I dunno', I actually like having no sparkles and tapping on every single object to see if it has anything or not. His thoughts run like this: Enter>Analyze the environment for objects with possible loot>Run around trying to loot everything>Run to exit.īut if you sparkle everything, the player may learn to 'speedrun' your locations like this: Enter>Check for sparkle>Collect loot>Run to exit. Also the 'no sparkles' approach has another advantage - when the player is searching for objects to interact, he's paying more attention to your level and environment, he's actually scanning it for clues and useful objects, so he's more immersed in the game.

Not sure if it's the best solution, but I'll try! Also sparkles can be very different - like the ones that are constantly blinking and impossible to miss, or the ones that only blink once per 10 seconds and only if you're super close to them - those can drive you mad if you really don't want to miss your secrets!ģ) For my game I think I'll go midway? Like having a 'USE' icon above the character when he's next to an interactive object, but without him having to spam Z everywhere randomly.

You can save a lot of time if you only know to check for sparkles and you can stop worrying about missing lots of secrets. If they're badly designed, you can spend lots of time raging about the dev forgetting to put an item in 20 freaking barrells in a row.Ģ) On the other side, sparkles are easy and fun. Well designed games actually teach you fast about objects you could check for loot, and often they're very obvious. But when you do find something this way, you get a thrill of discovery and a the feeling like 'hey! I was right to check there! this is cool! I'm so cool!'. 1) On one side, running around while mashing Z button on every object is silly, especially indoors.

Game house sparkle 2