machine gun jetpack" mission?

I've gone well past 1000 both by feet (subtracting meters needed to avoid obstacles with short bursts) and on Mr. Cuddles (tried with other vehicles, but failed a little short of said distance), but I can't seem to satisfy the goal set for that mission...

I don't know if the Italian translation for it ("VOLA 1,000m senza il jetpack mitragliatrice", that is "FLY 1,000m without using the machine gun jetpack") is more helpful or misleading... am I supposed to fly a total of 1000 meters with any other vehicle in one run?

Thank you very much, apart from that I'm enjoying every single minute I can squeeze out of this game!

[askgar]

Originally Posted by Junpei

Maybe that's a stupid question, but how do i complete the "Reach 1,000m without using the machine gun jetpack" mission?

I've gone well past 1000 both by feet (subtracting meters needed to avoid obstacles with short bursts) and on Mr. Cuddles (tried with other vehicles, but failed a little short of said distance), but I can't seem to satisfy the goal set for that mission...

I don't know if the Italian translation for it ("VOLA 1,000m senza il jetpack mitragliatrice", that is "FLY 1,000m without using the machine gun jetpack") is more helpful or misleading... am I supposed to fly a total of 1000 meters with any other vehicle in one run?

Thank you very much, apart from that I'm enjoying every single minute I can squeeze out of this game!

IIRC it means buy a different jetpack and use that to travel 1000 meters.