Power-up re-design
This week I focused on re-designing one of the pick-ups in our game Beelonging.
The power-up we call ”Golden Honeycomb” was originally designed to activate five seconds of invincibility after picking up three of those Golden Honeycombs. We felt that it didn’t really add anything to the game or the gameplay and therefore choose to re-design it.
In our game we have a mechanic where the Player Bee can activate and control a formation that includes all the bees in their swarm. This formation we call ”Honeycomb Formation” and in it all the bees would shoot at the same time, creating a more powerful, concentrated fire. Therefore, I felt it fitting to connect the Honeycomb power-up to the Honeycomb formation.
In the re-design each individual Golden Honeycomb scattered throughout the stage now adds a certain amount of honey to the Player. As feedback to the Player this is shown as a resource meter in the shape of honey filling up a honey jar, to fit into the theme of bees in the game. After collecting honey the Player can at any time during the stage choose to active one of two different abilites – the Honeycomb Formation or Increased Fire.
The Honeycomb formation is activated by pressing the Ctrl-key. All the AI bees currently in the swarm quickly forms a hexagon-shaped formation around the Player Bee. During this formation the AI Bees shoot at the same time that the Player Bee shoots, thus creating a more powerful, concentrated fire which can be used to clear larger waves of enemies easier. This also works together with the given aesthethic of the game which is to incite the feeling of belonging. The whole bee swarm works together as one.
Increased Fire is pretty self explanatory. It is activated by pressing the Alt-key and for ten seconds the fire rate of the Player Bee is greatly increased and then goes back to normal.
The Honeycomb formation gradually drains the honey meter from the honey jar, as long as you keep the Alt-key pressed down. The Increased Fire on the other hand immediatly drains a certain amount of honey, given that the effect is instant and timed while the Honeycomb formation can be kept as long or short as the Player wishes. Or the amount of honey in the honey jar allows.
I felt that these changes added more to the game and makes it more varying and interesting and it also balances the Honeycomb formation since it now drains resources.
I discussed these changes with my team both online and in person and we decided what could be realistically created by the programmers and artists.
//Karl Lindkvist
Karls Game Design Blog - 5SD064 
I feel you have in a clear manner explained the design decisions behind the new power-up. I did test your game and was not entirely clear what the power-up was and how I was affected by it. The new one seems very interesting indeed. Two things I would like to adress it how you are going to communicate to the player that it you should press down either ALT or CTRL for the different power-up. Since the given aesthetic is a feeling of belonging, I in my personal opinion would just keep the one power-up where you gather your bee’s and all of them shoots with you (Honeycumb formation, CTRL-Key).
The other power-up seem a little unnecessary and I’m not sure why this would be better to have increased fire rate yourself than lots of bee’s firing with you.
I would also recommened a picture for the blog post. How the formation looks in-game or how the power-up drop looks like. All in all, I think you got a great game ahead of you and I really like the new ideas.
GillaGilla