Power-Up Time: How Long Should Power-Ups Last

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In this article we’ll talk about determining how long power ups should last when making your game. When you work on your game it won’t be long before you start tweaking your power ups, pick ups, or other collectibles and some of the most basic game design techniques involve just determining how long something should last.

First things first, determine the intent of your game. Do you want to make the player powerful? Do you want them to have brief respite? Is it temporary? Is it permanent? Does it have drawbacks? This will be your guiding principle when figuring out the parameters of your power-up.

Typically when adding power-ups the more often it appears the shorter it should last, the frequency should be representative of the length, meanwhile one that appears infrequently should last much much longer but ultimately the kind of game you make will determine how you approach power-ups.

In games like Binding of Isaac, players get power-ups that last the entirety of the game creating a much more powerful than at the beginning of the game sometimes at great cost or in exchange for something else. Smaller power ups like Tarot Cards are temporary or provide a one time boost but frequent.

Other games like Super Metroid use power ups as a form of progression to allow players to continue the game, tie into puzzles that unlock, or defeat specific enemies that previous were unbeatable.

In the Atomic Shooter I want players to feel powerful for short frequent bursts as waves of enemies rush forward. As a result I made weapon drops plentiful but short-lived. Meanwhile shield power ups are much less frequent only providing respite when players need them the most. They typically increase as the player gets closer to death while weapon power ups trickle in at a steady pace. Hopefully this article has given you some insight into how to structure your own power ups and encourage you to think about when, how long, and where you use them. Until next time, happy coding.

Feature Release: Power-Ups

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Stake JEWEL and receive in-game bonuses!

Today, we are excited to introduce additional utility to our governance tokens, cJEWEL and sJEWEL, with the release of Power-Ups! Players can now receive in-game enhancements and rewards by allocating a portion of their holdings toward activating various Power-Ups.

These initial Power-Ups are available in both Crystalvale and Serendale, though some future releases may be realm-specific.

Read on to find out more!

What are Power-Ups?

Power-Ups are a collection of in-game enhancements that are available to players that hold enough cJEWEL or sJEWEL (hereafter, cJEWEL for simplicity). Each Power-Up has a specific cJEWEL amount that must be allocated to it in order to activate its benefits. Some premium features will also require Power-Up allocations prior to access. Power-Ups do not consume cJEWEL nor the JEWEL used to produce the cJEWEL, but will only remain active if you continue to hold the necessary balance required to activate them.

Power-Up Types

There are three primary Power-Up types:

• Type 1 Power-Ups: The simplest type, providing a single tier of benefits that is activated by allocating the required amount of cJEWEL.
• Type 2 Power-Ups: These present the player with multiple tier options with varying cJEWEL allocation requirements for each tier.
• Type 3 Power-Ups: These provide a variable number of charges based on the number of Heroes a player owns, at a fixed cJEWEL allocation for every charge. Each charge contains multiple Hero slots, allowing the player to assign their Heroes up to the maximum charges and total allotted Hero slots.

Power-Up Requirements

Each Power-Up has a Minimum Lock Time associated with it. In order to activate the Power-Up, players must always have a cJEWEL lock time higher than the minimum lock time. If the player’s cJEWEL lock time drops below this minimum, the Power-Up will be cancelled.

Players must also maintain an amount of cJEWEL equal to the amount they have allocated to Power-Ups. Calling the Emergency Withdraw function will cancel all Power-Ups.

Cancelling Power-Ups

When a Power-Up is cancelled, the cJEWEL allocated to it will not be immediately available for use elsewhere. Instead, each Power-Up has a Cancellation Hold Time that indicates how long after cancelling the Power-Up the cJEWEL will be available again for use elsewhere.

A Hero Slot Hold Time of the same duration as the Cancellation Hold Time also goes into effect when removing Heroes from a Type 3 Power-Up. Players must wait this amount of time before re-assigning those slots to other Heroes.

Available Power-Ups

Today, we are launching two Power-Ups, both of which are Type 3: Quick Study and Rapid Renewal.

Quick Study

• Description: Grants a 15% bonus to experience gained from questing to each assigned Hero.
• Cost: 30 cJEWEL per 6 Heroes
• Minimum Lock Time: 7 days / Cancellation Hold Time: 1 day

Rapid Renewal

• Description: Reduces the stamina recharge rate of assigned Heroes by an additional 3 seconds per Hero level.
• Cost: 20 cJEWEL per 6 Heroes
• Minimum Lock Time: 7 days / Cancellation Hold Time: 1 day

Activating a Power-Up

To activate a Power-Up, visit the Jeweler in either realm. If you have not yet staked any JEWEL for c/sJEWEL, or do not have enough, you will need to do so first. You can learn more about staking and the benefits of c/sJEWEL in the game docs.

Make sure that your JEWEL lock-up time is greater than the Minimum Lock Time of the Power-Up you wish to subscribe to. If it drops below this minimum, the Power-Up will be automatically cancelled. Calling the Emergency Withdraw function will also cancel all Power-Ups.

Click on the Power-Up NPC at the Jeweler and select “Manage Power-Ups.” This will bring up a list of all available Power-Ups in the game. Choose one that you would like to activate, and select “Manage Power-Up.”

The next screen will show details about the Power-Up, and allow you to choose how many charges you would like to subscribe to. Each charge allows you to apply these initial Power-Ups to 6 Heroes.