Shooting games score summary, necessary?

[Purgatorium]

Shooting games usually have a score summary after each level ends...

1. I am a gaming average joe (wetware dead after work etc), when I play a casual shooting game I don’t really bother looking at this score summary, I just want to get to the next level.

2. After finishing a game, I probably will replay it after a few weeks, without really bothering about high score list. Hey, I am not playing on an arcade machine, I don’t invite friends over to play on my computer and I don’t post my casual shooting game score online. And a high score list popping up each time after my hero dies, for me is just irritating and unnecessary.

3. The same for me applies for score bonus.

So I am wondering am I the majority or freak here? :confused:

I am thinking about skipping level score summary in my shooting game and hiding the high score list behind a button, not popping up every time the player dies.

Will you?

[Bmc]

what in what casual shooting games does a level scoring summary pop up when you die? don't those usually just pop up when you finish a level?

[Nexic]

I know for a fact that online high score charts are a fairly good selling feature for shooters as many of my users have told me directly that the main reason they bought the game was because they can compete with other people.

Local highscores I doubt will help much, but they are something that appears in every single game, and it just wouldn't feel 'right' if they were not there. I'm sure there are still a fair few people who like to compete for scores on the same computer (I do that with my brother and girlfriend with some games). Also, if you keep track of score it is a practical way to reward the player for doing certain things (like killing 3 red bad guys in a row, or killing an entire group of enemies).

[Purgatorium]

And a high score list popping up each time after my hero dies

what in what casual shooting games does a level scoring summary pop up when you die?

Platypus, a high score list(not level scoring summary) pops up after a player dies.

Also, if you keep track of score it is a practical way to reward the player for doing certain things (like killing 3 red bad guys in a row, or killing an entire group of enemies).

Thank you. :)

[Sol_HSA]

In pretty much every game prototype I've done, the first things that people give as improvement ideas is a highscore table. I really don't know why. =)

The only game in which I've done a score summary was a textmode racing game long ago, and I think it fit the design pretty well. (how many people run over, time spent, etc, lots of weird bonuses, total score..)

If done well, with great sound effects and the ability to skip it fast, I think it adds to the game. And it's not that much work, either.

[Anthony Flack]

2. After finishing a game, I probably will replay it after a few weeks, without really bothering about high score list. Hey, I am not playing on an arcade machine, I don’t invite friends over to play on my computer and I don’t post my casual shooting game score online. And a high score list popping up each time after my hero dies, for me is just irritating and unnecessary.

3. The same for me applies for score bonus.

So I am wondering am I the majority or freak here?


Hey, it's not just shooting games. My platform game does it too. And lots of casual games do it - Pizza Frenzy comes to mind.

I don't think you're a freak if you don't care, but it is a bit freakish to consider it an irritation. Just push the button if you don't want to read it! For others (like me), we find that it provides an interesting and informative set of feedback on your performance, and a chance to explicitly reward certain things.

[Hamumu]

Hooray for summaries of meaningless stats! My game has this absurd collection of data: http://hamumu.com/scores.php (type in one of the player's names into the Player box and click Look Up to see what it actually keeps for each player). That's not shown after each level, but you can look it up in the Profile menu in the game. I do have a pretty big tally after each level though, with your time, score, multipliers, best combo, coins earned. Personally, I always hit the button to skip over it, unless I am in fact trying to compete for one of the online scores.

It's just one button press, how can it bother you? As for implementing it, I don't know how important it is, but for myself, I really like to have it, and I have fun implementing it (coming up with all the things to track), so I'm all for it.

[gosub]

I know for a fact that online high score charts are a fairly good selling feature for shooters

Just out of curiosity, how do you make sure people don't cheat or hack the game?

-Jeremy

[Nexic]

My usual method is to check the boards every morning any delete and huge and unrealistic high scores. I also put a warning before you can post basically saying if you are caugth hacking you will be banned from posting again. Not sure how well that works.

[Christian]

I belive that stats its like if someone tells you something like "hey, you are a great guitar player" or "hey, the things you do are great!", its a recognition, and recognitions for your efforts are important in life, they boost your self-steem and encourage you to go on because of the support you feel.

They are important because of this reasons, but, i think it is also very important HOW you show this stats, numbers?, graphics?, animations?, depends on the type of game and event. Think about those Dance Dance revolution games for example, when you reach a certain number of perfect steps, the crowd start screaming constantly, its a great way to show that so far you did no mistakes.

[Martoon]

My usual method is to check the boards every morning any delete and huge and unrealistic high scores.
Not sure how effective that would be. I would think anyone smart enough to figure out how to hack the highscore system would also be smart enough to only post scores a little higher than the current high score.

[Nexic]

I know this makes me sound bad, but if I can't tell it's hacked then no one else can... If no one knows then I doubt anyone cares.

[Hamumu]

That's a good answer, I think! Mine's stronger than that - the scores are encrypted along with the checksum of the level they were earned on, so not only can you not post a fake score, you can't even edit the level to make it earn you more points. So far nobody has to my knowledge broken this in any way, and I sorta doubt they will... mainly because it's individual scores on 3,000 different levels, so who really cares who has top on any one?

The profile info in mine is not encrypted in any way, and a few people have hex edited their profiles to screw that part up, giving themselves a million brains collected or whatever. I spotted those and deleted them and disabled acceptance of their scores.

[gosub]

I know this makes me sound bad, but if I can't tell it's hacked then no one else can... If no one knows then I doubt anyone cares.

Lol, that's funny. How are you letting the user submit the high scores? I'm thinking of having users e-mail a game generated text file to highscores@domain. Then I can have a program read the e-mails and generate an html page. That way I don't have to worry about PHP or server stuff.

-Jeremy