Metroid: Father Hunt

[ssbawesome]

Looks good from what I've been playing, just I don't know what to do after I get the missiles.

[ronny14]

Thanks. There's a red door in the first vertical shaft to the right of the start point. Shoot it with five missiles to open it.

[ssbawesome]

Oh, okay thanks.
Uh, I can't beat the big Metroid. Any suggestions? Great game, btw.

[Previous]

Thanks. There's a red door in the first vertical shaft to the right of the start point. Shoot it with five missiles to open it.

I've always wondered how one is supposed to know that it takes five missiles. That's rather unintuitive and the expected reaction to the first missile not doing anything would be to stop trying, huh.
I know it's a flaw from the original games but maybe it could be helped by making it move obsious that a missile is doing something, like having the door open just a tiny bit and close again until you've hit it with enough missiles where it'd open fully.

[Kriven]

Or maybe it could change colors whenever hit?

[ronny14]

Huh? The door flashes white and makes a sound when you shoot it with a missile.

[Previous]

Sure, but that can easily be mistaken as just some general reaction to being shot that could also be telling the player "this isn't the right projectile".
Unless you know you have to do it, it's really hard to figure out that you have to shoot it five times since four times you get the exactly same reaction.

[ronny14]

But it's still different from shooting it from something that doesn't work.

like having the door open just a tiny bit and close again until you've hit it with enough missiles where it'd open fully.

That would make it seem just as ineffective. The game will have an inventory screen that tells you that you can open them with missiles, if it's that much of a concern.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

I disagree with you: I think Previous made a good point, and giving your own spin to the Metroid formula would be far more interesting than how it's currently playing, ie more or less a metroid clone with SD cartoon graphics.

[ronny14]

I didn't think it was that much of a problem. I'll think of something.

[Medevenx]

In newer Metroid games it takes just one missile to open a red hatch so that's a much clearer indication that 5 missiles.

[ronny14]

So, I have 3 ideas.
1: The door opens slightly each time it is shot, and progressively becomes blue-er. The problem here is that the missile explosion will probably obscure most of it, and if moved behind, may look awkward.
2: Special doors have a lock around them with a symbol indicating what weapon will break them, similarly to the different block types found throughout Metroid games. Due to the size of the door, however, making the symbols clear without looking awkward would be difficult.
3: The door opens with 1 missile.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

Interesting! Your first idea could work pretty well if it stayed blue-ish for a short amount of time before fading back to red; it'd encourage the players to carry on shooting missiles before it resets completely to red. For your second idea, you could make an enemy or creature or something use some kind of missile to tell the player that's how you open the door. That being said, you could also have a sound cue for objects that can be destroyed with missiles. The third idea might be the easiest.

[ronny14]

So I tried out idea 2. Instead of the symbol being on the door, it's on a small hologram in front of it.

When you shoot it once, 1 of the 5 dots above the missile hologram goes away.

After 5 times, all of the dots have vanished, along with the hologram and the door.

I'm still working on how it looks, to make it looks more like a hologram projector and not a missile pickup.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

I think your idea could work on a higher resolution, but as it is now you may encounter readability problems, as it's quite discreet but makes the situation more visually complex.
I don't know if you've played the first Metroid, but the missile door shares the same green as Samus; when you switch the missiles on, Samus changes colour but so does the door! What's interesting in that example is the way you can understand the situation rather easily through the interaction between the door and Samus.
As for the dots, why not integrate them directly into the door's design?