Challenge mode is here!

Please give your warmest welcomes to the newest addition of the Messenger Mouse menu roster: Challenge Mode!

If you seek glory this mode will be your red carpet. If you seek the thrill of snatching victory through the needle thread of defeat, then this mode shall be your frequent companion. If you seek to grind your platforming skills to their sharpest edge, then Challenge Mode will be your millstone.

For real though, it’s tough stuff!

Challenge Mode is a game mode that offers you small bite size levels for you to complete one by one. They are often very short, but very challenging. When making a game with so much movement, it’s common to wonder:

What are the limits of the movement?

How far can you jump?

How high can you jump?

Challenge Mode was built with these questions in mind.

We are the type of gamers who will throw ourselves at a challenge 500 times to beat it once. We think a lot of gamers are like that, especially with the platforming genre. This shows in the popularity of games like Super Mario Maker, Celeste, N++, Dustforce, I Wanna Be The Guy, and Super Meat Boy. We are fans of these types of experiences and the demanding execution they ask of you. Challenge Mode is a place for us to make levels that will scratch that itch for players.

Why make a challenge mode?

There are several reasons. Here are a few:

• Offers a way to explore the limits of the movement system in the game.
• Allows for players to engage directly with the platforming mechanics without limitations of storytelling or theme-driven environments. 
• Is a place for players to develop a sense of mastery with the game.
• Provides an alternate “feeling” game experience compared to playing long multi-pathed single player levels. 
• Provides a good sense of accomplishment and prestige. It’s impressive to beat all of them, and even moreso to defeat the staff ghosts on them! 
• Gives an alternate progression path and a way to take a break from the levels of the main game.

Designing Challenge Levels

For this build, the goal was to come up with a solid set of 50 challenge levels. It can be tough to decide exactly how hard or how easy to make them. There is a line where a challenge starts becoming too demanding, to the point where it loses its appeal entirely. With that in mind we tried to avoid pixel perfect jumps, or too many spiked hallways unless they served a purpose. Each level tends to challenge a single skill, with each subsequent level testing something different from the last. Some levels require multiple checks of that skill to weed out luck, so you truly prove you can perform the skill asked of you. We wont claim they are all balanced yet, it takes lots of playtesting to find where the perfect amount of challenge lies. We’ve had to tone down many levels and will continue to make changes/tweaks to the difficulty and design going forward.

It was also challenging to design these levels with a difficulty curve in mind. Our sorting method involves using arbitrary “difficulty” values assigned to each level (default at 0). For this initial build, we left that value at 0, so the levels are currently just sorted by name. Since the levels were built sequentially, they play out in the order we built them. Further playtesting will help us dial in appropriate difficulty values for each level.

These levels may be tough, but they are very fast and you respawn quick, dulling frustration and letting you get right back into them. We may write another dev blog in the future talking about each individual level’s design. Stay tuned for that.

Going Forward

As we continue development, we will be making more challenge levels, adjusting the ones we have, and finding a better order for them by assigning appropriate difficulty values. The first batch came out pretty good, and there’s no reason to stop making them. Currently none of the challenge levels use breakable blocks, and only a handful explore the depths of what can be done with enemy interactions. So there’s plenty of room to keep growing as we develop the game further. 

Is Challenge Mode too hard?

Depends on the player.

What about gamers who want an alternate progression path, side content from the main game, and all the other benefits that come from Challenge Mode, but don’t enjoy such a difficult challenge?

We don’t want to leave these players behind and we plan to explore a middle ground “Obby” level (to borrow the Roblox terminology) as a way to create a challenge mode that is a bit different. In these obstacle course levels, the player will be presented with a long series of challenges all strung together in one large level they can constantly come back to.

We have lots more planned for dialing in on the final set of game modes we offer in the finished game so stay tuned as we continue on this path towards the finished version of Messenger Mouse!