Updated Ball-Rolling Mechanics

I don't normally update jam games after submission, but Nine Hole Ninja seems to have gone down particularly well and, as I'm planning to submit it to the Palestinian Relief Bundle I thought I'd take the time to address the one big complaint people had about the gameplay: the physics engine will no longer have to determine that a ball is "sleeping" before the player can take another swing at it.

Originally I took this approach because the final score is determined by the total number of shots taken, which means that taking any shot before a ball is absolutely positively determined to have ground to a halt is a tactically poor move. (My initial plan for the game was that each hole would have a "par" and exceeding it would mean game over, which would have made this much more of a concern.) In practice, however, the balls which take longest to stop - those rolling along a perfectly flat surface - are very unlikely to ever reach a hole, and since few players will end up with a score below triple digits even the most impatient player is unlikely to seriously affect it by taking shots early.

My new approach for this mechanic is to allow another swing at any ball that's "sleeping" and/or any ball that's dropped below a certain speed for a certain length of time. The speed and time I've chosen were selected to make for a comparatively small change: the intention is to eliminate occasions when a ball remains rolling along at an absolute  c r a w l  without opening up the possibility for players to take a cheeky swing at balls that have, say, "stopped moving" only because they've reached the apex of a bounce. However, the fact that this mechanic is now in place means that it should be possible to make small adjustments based on player feedback.

I'm also considering adding a leaderboard at some point, but will hold off for the time being partly because I'd like to see how this minor change goes down, and partly because I don't want to risk missing my chance to support the charity bundle. On that note, if you have a project you'd like to contribute yourself then the option is open until January 21st 2024 at 11:59 PM.

If you've got thoughts on the new ball-rolling mechanic, please consider leaving them in a comment on this post. It would do wonders to help me keep everything in one place!