I'm struggling with Scoring again! Uhoh!!!
But it's ok. I have a plan. I think...

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So I'm working on the Neon Tower / Tower Attack / Stack a Tower / whatever it's called game, and I'm stuck on the build/point reward system again.
This is scoring as well as coins and build rewards and... etc.

Imagine you had a Mario game where you had three lives, but at the end of a level, any goombas you DIDN'T kill ended up losing you a life.
This is, approximately, the way a Tower Defence works. Anything you miss hits the castle and you lose a HP.

This seems fair and reasonable, after all this is how something like Space Invaders works.
If you don't kill them, they kill you.

That's the risk/reward system here. You either do, or you die.
You duck between the baddies and shoot them, or they kill you.

But Mario doesn't work like that, does it?
If you run past a Goomba, the Goomba survives, but doesn't kill you or impede your progress in the slightest.
Meanwhile, you collect coins, the coins add up to a score.

...
So let's transfer points to Tower Defence..
If we miss a baddie, the baddie takes 1 HP from the tower.
That's a simple transfer, One to One.
But if we ALSO transfer that to "build points when killed", we end up with one reward for killing enemies, (1 build point) but TWO punishments when you don't (1 HP lost, AND 0 build points gained)

That's unfair.

Michael Fernie chipped into the comments yesterday.



I get that, I do.. But the game is very much one to one. Either you do kill it and so earn a point or you don't, so lose health, and the point. The two are too directly connected, in my opinion, and it pretty much breaks the scoring system.

.., for me..
The mechanic doesn't work in my head, and I'm struggling with Build Points as a result.

So, what else is there?
Well, what if we focus on Score instead of Build Points. Let the build points, for the most part, just be, and instead you're rewarded with just a straight forward score.

We'll give 3 Build Points per round. That seems fair, I think, though I'll have to play the final game to find the right balance.

But then we can also add a specific enemy in each round with a Bonus Counter. (Maybe carrying it over their head?)
Defeat that character each round and you'll be able to grab the extra counter to build with.
Score is then still One per One, (or 2 or 3 or 4, depending on how big the enemy is) but with an extra score bonus at the end of the round based on the castle's HP's remaining.
That way you're scoring per baddie, but also scoring extra for how successful you've been in keeping them at bay.

I think we should probably also have NeonPlat be a playable character whilst the battle-phase is ongoing. That way we can have the Bonus Counter dropped when the specific baddie is killed, but then have a short amount time to grab it before it disappears from the field.
Aaah, now we're being a bit more balanced, right?

So, once we're heading down the route of having NeonPlat running around during the "battle" phase, then what else can he do?
Maybe he could run to a turret and double the bullets coming from it?
Or would it be better if he had his own weapon?
The world of NeonPlat traditionally has flowers, right? Maybe he should run to a blooming flower, pick it up and throw it at the baddies?
....

Yeah, now we're getting somewhere!

Right, this is likely the path to follow for this game, and I'll likely be trying to work on most of that mechanic, today.
Be sure to throw any thoughts into the comments/Discord!

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