I have some questions for Ben, or maybe Andrew, about why the game works the way it does.
How come there is "infinitely deep water"?
I know it is a classic feature in side-scrollers, but drowning instantly when you reach a certain depth lacks elegance, to my mind.
When you combine this effect with an accidental spin-jump, it is quite lethal, and the game in general seems very unlethal, in that almost anything is survivable if you notice you are getting hurt. (which leads to my next question)
How did you pick the frequency of recharges/cost of magic/damage by monsters?
Was this accidental? Careful tuning by playtesters? An instinct? I'm hoping that there will be some variation in this parameter in different levels of the full version, because having to conserve is sometimes fun, and having plentiful magic/health is sometimes fun too.
What is the explanation (in-game and out-of-game) for the monsters behavior?
For example, when I first got the boomerang, I was happy, because I could do trick shots, and aim at the backs of shield goblins. (jump, throw boomerang, fall, boomerang hits goblin's back) However, I found that while shield goblins are holding their shield in front of their body, they are invincible from all sides. Is this because the playtesters never thought of that, or the feature is too computationally intensive?
Why do the rock-throwing goblins throw nicely unpredictable rocks, that are actually sort of hard to dodge, but the knife-throwing goblins only throw very specific trajectories? (I would suspect it is related to AI, something like- the knife-throwing goblins walk to a specific distance, and then start throwing, while the rock goblins don't walk)
Why do some creatures drown in water and leave a body floating and some burn away?
Why are spiders the only creatures that ever run away? (Actually, knife goblins will move away from you if you are closer than their preferred range, but that's not really running.)
And lastly, why do gems that fall into the first acid pit of the third demo level show up in the acid pool near the bats? Was that intentional?
Endlessly Curious,
Noumos