Back in 2007 I added a little beta stuff to Tormi which recorded the frame, player position and cause of death whenever the player died. Which is then saved to deaths.ini for later evaluation.
Originally this was super coo but as these records grew I needed a way to interpret them quickly.
So I made this!
It's a small app in 18 events that plots out a graph of where players die.
This one being mine, going back to 2007.
This one being Piney's going back to 2008.
So whats this in aid of? It lets me see which levels people mostly die on so I can go back and adjust them. Though this will be much more important once the game is nearly finished and in testers hands.
Ideally I'm aiming to get both our graphs flat on release so it isn't too hard.
Update:
Just updated this. It now supports longer frame scrolling (which is selected depending on how many frames there are). Gonna bundle this with the finished game too with some markers to show level/boss names.
It's even possible to have the stats uploaded and have a global display like this. But that would be silly.
Ah, but if its completely flat then it may be too easy, right? Personally I dislike games that serve everything on a silver platter, it needs to be difficult but they can't be cheap deaths. (Pixel perfect jumps, rooms filled with millions of enemies, etc.)
This is a good idea, to get some sort of indication of difficulty in particular areas.
Are you able to load multiple death profiles? so you can get an average?
Thats a good idea. What I would suggest though is that you should go for a slight upwards curve rather than being flat. Make it harder the further you go in the game!
I don't think increasing the death rate as you get further into the game would be a good thing. Increasing difficutly/keeping the game challenging shouldn't relly on trying to kill the player/give them a game over.
But then again, this isn't my game so I don't know how its intended to be.
Ideally the amount of deaths should be constant to a new player, and flat to someone who knows what they're doing. Any curves would be bad, unless I chunk in an Echo World or summot.
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Dr. James MD 
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