Achievements and stats

Achievements and stats

Postby Wuzzy » 20 Sep 2018, 00:37

Hi! Here's my list of ideas, suggestions and comments on the achievements and stats.

General achievements suggestions:
- Unlock descriptions: The descriptions of some hidden achievements should be unlocked for completing certain other achievements. Usually related achievements should be affected.

Ideas for new achievements (a lot of real challenges in here):
- Under Par: Complete a level with less than the goal recordings*
- You did it!: Complete any level set (besides Tutorial)
- Victory: Complete all official levels (besides Tutorial)****
- Great Victory: Complete all official levels (besides Tutorial) with silver or gold****
- Epic Victory: Complete all official levels (besides Tutorial) with gold****
- Survivalist: Complete 10 levels in row without dying**
- Expert Survivalist: Complete the default level set from start to finish*** without dying or resetting once
- Couragous: Complete all levels of a level set that has checkpoints without using any checkpoint*****

Comments on existing achievments (spoilers!):
- Many achievements are basically just stats and chores, nothing too exciting. There should be more actual challenges / things the player can be proud of
- The “Programmer” achievement should also count if you play a release candidate version. ^_^
- The “Level Museum” achievement is a bit too unforgiving. 50 levels is a huge number. Maybe cut it down to 5 or 10, or remove it entirely
- "The creator" has a very long time and is too tedious. I suggest removing it.
- Cheater achievement is stupid and should be removed. Game should not encourage cheating


Suggestions for stats screen:
- Display number of total collected/total achievements in stats screen
- Show separate medal counters between official and add-on levels
- Display number of total levels in comparison to completed levels
- Display number of completed level sets (also separate display for official / add-on)
- Display number of completed level sets with 100% silver/gold (official / add-on)

---------------
Footnotes:
* = There should at least be one level in the official levels where this is possible. See also: https://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=8106
** = It has to be 10 different levels, of course
*** = Meaning you played the levels in order. Whenever the order was broken, the achievement's progress is reset and you have to start from level 1 again
**** = Requires fixing classic level set (last level “Credits” cannot be won)
***** = Game could keep track for each level if it was completed without using checkpoints. Think of it as an invisible medal. As soon all levels in any level set have this invisible medal, the achievement is won.
User avatar
Wuzzy
 
Posts: 989
Joined: 28 May 2012, 23:13

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby acme_pjz » 20 Sep 2018, 05:37

Hi,

Unfortunately you come a little bit too late. The addition of new achievements will introduce new strings need to be translated, so most of them can only be added in the next version.

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:General achievements suggestions:
- Unlock descriptions: The descriptions of some hidden achievements should be unlocked for completing certain other achievements. Usually related achievements should be affected.


Current system doesn't support this, but of course we can add it for the next version.

Can you give suggestions for such achievement dependency?

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:- Under Par: Complete a level with less than the goal recordings*
- You did it!: Complete any level set (besides Tutorial)
...
- Survivalist: Complete 10 levels in row without dying**
...
- Couragous: Complete all levels of a level set that has checkpoints without using any checkpoint*****


Do you think we should restrict these achievements for official levels/levelpacks only? Otherwise you can design your own levelpack to achieve these quite easily.

BTW, in fact some existing achievement can be easily achieved by design specified levels.

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:- Many achievements are basically just stats and chores, nothing too exciting. There should be more actual challenges / things the player can be proud of


Yes but I ran out of ideas :( see here https://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=3883 for discussions years ago.

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:- The “Programmer” achievement should also count if you play a release candidate version. ^_^


OK will fix it before V0.5 released :)

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:- The “Level Museum” achievement is a bit too unforgiving. 50 levels is a huge number. Maybe cut it down to 5 or 10, or remove it entirely


I think cut it down to 10 is reasonable but I don't want to remove it. Will fix it in next version.

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:- "The creator" has a very long time and is too tedious. I suggest removing it.


If you use the level editor one hour per week, then you will achieve it in under half a year. What do you think?

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:- Cheater achievement is stupid and should be removed. Game should not encourage cheating


Currently there is only one cheat in game which temporarily unlocks level in level selection screen. This will not give you any medal though. I think this will not affect the balance of game. Also, in my opinion the Cheater achievement is more like a negative credit history. What do you think?

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:Suggestions for stats screen:
- Display number of total collected/total achievements in stats screen
- Show separate medal counters between official and add-on levels
- Display number of total levels in comparison to completed levels
- Display number of completed level sets (also separate display for official / add-on)
- Display number of completed level sets with 100% silver/gold (official / add-on)


I think these are interesting and we may discuss them later :)
Some of my open source games on GitHub
User avatar
acme_pjz
 
Posts: 665
Joined: 10 Dec 2009, 15:32
Location: PeeKing, China

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby Wuzzy » 20 Sep 2018, 15:19

Also, in my opinion the Cheater achievement is more like a negative credit history. What do you think?

It's hardly an achievement in the literal sense. Completionists will be pissed off for sure when they learn the only way to get that mysterious final achievement is to cheat.

Do you think we should restrict these achievements for official levels/levelpacks only?

Yes. Actually, makes sense for some achievements. Otherwise it's too easy.

If you use the level editor one hour per week, then you will achieve it in under half a year. What do you think?

Hmm, whatever. I have no strong feelings about this anymore.


Can you give suggestions for such achievement dependency?

Yes.
In general, lower “tiers” reveal the descriptions and/or titles of higher achievements. I mean with that achievements that only differ in the required number. Like, when you got Hooked (=2h playtime), the description or title (not sure) of Loyal Fan of Me and My Shadow (=24h playtime) becomes visible. I won't write that out in full below.

Other revelations:
(With “reveal” I mean “reveal both title and description”. With “reveal title” I mean, well, “reveal only the title, but not the description”.)
panicSave reveals title of panicLoad and vice-versa.
Level Museum reveals Constructor.
Any of Constructor, Level Museum or Programmer reveal Hello, world.
die1000 reveals squash1 and forget.
save1k reveals withoutsave and reveals title of panicSave.
load1k reveals title of panicLoad.
swap1k reveas title of quickSwap.
squash50 reveals title of loadAndDie100.
Expert reveals Just in time.
forget reveals title of doubleKill.
travel10k reveals title of horizontal.
travel42k reveals horizontal.


EDIT:
Oh, I think the icons for most of the achievements are quite repetitive and sometimes don's make much sense. I suggest to draw a few unique icons which are more fitting.

There's also a typo: “Earn 50 gold medal.” should be “Earn 50 gold medals”.


EDIT 2:
OK, in the last couple of days I (obviously) have excessively played MaMS to re-complete all the levels (and get gold). I'm basically finished, except for 2 levels where it's impossible to win or get gold (I have written in other thread). So I can now write something about how sane some numbers in achievements are.

Some achievements really turn out to be chores:
- Save/load 1000 times: 1000 times is way too high. The reason is that saving/loading is a relatively rare occurance, even reaching 100 takes a lot of time. I think I legit only saved/loaded about 100 times after 12h playtime. Recommendation: Remove.
- Swap/pull trigger 1000 times: It's another chore. After 12 hours of playing, I legit only used swap 200-300 times. I don't know about how many times I legit used switch, but it is probably less frequently used. Recommendation: Remove.
- 24h playtime: For reference. I was able to win (almost all) official levels in about 12 hours, including hunting for gold and trying some add-on levels. So 24h seems not really justifyable right now. If I try to complete all add-ons as well, I might end up with more than that. Recommendation: No sure, but it's a bit dubious. This achievement will become more justifyable when there are many more official levels.


PS: I know MaMS is in string freeze, but removing strings should be safely possible even then.
User avatar
Wuzzy
 
Posts: 989
Joined: 28 May 2012, 23:13

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby acme_pjz » 21 Sep 2018, 10:14

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:Oh, I think the icons for most of the achievements are quite repetitive and sometimes don's make much sense. I suggest to draw a few unique icons which are more fitting.


We are out of artist :( There were some colored player portraits in the previous achievement discussion threads, but we didn't come up with other icons. :(

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:There's also a typo: “Earn 50 gold medal.” should be “Earn 50 gold medals”.


Oops, will fix in next version.

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:Some achievements really turn out to be chores:
- Save/load 1000 times: 1000 times is way too high. The reason is that saving/loading is a relatively rare occurance, even reaching 100 takes a lot of time. I think I legit only saved/loaded about 100 times after 12h playtime. Recommendation: Remove.
- Swap/pull trigger 1000 times: It's another chore. After 12 hours of playing, I legit only used swap 200-300 times. I don't know about how many times I legit used switch, but it is probably less frequently used. Recommendation: Remove.
- 24h playtime: For reference. I was able to win (almost all) official levels in about 12 hours, including hunting for gold and trying some add-on levels. So 24h seems not really justifyable right now. If I try to complete all add-ons as well, I might end up with more than that. Recommendation: No sure, but it's a bit dubious. This achievement will become more justifyable when there are many more official levels.


I will change some of them according to your feedback in the next version. But IMHO it's not harmful to leave them in current version.
- I think save/load 100 times instead of 1000 is reasonable.
- I think the swap 1000 times can be removed (my statistics reads 200); but pull trigger 1000 times is absolutely possible, for example the statistics on my new computer reads 1200 after I played some addon levels and make some levels (and level editor debugging).
- 24h playtime is also possible since level editing, ... , even the main menu time also count as the play time. BTW, I changed my opinion and think that the Creator for 12h (or 6h?) is more reasonable.


Also, I'd like to find a new name for the achievement Swapper since on other thread we want to use it as the name of a block. I'd like to ask if anyone has suggestions.
Some of my open source games on GitHub
User avatar
acme_pjz
 
Posts: 665
Joined: 10 Dec 2009, 15:32
Location: PeeKing, China

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby Wuzzy » 21 Sep 2018, 11:46

I think your reply sounds mostly reasonable. Yes, no rush for 0.5. This thread is mostly about balancing.

Also, I'd like to find a new name for the achievement Swapper since on other thread we want to use it as the name of a block. I'd like to ask if anyone has suggestions.

No, you do not have to find a new name. I said it before and I say it again: Look up “context” in your Gettext manual.
User avatar
Wuzzy
 
Posts: 989
Joined: 28 May 2012, 23:13

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby Wuzzy » 01 Oct 2018, 16:15

I have made some achievements images for you to use in MAMS. I hope you like them. Some images are based off stuff from https://openclipart.org/ (CC0 images).

A code patch is included as well. I have changed the order of the first 6 achievements so the stars progress more nicely. :)

The images zip file contains a few unused images provided as possible alternatives.
Attachments
achievements_imgs.zip
(27.08 KiB) Downloaded 419 times
achievements.patch
Code patch for achievements (apply to 59d90d0d3f7d45e16be57f78ab7f50dbcb9718ee)
(12.42 KiB) Downloaded 422 times
Last edited by Wuzzy on 01 Oct 2018, 16:48, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Wuzzy
 
Posts: 989
Joined: 28 May 2012, 23:13

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby acme_pjz » 01 Oct 2018, 16:32

Thank you, I'll loot at them later.

[EDIT] I think they look quite interesting. What do you think if I merge them into a larger texture, just like the tiles.png in Cloudscape theme?
Also, some of the images you give are slightly larger than 50x50. Can I crop them into 50x50 (since the outside part of the images are largely empty)?
Some of my open source games on GitHub
User avatar
acme_pjz
 
Posts: 665
Joined: 10 Dec 2009, 15:32
Location: PeeKing, China

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby Wuzzy » 01 Oct 2018, 17:50

What do you think if I merge them into a larger texture, just like the tiles.png in Cloudscape theme?

I don't really care. On the downside, whenever you need to add an achievement image, you have to edit the entire file in the commit. But you should decide what's best.

Can I crop them into 50x50 (since the outside part of the images are largely empty)?

Yes. There are only 4 images which exceed 50 pixels in width or height, and it's only empty area, so they can be cropped safely.

Note that the achievements create1 and create50 use images that have a size of 64×64.
User avatar
Wuzzy
 
Posts: 989
Joined: 28 May 2012, 23:13

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby acme_pjz » 02 Oct 2018, 07:39

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:Note that the achievements create1 and create50 use images that have a size of 64×64.


In fact these are placeholder icons :| it's best if someone could design 50x50 icons for them.
Some of my open source games on GitHub
User avatar
acme_pjz
 
Posts: 665
Joined: 10 Dec 2009, 15:32
Location: PeeKing, China

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby GunChleoc » 03 Oct 2018, 11:45

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:
Also, I'd like to find a new name for the achievement Swapper since on other thread we want to use it as the name of a block. I'd like to ask if anyone has suggestions.

No, you do not have to find a new name. I said it before and I say it again: Look up “context” in your Gettext manual.

+1 for the context.

It's not as easy to get at as gettext and ngettext, because you need an extra header file. Here's a nice, cleaned up one that you can use:

https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~widelands ... /gettext.h

The macros you'll want are pgettext for string literals and pgettext_expr for functions.
User avatar
GunChleoc
 
Posts: 502
Joined: 20 Sep 2012, 22:45

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby Wuzzy » 22 Jun 2019, 17:02

There are many achievements now. Not really important, but it would be nice and make the list of achievements a bit more readable if they are grouped by category.

Here are the categories I suggest and how I would categorize the current achievements (as of 0.5.1 Alpha):

  • Progress: Proceeding in the game by completing levels and level packs
  • Challenge: Complete a challenging task that is not part of the main game
  • Playing: Achievements you get for simply playing the game
  • Death: Someone has to die
  • Absurd: Pointless and silly achievements
  • Maker: Creating levels and stuff
  • Cheat: For cheating

PROGRESS:
  • Newbie
  • Graduate
  • Experienced Player
  • You did it!
  • Good job!
  • Outstanding graduate
  • Expert
  • Victory
  • Great victory
  • Epic victory

PLAYING:
  • Hooked
  • Loyal fan of Me and My Shadow
  • Frog
  • Kangaroo
  • Carrier
  • Acrobat
  • Wanderer
  • Runner
  • Long distance runner
  • Marathon runner
  • Sokoban
  • Box delivering company
  • Recorder
  • Shadowmaster
  • Switch puller
  • The switch is broken!
  • Swapper
  • Play it save
  • This game is too hard
  • Enriched
  • Treasure hunter

CHALLENGE:
  • Just in Time
  • No, thanks
  • Under par
  • Survivalist
  • Expert Survivalist

DEATH:
  • Be careful!
  • It doesn't matter...
  • Expert of trial and error
  • Keep an eye for moving blocks!
  • Potato masher
  • Double kill
  • Bad luck
  • This level is too dangerous
  • You forgot your friend
  • Bad saving position
  • This level is too hard

ABSURD:
  • Panic save
  • Panic load
  • Quick swap
  • Duel
  • Horizontal confusion

MAKER:
  • Constructor
  • The creator
  • Look, cute level!
  • The level museum
  • Hello, World!
  • Programmer

CHEAT:
  • Cheater


Yeah, the “Cheater” achievement doesn't really belong anywhere else, it's awkward to put it anywhere else. I still think it shouldn't be an achievement at all. Maybe instead move it to the statistics screen and count the number of times cheats have been enabled. When you have cheated at least one time, a secret statistic will appear at the bottom: “Cheats used: X”

--------

Finally, I have updated some achievements images again: For walking, jumping, creating levels.
Attachments
achievements_update.zip
Updated achievement icons for jumping, walking and level creating achievements.
(63.62 KiB) Downloaded 365 times
under_par.png
New image for Under par achievement. I don't really like my previous image anymore. Use it if you agree or ignore it if you don't.
under_par.png (4.69 KiB) Viewed 8580 times
User avatar
Wuzzy
 
Posts: 989
Joined: 28 May 2012, 23:13

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby acme_pjz » 29 Jun 2019, 15:14

Hi,

I have used your new achievement images. The "Under par" image is not used, though; I'm not satisfied with both of them. Maybe we should leave it later.

The categories of achievements will be considered later.
Some of my open source games on GitHub
User avatar
acme_pjz
 
Posts: 665
Joined: 10 Dec 2009, 15:32
Location: PeeKing, China

Re: Achievements and stats

Postby Wuzzy » 29 Jun 2019, 16:29

Yeah, definitely need a better idea for Under Par. It's kind of unique so needs an unique image. Sadly, I'm out of ideas.
User avatar
Wuzzy
 
Posts: 989
Joined: 28 May 2012, 23:13

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest