I removed the battle arena, added title screens to the arcade machines, and started replacing the free-model decorations with more blocky versions:
I am also looking for feedback on the balancing of the EXP bar. It should make it easier for players to earn tokens after playing enough, but I do not know if it is too easy or hard to level up.
I recently received feedback that there is a lot of bloat in the game that had nothing to do with the arcade, so in future versions I will focus more on the arcade.
In the newest version, I removed everything except the arcade and the 8-player games. I also removed tokens and EXP, and replaced them with tickets. This means that games are free to play, but still give rewards in the form of tickets. The arcade was made a lot bigger so I can fit more games in the future.
The arcade still needs some work with decorations and prizes, but everything is working, and removing the unnecessary stuff greatly improved performance.
I added the gravity coil and Tix to the prize shop, continued decorating the arcade, and added a system that will let the user buy power ups with tickets before the game. The first power up is in the Invaders game: it costs 15 tickets to get dual spaceships (super OP and therefore fun to use). This is only in single-player for now.
After finding this topic I see what led to a lot of the bloat, i.e. the old “gambling” style mechanics and AFK farming suggestions. I was playing the game earlier and was wondering, if there is a concern about “no risk and reward”, why not just develop the difficulty and variety of the arcade games themselves further? As in, each of these arcade games have the potential to be their own games (because that’s what they are in real life), and the games get harder / faster as the player gets a higher score.
I’m still impressed by how you made the arcade cabinets, and while playing with a friend I loved how you can see them playing LIVE by standing next to them.
To make things exciting, you can just… make it so that you highlight or feature players while they’re getting a high score in real time and announce that they’re doing amazingly (by a UI popup or confetti that shoots out in the arcade around them), and have their game change in difficulty and appearance as they get better scores.
Also: I don’t know if this is a mistake but all the Pong machines last only 10 seconds and sometimes the left-side paddle splits the ball into 2 balls? Is the 10 seconds intentional? I feel like it’s way too short to get anything beyond mostly draws. It should be around 60 seconds or longer.
Yeah, I took the “risk and reward” mechanics too far in earlier versions. I shouldn’t be too concerned about risk and reward if the games themselves are fun to play. I saw that some players would start playing games, then run out of tokens and leave.
I like the idea of announcing when players get high scores, that would make it feel like an achievement. Changing the color palette would also be an easy way to make the game feel more exciting in later stages.
The Pong lasting 10 seconds was a mistake from when I was testing it; I just changed it back to 1.5 minutes. The ball splitting was intentional to add more challenge and variety to the gameplay (maybe it should be more random if it always splits on the same side).
Latest Update:
High scores now function with respect to the types of machines on the server rather than individual machines. This means that, when the high score updates in one Breakout game, it should update for all the other machines in real time. Also, when a player beats another player’s high score (or the default), it is announced in the chat. So there is less clutter if two players are fighting over a high score, there is a debounce so it an only send a message every 10 seconds. I haven’t tested these features with more than one player, so there still might be bugs.
In the spectate menu, a player can watch another player’s screen by pressing the “Game View” button.
I tested color palettes in the Invaders game: the palette changes every two waves until the 6th wave. I also added a white line underneath the score, which provides a better sense of boundary and makes it look cleaner (especially with the score and display are different colors).
Also added the revive for 20 tickets feature on single-player games.
Update:
Bug-fixes.
Players can now purchase tickets with Robux.
Lowered the cost of prizes.
Added the bowling alley. Players can get a normal ball for free, and there will more options that cost tickets. Also, now players can’t access the pins.
Added the “longer paddle” power-up to breakout for 10 tickets.
Added the mouse-sensitivity slider, in the new top-bar settings button. This also saves so the players do not have to change it in every new server.
Now games automatically turn off after five seconds without any players.
Update:
Minor UI changes.
Fixed a bug in the 8-player games.
Added more decorations to the arcade.
Added the “Free Power-Ups” gamepass, which lets players get power-ups without paying any tickets.
Roblox Premium members now pay half price at the shops (prize counter and bowling alley).
I added new thumbnails to represent the changes I made to the game.
Everything about your game looks amazing and I honestly think it could be a front page game.
Wow, thanks! I’ve been doing a lot of work on it, so that means a lot to me!
Update:
Fixed a bug that allowed players to join a game while someone else was playing.
Now the current player is defined by the player who started the game rather than the player who finished the game. This means that ticket payouts can only go to the player who started the game.
Players can no longer throw a bowling ball unless inside the bowling alley.
Added a new arcade game to the single-player area, called “Commander”. The specific mechanics (difficulty, ticket payouts, etc.) are still being tested and it needs a title screen, but it should be in working condition. It is based off Missile Command; the goal is to eliminate the incoming missiles before they destroy all the cities.
Update:
Bug-fixes and difficulty balancing.
Prizes can be dropped again, but they despawn after 30 seconds.
Removed the spinning platform from the space claw machine, which got in the way and sometimes made it impossible to get anything.
Massive bowling overhaul:
I significantly changed the bowling aspect of the game. Now the bowling functions like like own mini-game. I added it’s own control scheme, so instead of clicking for the ball to go, there is an arrow to drag. Dragging the arrow further gives the ball more power, and moving it to the side changes to direction. You can move left and right by pressing A and D. I can re-use this control scheme for other kinds of arcade games too. Players get one ticket for a spare, and two tickets for a strike. They can also press L to leave the game at any time. There is only one bowling ball now, but I will add a shop in the future. Because the TV is no longer visible from this angle, I added a view of the TV in the bottom left corner.
Update:
There is now a bowling ball shop. At this time, there are 2 items to buy in the shop (plus the default). There is also the Shiny Bowling Ball Gamepass, which grants users with a very large golden bowling ball.
I replaced all the tutorial GUIs with new versions that feature more images, less text, and a few details players seemed confused on. Hopefully this will provide new players with a better sense of direction.
Items (including bowling balls) are a little more expensive, but are now one-time purchases that stay with the player. This should make acquiring tickets and buying items feel more productive as your items do not just disappear when leaving the game.
Update:
Added the jukeboxes again, which allow players to change the arcade music for 10 Robux.
Added global leaderboards which replace the server-wide high scores. For now the top-ten lists are near the spawn area, one for each single-player game. There are two types: normal leaderboards, which are for standard games, and powered leaderboards, which are for games where a power-up or revive was used. When the top-ten list changes, the player, score, and game are announced in all servers. The feature seems to be functioning, but I still need to bug-test with more players. Note: for a score (and now ticket payouts) to register, the player finishing the game needs to be the same player who started, and you cannot leave early.
Because of the leaderboard changes, the arcade machines now display a player’s personal high score instead of the server-wide high-score. There is also an “SP-HI”, which shows the power-up high score.
I also added revivals to the Free Power-Up Gamepass, because it’s now considered a power-up.
I keep coming back to this game every once in a while, the arcade games are fun and relaxing for me, and I’m currently enjoying the bowling lol.
Re:Commander, I think the current Commander implementation misses the point of Missile Command, which is you’re supposed to use each ammo you have to set up “combos”.
As in, each bomb explosion lingers for a bit, and has the potential to hit more than one enemy at the same time. The current version of Commander doesn’t seem to do this–it seems like 1 explosion can hit only 1 enemy so the idea of “saving your resources and maximizing your power” that is in Missile Command, isn’t in Commander. So I haven’t played Commander as much as the others.
Thanks, I will increase the duration of the explosions and improve Commander in the next update.
Update:
I changed the way explosions work in Commander so they linger for longer, and I refined the difficulty. I also added limit of 30 to how many tickets a player can earn in one game.
There are a lot of different items to get now, so I replaced the default backpack UI with custom UI so the items can be sorted into categories. It starts hidden, and can be shown by clicking one of the category buttons. I added this recently, so there may be bugs.
Update
I added a second floor to the arcade, with escalators to access it:
On the second floor, I added the Tier-2 game room, which contains more games and requires 100 tickets to access.
I added the Noob Run game to the tier-2 room. This game is like pac-man; you have to collect all the dots without getting caught by the zombies. This is a new game, so there may be bugs, and it still needs a title screen.
There is also the new ski-ball game in the tier-2 room. In this game, the goal is to get the ball in the holes. Different holes score different points. I reused the control scheme from bowling due to the similar gameplay.
I changed the ticket payouts again and lowered the max payout because it seemed easy to get a lot of tickets very quickly. I am trying to find a balance that makes prizes challenging to get, while still feeling fair to players of different skill levels.
Update:
I significantly reduced lag in single-player games by running on the client instead of the server. Multi-player games, however, still have lag. To do this I had to make a lot of internal changes, so there may be bugs; if there are any I will fix them as soon as possible.
I added a giant wheel to the back of the arcade. Players can spend tickets to spin the wheel, and it might give a reward.
I started adding mini-golf to the second floor, but it is not finished yet, so it is very short and buggy.
Update
I added a Tier-3 area which costs 300 tickets to enter, and is accessible only through the Tier-2 area. There is only one attraction in this area right now, I will add more. In the Tier-3 area, there are two televisions that play a short Roblox obby, and if you reach the end you get 5 tickets. There is also support for a simultaneous second player with the two televisions.
