Friday 21 February 2014

Getting Better

Our Darker Purposes has interesting advancement.  While playing you progress by finding items that make you better and by killing enemies to get experience to go up levels which gives you a choice of two different bonuses.

Once you die - or win - you can spend credits you earned while playing to either donate to the counselor to give you a fixed set of bonuses or by paying tuition for classes that give a variety of often game-altering bonuses.

There are a lot of real choices to make.  Which level bonus is better, which item is better and which classes are better all depend on which level bonuses, items and classes you already have.  At the same time, with a few exceptions, I don't think you can go all that wrong by just taking stuff when it comes to levels.

But there are two other ways you get better that are a little more hidden.  First of all, every time you win a chapter a new set of items are added to the item pool that are more powerful than the previous ones.  Now instead of finding a 10% crit item you can find a 15% one.  You can also find both and they stack, but the important thing is that on average the items you find are just better.  This helps because instead of having to win four floors to beat chapter one, you need to beat eight to win chapter two, topped with a harder set of bosses.

The final way that you get better is by getting better.  Practice!

I alluded this in my first post about the game.  The bosses in this game have fairly predictable patterns that you can learn, so playing against them over and over makes them much, much easier.  Learning about the different bonuses and items you can get helps you plan your game out better.

But mostly this is just like playing old arcade games like Golden Axe or Ninja Gaiden except it won't let you pour in your quarters.  Your first game you don't make it far.  Then you make it further, and then further still.  If you keep starting again from the beginning then eventually you are actually good at the game and you can win.

Games don't really do that to you very often these days.  And by not forcing you to start from the beginning again and again, they rob you of the chance to actually get good at them.

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