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AVOIDAL

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1 MILLION POINTS 5 Points

Score 1 million points!

10 STAR STREAK 5 Points

Destroy 10 Blue Stars in a row without taking any damage!

TRAINING CIRCUITS 5 Points

Reach difficulty level 5!

25 STAR STREAK 10 Points

Destroy 25 Blue Stars in a row without taking any damage!

5 MILLION POINTS 10 Points

Score 5 million points!

50 STAR STREAK 10 Points

Destroy 50 Blue Stars in a row without taking any damage!

AVERAGE JOBOT 10 Points

Reach difficulty level 10!

SERVO WORKOUT 10 Points

Reach difficulty level 15!

10 MILLION POINTS 25 Points

Score 10 million points!

100 STAR STREAK 25 Points

Destroy 100 Blue Stars in a row without taking any damage!

20 MILLION POINTS 25 Points

Score 20 million points!

75 STAR STREAK 25 Points

Destroy 75 Blue Stars in a row without taking any damage!

IRON MAIDEN 25 Points

Have 6 Yellow Spikes active at the same time!

MAGNETIC CHARM 25 Points

Have 6 Red Seekers following you at one time!

MECHANICAL ANIMAL 25 Points

Reach difficulty level 20!

SEEK AND DESTROY 25 Points

Use only Red Seekers to destroy 15 Blue Stars in a row!

SPIKED 25 Points

Use only Yellow Spikes to destroy 5 Blue Stars in a row!

SUPER SEEKER 25 Points

Score over 50k points using a Red Seeker on a Blue Star!

SUPER SPIKE 25 Points

Score over 250k points using a Yellow Spike on a Blue Star!

150 STAR STREAK 50 Points

Destroy 150 Blue Stars in a row without taking any damage!

200 STAR STREAK 50 Points

Destroy 200 Blue Stars in a row without taking any damage!

DEVASTATOR 50 Points

Reach difficulty level 30!

Secret Medal ????? Points

Unlock this medal to learn its secrets!

Author Comments

Use your enemies to destroy as many blue stars as you can!

NOTE: I do like to try and respond to everyone's reviews at least to say thanks. After 100+ reviews though I want to address a few themes here in my commentary that I likely won't address any further in individual responses to reviews.

COMMENTARY: My design goal with AVOIDAL was to create a mouse skills game with a fun and unique core mechanic. The point of the game (if there is one to any game) is entirely about highscores and testing your skills as a player. I also thought about classic arcade games from the 80s like Robotron, Yars Revenge, Frogger, Pac Man, Asteroids etc. None of these games had upgrades or shops or power ups. Are those things fun? Yes no doubt they are--sometimes I enjoy them too. I worry that these days upgrades and the like are often applied like some kind of placebo snake oil onto games lacking a fun core mechanic. I didn't want to do that with AVOIDAL. I also wanted to test my skills as a game designer by not using those crutches. I wanted a game that would either stand or fall based on it's own simple, no frills premise. It is OK if you don't like the game or find it fun! I totally respect that. Games are subjective like any other creative pursuit.

CONTROL TIPS: Since this is a mouse skills game it was always designed to be played with a mouse or tablet. Does this limit potential player base? Yes--but it was an intentional choice. It will be a lot harder on laptop touch pad or keyboard. I can't do anything about that. I enjoy mouse skills games and I've made a few because I like them and like to try and improve the genre.

SCREEN TIPS: To address the issue of mouse cursor hitting edge of screen mostly it is out of my control because it is inherent in the way the flash player and web browser work. The best solution may be to use the expand game button in the top right here on Newgrounds to make the area larger. This may make the game run slower I'm not sure.

MEDALS CONCERNS: A lot of you are complaining about the medals hardness. There are actually only 2 of the 23 that are incredibly hard. I put these there as insane motivators because I did actually have a few players playtesting that were operating at that level to get 200+ star streaks. The rest of the medals are attainable and were attained during heavy play testing of this game. You either have the skills or you don't--not sure what else to say. :D

Thanks everyone for leaving me your reviews (good or bad!) I just wanted to put a lot of stuff down here so I didn't have to address it piece meal over pages of reviews.

Best regards,
Dave Evans
Hybrid Mind Studios

UPDATE: v1.0.1 on November 8th, 2010

Made some changes based on some of the good feedback I've been receiving here. I've adjusted (limited) the distances that seekers and spikes activate against the player on later difficulties, I lowered the number of spikes and seekers that spawn on later levels, I adjusted the damage amounts per type of impact a bit too. Exploding blue star tips now do as much damage as seekers. Before they did as much damage as hitting a whole blue star. I also change the energy recharge rate so that the "training wheels" period now lasts just a few difficulty levels before running into things will definitely kill you fast. Thanks again for all the great feedback and constructive reviews everyone!

UPDATE: v1.0.2 on November 9th, 2010 - Fixed bug where you could start multiple sessions of the game via spacebar or play button. (Thanks for the report p00rleno!)

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Extremely challenging after dif 20+, despite the lagging which can be helpful to outmaneuver enemies. The game is simple (simple is good - this applies here) enough but still lags HARD. Go figure....

The main strategy is to simply avoid spikes. They're unreliable and ofter prancing around them anywhere costs a hit (and the streak). Speaking of: the "XXX stars wihout being hit" are quite unforgiving, but all of them are doable before difficulty 20, where things start to get out of control. If going for them it's better to restart if hit because difficulty never resets during a play.

Blue stars give more points the more recent they are. If they're about to blow, they give almost half the points. It's best to dispatch them early as they spend less time on screen, also.

Reaching dif. 30 seems to be the real challenge. Since difficulty only rises when blue stars are defeated and each new dif level requires their own number, to reach level 30 then ~460 blue stars are needed. This may take some serious amount of time.

Overall, great game, but lagging definitely pulls a star. Controls are OK (it's just mouse, after all) and the rest is satisfactory. The dev also took feedback and that's a good thing.

The biggest problem with this game is the lag and the complete lack of a quality control option/setting.

Skill-based? Sort of. But mostly your control becomes unresponsive once too much is going on on-screen. It's not that this game is hard so much as it'll lag you to death. You probably need a beefy computer to properly play this.

So far I've just got the easiest medals in this game. I just don't agree that those stars gotta be destroyed in a row, considering ya can die pretty damm fast as long as the difficulty increases. It's almost impossible to get the 3 hardest medals n that's not merely my opinion, but a real fact. Although I ain't capable enough to beat this game, gotta admit I've slightly got some fun with it. The furthest I could go was difficulty 10, 17 star streak n score over 1m points.

Very fun and addictive

No Lackluster areas of this one, but there are some points that could be improved and such, You still have a good Representation and a very Acceptable flash with good standards, so with this i was pretty impressed, Haha ok i have has some major fun with this game its intense it reallymakes you think and its simple, the graphics are alright but its the whole concept of the game that makes this very fun and a fun experience, as i play it gets pretty tough its still fun though and i think you have done a fantastic job here with some nice effects and combos, i wouldnt mind some easier medals like play for an amount of time or some earlier stage medals. I admit that I wasn't too interested in this at first, but it certainly got better as it gets deeper, so nice ideas here. and i can see this even doing more with some small adjustments here and there.

~~THINGS TO IMPROVE ON~~
You have lots of Contributions towards making this pretty good, Maybe i have a few ideas that could be tossed around here and there, And by Instituting some of the ideas that i will suggest in a bit some easier medals like low level then progress upto some other higher medals would be a nice touch.

good job bro ;D

Credits & Info

Views
244,701
Faves:
291
Votes
254
Score
3.86 / 5.00

Uploaded
Nov 3, 2010
10:43 AM EDT