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Game Builder Garage (2021)

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Duration: 7:40

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I mean, I don't know that I can do THAT one but...
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Lesson 1: Tag Showdown
Step 5 - Releasing the Balls

Um... definitely an IMPORTANT thing, I suppose... if you're of that particular persuasion, I mean, but... ... ... oh, you mean OBJECTS. Y'know, Spheres. Spherical objects. That are round. Which one might refer to as their balls. Yes. Unleash those, please.

You might have noticed that while there are certainly game-like qualities to our Tag in making... there's really not much balance between the players. One tries to touch the other to win... the other runs forever in the hopes of not eventually losing. Seems like there ought to be SOME manner of lose condition for the other side, right?

That's when we go for maximum disrespect and slap 'em with our great big balls! ...um... maybe not THAT big. Also, this seems a bit forceful! And way too many! And the angle of impact is all out of control!

Honestly, this part is important, yes... but there's not a lot of attention to detail being paid to explaining all the parts that go into the Launch-Object Nodon. Bob's primary interest is just slapping it down and seeing what happens, then nudging things until they get closer to his original vision. Because he's reading a script, and reverse-engineering a game that's already been designed by whoever designed what he'd be telling us to do.

So I'm going to take the liberty of breaking it down a bit more as far as I've been able to determine per the information given:

-the actual launcher itself is invisible, it's just a specific spot that generates the object chosen... which defaults to "Spheres"
-the size of the objects launched depends on the size of the launcher
-there are different launchers that can launch 1, 10, and 100 objects... but based on what we see here, that seems to be "10 at a time" rather than a hard limit on its long term capacity to perform its stated function
-speed, interval, and direction are all fair game to specify a variety of values
-besides spheres, it can also launch boxes or cylinders
-by default, the things it launches are visible (I'd hope so!), solid, movable, destructive, AND destructible
-you can also control the particulars about the launched objects' appearance

There are a few others that I could try to draw some conclusions about, but nothing solid enough to do more than conjecture... and several of those might end up being very mistaken if I could just dig down and mess with some stuff outside the tutorial's scope... but I guess that just means more to play around with later instead!

Personally, my immediate wonder is if maybe it wouldn't be better to keep these things a more persistent threat by having them NOT destroy one another on contact... but that might make the floor level too restrictive and unsafe for play, ultimately limiting the resulting playstyles a bit too much. The floor would basically be lava in rather short order, and then what?

Plus, once the object limit is reached, it'll become static and a simple matter of not touching the lowest level... which would severely restrict the evasive options and routes the fleeing player could take. Still, it's my knee-jerk reaction, and if it was me, I'd at least see what that looks like before probably discarding it as not the best ultimate result I was looking for.

The point is that this kind of thing would take a lot of playing around with to get just right, from positioning to the timing to the platforms set up to alter their trajectory... Bob's version of events makes it all too readily arrived at, whereas a real design process would require many adjustments until it came out in a satisfactory fashion.

And just like that... it's done! We followed arbitrary directions without much room for thought or input of our own, and basically we know there's a way to throw stuff violently around... and not a lot else besides how to ensure that things respond properly TO that violence... ... ... kind of.

There's actually a subtle incongruity to how the two players are destroyed, can you see what it is? ...not that it actually matters, because either player making contact will end the game one way or the other... but it's that kind of little detail that sticks out to me.

For that matter, don't think the "..." tabs sticking off several object property buttons hasn't caught my eye, as I'm sure there's many much more discriminating options to be had.

But for now, we'll just float along mercifully at Bob's whim, because I'm sure he's got a point to make, and you don't need me muddling it up by messing with all the minuscule minutiae along the way.

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