First of all let me explain a bit about this mechanic:

In battles, we have a “Battle Track” that compliments the “Base Track” music in any given level. These tracks play simultaneously at all times, only heard when they are required.

There is a third track of music that plays with the battle track called a “Beat Track”. The difference here is that you can’t actually hear this track since it’s silent, we like to think of it like it’s a secret track.

What’s the point of that? Well, in battle we have a mechanic that consists in attacking your enemy at the same time one of those beats occur, you will be rewarded with an attack bonus! Groovy! Part of the challenge is discovering what instrument has the secret beat in every song. (There are also visual cues)

We called this Rhythm Hits. We originally designed it so you could chain combos and make even greater damage, but changes in the battle animations and mechanics made this an impossible task.

Attacks are way too slow to actually hit the beats in tempo, so we decided to create a different mode just for it called Rush Mode.

(Don’t worry, Rhythm Hits still exists, and they’re easier now that we made the sword attack quicker. But we consider it a bonus kind of thing more than a mandatory game mechanic)

Sorry for the wall of text! I hope some of you find these kind of development stories interesting somehow.

SO RUSH MODE!

We made this mode as your one and only special attack. You need to give and receive damage to fill a gauge (similar to a limit) and your stamina meter must be full to activate it.

Once activated, your enemy will be stunned (meaning you don’t have to worry about evading attacks), your sword attacks are instantaneous, and the “Beat track” (secret track) can be faintly heard in order to help you achieve the right rhythm.

So neat, now you can make powerful combos if you hit the beat correctly and destroy your enemies. YAY!

But oh boy there was a problem.

Rush mode completely annihilates bosses, making them a complete joke with any lack of challenge whatsoever.

We discussed this intensively; should we keep this mechanic? If we do, how do we limit it? Lots of effort went into making this mechanic and we were so close to cut it permanently.

But lo and behold, play testers found it really fun and satisfying!

THAT was the most important reason to keep it and fix it. If players didn’t find it fun we would have trashed it with a lot of pain in our hearts, but at least knowing that we did the right thing.

We believe that if a mechanic is simply fun, we have to do the best we can to make it work.

And we did!

This is already a little long, perhaps I’ll post a follow up to this one explaining how we solved it some other day. Maybe you will see it for yourself when you play it ;)