Storm Post #2 - Arcade Boss in a Perfect World

thestorm529 · New York City **$ 5** 2069 Credits

I'm a huge fan of this site, and love the wide variety of games available for free play. Since I haven't been here long, I have a fresh take on the experience. The following are some suggestions that I have to improve an already great site. Please keep in mind that they may be idealistic, best-case-scenario type things. I realize that they may be tough to implement, but would greatly enhance the experience of play.

#1 - Set a time limit on all games. I recommend 20 min. That's long enough for a player to represent their skills. This is an issue because there are some games where high scores are less about ability, and more about how much time one is willing to invest. Getting a monthly or all-time high score shouldn't be a game of chicken between players, as far as who is willing to play the longest. There are games which are easy enough to play indefinitely, so this can be a problem. However, if a 20 min. time limit were added, and bonus points awarded for remaining lives at the end of the time period, even games which the player wouldn't die in, would be become more skill based, because it would be a competition of which player was more efficient during the allotted time.

I realize that having an allotted game time would possibly bring in CPU speed issues, but it would still make Arcade Boss better, if it could be implemented well.

I'm a game designer, and I always try to implement this concept in my designs. I haven't made anything in years, but I'm hoping to get back into it now. I'll let you know how that develops. Maybe I could have a game on here one day! Smile

#2 - All-Time High Score Durations - Should be changed to be player based rather than individual score based. This is a change that could be possible, because I'm guessing it might be that hard to pull off. Here's my point...

When I look at an all-time record, and see that its been held for over a hundred days, I know its a good score, and the player deserves some prestige for it. However, if the player then beats his own score, it resets, almost encouraging the player not to replay that game! Having the all-time high score read "Held by Player X for Y Days" makes more sense, because then the player could improve upon his score, but yet still show that he has been the top player on that game for as long as they have been. I doubt too many players would disagree with this, but tell me what you think...

#3 Remove games which don't work. Arcade Boss now has the luxury of having hundreds of games on it, so it doesn't need to hold onto ones which don't quite work properly. It is bad for the Monthly Boss competition that there are games which have the same value as others, which are not playable by all. For example, the Marie's Diamond Quest game, doesn't work with new versions of Flash, giving players with an old version of Flash an advantage. I don't see people downgrading their Flash anytime soon, for the sake of one game, but maybe the game should either be fixed or removed.

Tell me what you think of my suggestions, and let me know about yours. I'm sure that improvement suggestions have been discussed in the past, but I think its always a good idea to regularly brainstorm about new ones. Take care, and see you on the game grid! - S.

pimpin101 · Missouri **$ 383** AB Rep: +44 117169 Credits

I like the suggestion you made about the all time highscore not resetting if the player who holds that score for a long time and beats it again....there are a few of mine which I could do ebtter on but I like how long ive held them so I dont go far enough to beat them Wink

doughtakerSTM · **$ 417** Aura: 66216 Credits

#2 and #3 sound reasonable and would be nice to see (but #3 could also be similarly implemented simply by taking a broken game off the list of eligible games for BOTM). #1 though, sounds like a "one size fits all" fix that will create more problems than it will solve.

ArcadeBoss has got a huge variety of games with many differing proper strategies for how to play them. There are many games which already reward the player for time/life efficiency and/or already have a set time limit, making a universal time limit moot in those cases. There are save-state games which make it easy to circumvent a time limit. Then there are the tower defense games, where the idea is to most efficiently utilize a limited amount of resources in order to survive as long as possible to maximize your score. None of the good TD games can be properly played through in 20 minutes, and in at least one case (Anti-TD), a "time bonus" awarded for time efficiency actually functions more like a penalty/booby prize than a bonus. Utilizing a time limit on TD games would defeat the games' intended purpose. Not counting TD games, there are also games where the player's score is based primarily on how long they survive under circumstances which increase in difficulty as the game progresses. If a player is skillful enough to survive more than 20 minutes, that should be reflected on their score, rather than having a time limit create an artificial "perfect high score" where one should not exist. These are just a few examples of games where a universal time limit would be either unnecessary, or a very bad idea.

Now there are some games where implementing a time limit could come in handy - as has been stated, those which can easily be played indefinitely and would effectively be contests of endurance (e.g. Duck Hunt, Super Mario Slots, Treasure Caves 2). But to implement a time limit across all games on the site, I think would make the overall ArcadeBoss experience worse, not better.

Eagle_Kiwi · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 6:45 am Post subject:

thestorm529 · New York City **$ 5** 2069 Credits

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond! I'm glad that we are all close to the same page. I agree that #1 isn't implementable, and doesn't work for the games that were mentioned, like the Tower Defense games, and others. I guess my point has raised a good issue, and its tied to #3.

Now that we reached a good number of games on the site (2000+) as mentioned by Kiwi, maybe we can make some of them non BOTM eligible. They don't even need to be taken off the site. That would be a way of fixing the problem of broken games, poorly scoring games, and the games that are too easy,and just a matter of how long you want to play them.

I think that the majority of the games would be absolutely fine, and we should be conservative about the ones made ineligible, but why don't we come up with a few nominations, and see what people think?

I nominate Marie's Diamond Quest (broken graphics), Scrabble Blast (a smart player will never lose), and Astro-Blast. (way too easy, and I'm the all-time champ, so I'm not being self-serving). What would you nominate?

thestorm529 · New York City **$ 5** 2069 Credits

I also think that it would be great to see prior BOTM results. I don't think that it would be that hard to create links to them. Does this already exist? it seems like it would be straightforward and well received. - S.

thebluesamurai · All over the place **$ 2** 1604 Credits

I like #3, geting rid of the shovelware would be a really good idea. Simple as that.

#1 I'm unsure of. Personally, I don't like time limits in games. In fact, it feels restricting. If someone is willing to invest so much time playing games on arcade boss, then they deserve the credit of being a high scorer here.

Just a thought.

Eagle_Kiwi · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 5:38 pm Post subject: Re: Improvement #4

Eagle_Kiwi · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 6:10 pm Post subject:

#3 - WORST Games - I've made a separate thread for this possibly big topic - here:

http://www.arcadeboss.com/arcade-thread2545.html
.

ArcadeBoss · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 9:50 pm Post subject:

Excellent suggestions, thank you.

1 - As it just so happens we do have a feature to limit the amount of time that players can take to qualify to save a score. There was a time-limit glitch with Luigi Mini Game, so I implemented a system to handle this and the game now has a 5 minute time limit. If the time taken is longer than that the score is not accepted...

http://www.arcadeboss.com/game-1726-4-Luigi-Mini-Game.html

We can set a time limit on any game, so I would recommend starting a thread for this, and we can discuss possibilities for specific games.

2 - That would be nice to not reset the duration just because the top player beat their record. I will have to think about how to best do this.

3 - I think it's a good idea to remove those embarrassing old games. MDQ has been removed now, as it was time. The rest can be debated in Eagle_Kiwis bad game thread.

thestorm529 · New York City **$ 5** 2069 Credits

Thank you for showing me that, Kiwi. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite have the functionality that I was looking for. I would like to be able to click on the number of monthly wins and see what the games and scores were. I could then use this as a guide for the current month.

Another good suggestion might be to put "Last Months Winning Score" on each of the game pages, along with the current monthly, and all-time records, to show people what a strong score in each game might be. - S.