I have four-year-olds play tester and here are some thoughts. Without accurateShot she can't play at all. (She couldn't understand what is the connection between pressing mouse button and what ball is grabbed without marking the line.)
1) speed of balls: Value 2 is good, even ending speed 3 is little bit too fast.
2) starting amount of balls. This should be very low. (0 to 20)
3) Number of colors: Actually this affects very little of level hardness (If all other easiness is enabled). She play first with three colors and always she passed level, I add one more colors. Until all eight colors are used.
4) Topology of player's path: Path can little curve up in ends, but if player is going upside-down she couldn't understand how to control it.
5) Topology of ballpaths: Balls should be near the player in easy level.
6) Number of ballpaths: Not tested. Trivially one path of balls is easiest.
btw: What is best way to share own levels?
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There is no best way to share own levels right now. I'll add search in a local path for level files (which will not be part of any level - sets) to let people play with custom levels. But right now, you'll have to either overwrite an existing one, or add a new level with one number over the highest one (level11.lvl) which could be deleted in the next version.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
http://cc.oulu.fi/~rantalai/level1.lvl.tar.gz
I tried to make easiest possible level.
I have four-year-olds play tester and here are some thoughts. Without accurateShot she can't play at all. (She couldn't understand what is the connection between pressing mouse button and what ball is grabbed without marking the line.)
1) speed of balls: Value 2 is good, even ending speed 3 is little bit too fast.
2) starting amount of balls. This should be very low. (0 to 20)
3) Number of colors: Actually this affects very little of level hardness (If all other easiness is enabled). She play first with three colors and always she passed level, I add one more colors. Until all eight colors are used.
4) Topology of player's path: Path can little curve up in ends, but if player is going upside-down she couldn't understand how to control it.
5) Topology of ballpaths: Balls should be near the player in easy level.
6) Number of ballpaths: Not tested. Trivially one path of balls is easiest.
btw: What is best way to share own levels?
There is no best way to share own levels right now. I'll add search in a local path for level files (which will not be part of any level - sets) to let people play with custom levels. But right now, you'll have to either overwrite an existing one, or add a new level with one number over the highest one (level11.lvl) which could be deleted in the next version.
The standard level set is quite hard. I *love* the idea of a level-pack tailored for small children.
Level packs are the most important thing I'll be working on for the next version (along with some documentation on how to use them).
And I actually did that.