"It's Happy Hour!" is chaotic, but not very challenging

[Rainy_Days]

I don't want to compare the game to Pizza Tower, not only because despite being inspired by Wario Land 4 these two games are quite different, but also because Antonblast deserves to be treated as it's own thing.

That being said, "It's Happy Hour!" while chaotic and really fun it doesn't feel really challenging compared to "It's Pizza Time!"

Dying by the clock seems like a rare occurrence that I only encountered while trying to get the last secret collectable in the last level, while the rest are quite an easy cake to chew on.

Pizza Tower didn't had this problem thanks to the inclusion of the P-Rank and Lap 2, but I don't know what could Antonblast do to make "It's Happy Hour!" a more harder segment of the level.

I love it, but is definitely not the same adrenaline rush that "It's Pizza Time!" is

[Mert]

You're not wrong, Anton Blast doesn't require you to think or remember much. The level design is straightforward and features many segments that are more or less automated. Either you're being shot through the level, or you're bashing your way through it, the Happy Hour segments are pretty much the same just more chaotic.

[UNCLEWOKIAN DANEBOT MIND-VIRUS]

warioland 4s motivator switch was never truely threatening Outside S-hard and neither was pt's. at this point its more like a mechanic made to have the setpieces fall in place and open the escape route for the player. it was kind of always artificial pressure if you were experienced.

[ciswhiteheterosexualmalenumber2]

Politely disagree. Hell manor and the Paul’s in big bath and the sewers were anll extremely tight on a first playthrough, and I died too many times to the happy hour segments in levels like the glassshouse.

[Macario]

I love how everyone seems to like devseating the devs here, lol. There's a difference between "Feedback" and another is "hey dev, how about you COMPLETELY change the design of this part of the game, it's just not THERE you know?"

[UNCLEWOKIAN DANEBOT MIND-VIRUS]

this game really did bring out so many backseat developers who dont want to mod anything
edit: thanks for the gold kind stranger

[Rainy_Days]

Originally posted by ciswhiteheterosexualmalenumber2:

Politely disagree. Hell manor and the Paul’s in big bath and the sewers were anll extremely tight on a first playthrough, and I died too many times to the happy hour segments in levels like the glassshouse.

Actually fair point, now I wish I had thought this post a lil more before saying anything

Still, thanks for keeping it politely!

[UNCLEWOKIAN DANEBOT MIND-VIRUS]

i booted up some antonblast
something i do find really strange is that your top score isn't shown outside of a level which is the first place it would be recorded. the first thing i'd like to see. i might be missing something but games of this ilk benefit a lot from tracking the score because that's a really good incentive for players to take more risks if they want to top it off. WL4 is a different animal when you're trying to push the score, certain levels are played a lot differently and ask a lot more out of you. maybe even too much. i digress since its an old game and its developers probably werent expecting me to kill every spearfish in the waters of toxic landfill to get that high number. but a good risk factor antonblast adapts here is deducting leftover health as points.
in the case of pizza tower you just lose points when hit, but the thing that makes that game's timer more intense is the 2-lap loop you can hit for additional thousands. the reocurring thing i see is that these games often use score to supplement difficulty when there's too much great game to have difficulty settings and thats actually good.
the strange thing about antonblast is that you used to be able to destroy those checkpoint booths for sweet points at the risk of being set farther back if you die. and since anton's game doesn't do anything more complex than 2-laps it would be pretty ideal to not only have the score tracked but any additional time leftover can sum up to a big payout if you want to cut corners and min/max your movements. nothing that would force you to stick to the beaten path out of concern for having a points deficit when youre chasing other bonuses during the escape but something that could leave a significant dent in the score if your timing is shoddy. i cant imagine this would be hard to implement because (on paper) devs wouldnt even have to adjust the timers at all to make this work.