HYPE! Im so stoked about this illustration. Most platforms require a "Hero Banner" for the store pages and all that, so thats what this is. Has to be able to arrange itself into all manner of ridiculous formats and sizes.
So, kinda random question: will there be a difficulty setting?
I don't think this has ever been mentioned, but I think that it would be a good idea, (maybe as an update down the line).
Yeah we agree. From what I hear its pretttty hard right now. (After playing it for 5 years I have no perspective of course.)
The concept of the game is just unfair sometimes (and thats the point!), but its been a real challenge to hit that balance where it maintains the mood and intended mechanics but also is generally playable. We've spent a lot of time tweaking it in its current state, but it's something that we want to address in future updates in a more clever manner. Some things we definitely want gated behind the high difficulty level, and we dont want an "easy mode" per se where you can just uncover all the map and thats that. But Im considering adding some alternate narrative paths in the current world that would satisfy players of lower skill levels, but also maintains some mystery of what else is out there.
I remember that James once said that they were trying to put in place a system in which the difficulty ramps up if the player has a fast progression, I don't know if it is the global reputation system, but it sounds a little different from it.
That remains to a certain degree, but in testing it was found to be pretty frustrating as the difficulty seemed fairly random from the players perspective. Also it basically broke the whole mechanic of being able to develop relationships with creatures, since you could be playing in a non-aggressive manner but suddenly creatures would be more aggressive just because you made it through a few rooms. Basically it was a good idea in theory, but less in practice, so we opted for just tuning the overall difficulty "better", whatever that means.
On the topic of difficulty, one thing thats really become apparent (and interesting!) in testing the game is that some people seem to naturally just be really good at Rain World, and its often people who you wouldnt necessarily expect given the supposed difficulty. I've seen 12 year old girls who "just wanted to play the slugcat game" get like 10x farther than seasoned gaming bros on their first try. I think it's because the game rewards observation and caution? So if a player goes in guns blazing expecting normal platformer behavior they're going to get destroyed, but if they play like a prey animal, hiding, observing the surroundings and learning about the behaviours of the creatures before making big moves, they will do well. And this might actually benefit players who dont have years of videogame genre conventions under their belt.
I dont know how well that will go over, but Im pretty proud of this actually!
— Home
