

The team would iteratively reorder and smooth out the levels, then bring in a new group of testers that hadn't played before and see what the new data looked like -its own little live, die, repeat loop, as it were. "So we could see where everyone was being killed by one hazard, and then just take the hazard out." "We collected the actual position where every person died," said Gilmour. Some levels were simply reordered for a smoother difficulty curve, but others were changed on a second-by-second level. The team then acted on that data in different ways. "We let a lot of people play the game, and we could see these big spikes where everyone was dying," explained Bloemen. ThirtyThree Games used analytics and testers to analyze every second of gameplay. There are small things, like making levels "concave," so your character can't get caught in a cove and die, or ensuring the automated movement "is always the speed you want to go at," but the truly interesting tweaks are invisible. I always knew it was my fault I was dying.Ī lot of work went into making RunGunJumpGun its levels and each second of gameplay feel fair yet challenging. As mentioned, I struggled massively with some levels in RunGunJumpGun, but I never once felt the urge to stop. As a result, I constantly put it down for weeks at a time in frustration. It's generally superb, but there are several moments when it seems the game is unfair - maybe a parry timing is off, a hit box not quite right. Take Furi, a boss rush game released earlier this year. When one hit can kill, developers getting something wrong is difficult to stomach. That sense of fairness is key to twitch games. It's easy for that to become annoying, but though you will certainly be frustrated by RunGunJumpGun at points - some levels had me dying maybe 30 times in a row - you'll be frustrated at your lack of skill, not at the game itself. You're removing a lot of the tools that gamers are typically given to overcome the challenges in front of them. Stripping away controls has its issues, though. "It lets you fall into a trance, and that's kind of a big thing for the game, getting people lost in it."


Several times per second, you'll be deciding which button to press, but you never move your fingers apart from to push down. You also need to shoot enemies and obstacles in front of you, but as soon as you do, you start to lose altitude. "Jumping," in this game, is actually more like flying - your character aims her gun downward and will ride upward while you hold down the button. But its control scheme and structure make it a very different experience overall, and one that stands alone without the need for comparisons.Īt its core, RunGunJumpGun is about balancing the two inputs. The game has the same fast pace and "live, die, repeat" mentality, for sure.
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"We were hoping it would stand more among PC games than mobile games, but then play equally well on mobile." ThirtyThree Games set out to emulate the rush of games like Super Meat Boy, VVVVVV and Hotline Miami, and the company nailed it. "We weren't out to just make an infinite runner mobile game that's run-of-the-mill," said programmer Logan Gilmour.
