Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

When I was a kid I had the top score in Galaga at my local arcade. I held the spot for months. Then one day I came in to find my score doubled by someone. The arcade owner told me that it was a guy who went around to each arcade and ran up the scores. Like a game playing gunslinger.

Now on the web any time I find a fun game and play it for awhile and improve, I come online to find that the high score has been run up by some aspieoverlord to unwinnable levels.

So how do game designers overcome that demotivating unwinnable high score phenomena?



There should be 3 levels of high score lists should be 1. personal 2. friends 3. global

this actually applies everywhere you are showing group merged data related to a particular person.

i.e. your height, your friends heights, and global heights

imagine a news article that has interactive graphs that query g+ or fb and use the info to put a friends layer next to the global info.


Instead of social circles, how about geographical locations?

1. local (city or neighborhood)

2. statewide

3. country

4. earth

It is more analogous to the parent comment.


Personally I'd love to see replays of "impossible" scores. Similar to the speed run videos for games like super Mario on YouTube




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: