🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <D1syD...@world.std.com>, pbre...@world.std.com (Patrick M
Brennan) wrote:

> (other alternatives might include reducing the size of the levels, or
> allowing the game to be saved at selected "check-points" in the mine.
> But you'd better do something...)

   I'm in full agreement with Patrick on this point.  I personally would
vastly prefer check-points throughout the level.  "Marathon" (a Mac
Doom-type game) has these, and they work very well.  The check-points are
called pattern buffers (gee, where have I heard THAT before?) and they're
generally at the beginning of new levels and at a very few quiet spots
within the levels.  Thus, if the player wants to indulge in the
"save-and-replay to get the best result" strategy, he has to spend quite a
bit of time at it, because he might do very well at first and then get
toasted a bit further on before the chance arises to save again.
   Please--include check-points, even if it's only one or two of them per
level, or even one or two per large level.  I'm already a bit annoyed
because yesterday I'd just gotten through most of level 3, then was
toasted before I could blow the reactor.  Okay, 3 isn't terribly huge--but
it is somewhat complicated and I wish I could restart halfway through with
my powered-up laser instead of at the beginning with a thoroughly wimpy
ship.
   Obviously, this would mean that lives would be irrelevant.  So get rid
of them.  The ability to occasionally save your position is vastly
preferable to the ability to restart a mine within a game--at least, it is
for those of us with jobs and families.

                                   -EMeyer

Unstable condition--a symptom of life     |Eric A. Meyer (ea...@po.cwru.edu)
In mental and environmental change        |Library Information Technologies
Atmospheric disturbance--the feverish flux|  Software Support Technician
Of human interface and interchange- (N.P.)|"What do you think, sirs?" -Joel