A life count gives you nice options for difficulty level (more /less lives, damage made by traps and the like).
Are you using checkpoints in the levels?
If not, you should at least offer some beginner mode where you don't have to repeat the full level due to a tiny mistake. Either by giving more chances (lives) or by using some checkpoint system (invisible checkpoints may serve well enough). In other games the beginner mode often does not include all levels so there is a motivation for the palyers to try another difficulty level.
But for sure offer "no mercy" as hardcore mode. Fans of the game will love it and gladly accept the challenge.

Thanks for the input.



Yeah, I think that's what I'm going to do, the game feels much better already. You can still die from one hit when you fall into lava pits and such.
The game is so hard right now, almost stupidly hard. I'd even say in its current state (with the 1 hit kill mentality) it's one of the hardest games ever made, even for me as the dev. And I think people would not like that too much.

EDIT: Thank you too, Firo. Some good points. I have one checkpoint in about 90+% of the levels (some levels are not suited for checkpoints). Without those the game would be outright frustrating so I'm going to keep them for the hard mode, too.
I think I will just do a regular and a "Superku" mode with one hit kills.

The game has (/ is supposed to have) online leaderboards for 3 different times per level. What do I do with 2 difficulties though, separate leaderboards?

If it is hard for the dev, then you indeed must change something, unless you want to advertise as "hardest game ever made".
I remember when we did the Prince of Lotteria project in 2012, it was quite easy for us to get through the levels, although we (the devs) failed here and then. We thought the difficulty was challenging but fair.

The first comments on the project were: "too diffcult", "frustrating", "unfair". ...:D
You know every little detail of the levels, all the pitfalls, all the dirty tricks, the players don't.

Haha yes, I get that.
However, I'm not too sure how much you should the customer dictate such stuff. There could be 50% of the customers saying it's way too hard while the other half loves the difficulty. If I lower the latter the game may not appeal to those anymore who are looking for the challenge.
Personally, I'm always disappointed by the Mario games (2D, 3D) because they have become so easy that the absence of challenge kills the enjoyment for me.

EDIT:

Yeah, that's absolutely true!

I would recommend three diffculty levels:
- Beginner: Really easy (from dev point of view), multiple lives, additional checkpoints, not all levels and bosses included
- Normal: somewhat easy (from dev point of view), less lives, less checkpoints, all levels and bosses included
- Hard: Current version


If you're looking for some really hard sample game you might want to get your hands on a Genesis emulator and play "Rocket Knight Adventures" for a few hours.
If features unlockable diffculty levels and ranges from challenging to pretty-f**ing-single-hit-I-hate-this-f**ing-stupid-game crazy hard difficulty.

I would expect a similar way could work for Superku.

The point is to make a game fair. And that can be really difficult. A game may be hard as hell, but it has to be fair, so the player knows HE messed up, but he had his chance. I expect that you have some common areas in your levels where you and your testers keep failing, because timing is essential but hard to hit, or due to random stuff which can lead to unavoidable death.

Try to get a bunch of testers, from the primary targe gamers as well as some other people, and watch while they play. Watch their emotions, watch how they play. Record everything so you can look up things later on. It will give you an idea of the real problematic areas in the game. Some of those might not be fixed easily by just adding additional lives.
This is hard work, but it can make the difference between a good and a great game.

Regarding the leaderboard: you either have to use one leaderboard per difficulty or some kind of score factor for each difficulty (this one would be hard to balance, though)

hey kartoffel, nice to see you are still working on the project! (its been a while since i left a7 back then after finishing marble sheep.)

i agree with the others, that a 1 life count is probably the way to go. however i like the hud-free screens and videos of your game, this keeps the focus on the gameplay mechanics... so maybe you can think about a visual representation of the "lifes". maybe the "ku" gets a little bit more pale with each hit until it fades out.

This is what came to my mind. The old creative saying "Don't work in a vacuum."
At a point for writing, games ,comics, music, and all other things creative, you need to start the exposer to first, respected peers, then test groups of the target audience.

I saw game-play videos the other day, the platformer was high die/ to respawn.
One hit one kill, but you respawned on current screen. The player loved the rapid fever pace of it.

As I understand you worked many ideas around Superku, if it does have a core play system, then build lives around the target audience's use of the core system.

Anyways my two-cents.
Take it out the laboratory, do some field testing...
Mal

you probably mean Superku