Re: About the entrance problem

[David Philippi]

On Monday 28 October 2002 03:42, Gervase Lam wrote:
> As Craig Timpany pointed out later on, Fast Forward is just a different
> version of Release Rate.  I think this is a good thing because it allows
> each entrance to have different release rates in relation to one another.
> (Well, I had thought of a way of having entrance variable release rates
> that players can "control", but this is simpler).

Fast Forward is more than that. If you activate it Pingus will also move much 
faster on the screen.

> I like the above idea of having a "continuously" variable speed control.
> This would basically get rid of the pause and fast forward buttons.

I'd like to keep pause at least for scrolling around and pondering about how 
to solve that level.

> Unfortunately this type of feature brings back that ugly question of
> "pause mode" not allowing a player to apply actions in one extreme or
> pause mode being too powerful in the other.  With a "continuously"
> variable control, it is hard to stop a player applying actions in a
> "powerful" way.

Why is it extreme if pause mode doesn't allow you to apply actions? One could 
at least move the pointer over a pointer in pause mode and then deactivate 
pause/click in rapid succession. I'd consider this enough.

> Hmmm.  May be if the game is slowed down, action application is also
> slowed down.  During normal speed, a player can't physically actions
> extremely quickly.  So, if the game slowed down, slow down the application
> speed as well.

Where does this idea of slowing down the game come from? If you reduce the 
release rate you'll increase the total time required to solve the level since 
the last pingu will come out later but they won't move with a different 
speed. If the walking speed would lower along with the release rate I'd fill 
in a bug report.

Bye David