Rising deadly water has never been, and will never be, fun, in any way, shape or form. it doesn't make games much more difficult, just more frustrating. if you want to get players to speed up, add a timer.
I gotta say, after having played this game a lot of times, and it being my favorite game on kong, almost every "power-up" you can get simply makes the game harder. Every "power-up" except "L"ife, "C"lear, and "U"pgrade will pause your game after you pick it up and after it wears off. At higher levels, this pause throws off your rhythm and often kills you.
Also, want an idle game? take your max population (I'll use my current numbers as an example, in this case 5710). now, look in your information tab (or hit "I" on your keyboard) and hover over the orange bar at the bottom left. That's your spawned population per day from housing (985). divide your max pop by this spawned pop (5.8). that gives you the number of in-game days it takes to reach that max pop. Now take that and multiply by 3 to give you the real life minutes it takes to reach that many days (17.4). now multiply by 60 to reach the Real life seconds it takes to reach that many days (1043.45). Finally, divide that by 1.5 and round the decimals up to the nearest whole number (696) This is What your Life score should be at or above to have a population that persists indefinitely. Reevaluate this score every time you expand your Land by a bit, as you will get more houses and a higher max pop.
As best as I can understand, these are how various things work in this game that aren't described: the number above a person is their level. the souls you get from 1 person is their level rounded up divided by 2 (level 5 = 3 souls). the green bar beneath them is their life, and their blue bar is their exp. they get exp from picking up items, and standing near and education building. cost of speed is it's current amount divided by 5, cost of life and sight is it's current level divided by 10, cost of land is it's current level divided by 3. All rounded down. When looking at classes, grayed out classes are turned off. classes lower on the tree can only be achieved through their lesser versions higher up (a person needs to be a peasant to be a worker to be an engineer). The items listed when you mouse over a class shows what the person needs to collect to qualify for that class. the Level shows the minimum level to reach that class. Resource upgraded means that class can carry x2.
the 50x50 puzzle isn't even a puzzle. it's a paint by numbers pixel art. there is no difficulty involved in coloring in a bunch of squares with the #9 label and then filling in the rest from there. The only thing difficult about it is the time required to fill in every square in the first place.
The only thing I can really say is that for those just starting: while it may seem like it is better to just reclaim blocks quickly, you might be better off saving those 3-4 soldiers you were going to send and instead use them each as escorts for scavengers and leaders to recruit more people and get extra food. use your unused people as scouts. finding those groups of 3-4 people even 2-3 blocks away from your base can help a ton when you need only send a leader and 1-2 soldiers to them to get them.
When I went through the main game I was mostly like "meh, it's a little too easy", then I tried the "HARD" game... wow. level 7 took me over 200 deaths alone on hard. thank god hard only has 11 levels.
It is possible to get 470 or higher on every level. best tip I can give you is that he starts counting as soon as your last piece is placed, not when stuff stops moving, use that to your advantage. for instance level 14. you'd normal do it by blocking the top 2 rolling wheels, placing a flat peice and putting the servant on that peice, but to get a faster time, place the first peice anywhere and quickly place the flat peice and the servent in order to get his countdown to start, and he hopefully finishes it before you hit the line. Also, if you're going for fast times, never hit restart, because it always starts the timer right away. either re-enter from the level select screen or have a servant cross the line, it lets you get lined up for the first piece again.
haven't played this in a while, and still rocks just as much as ever. I did notice however, the game seems to have a dfficulty curve such that it's easy, it gets hard, then it gets a little easier. I say this because the game never allows 2 pels to land at the same time. a little bit in, the pels come at odd times, throwing you off, but near the end when you get in the 1 mill+ range, the pels come at such a steady speed that you're ready for them.
beat the game in about 5 minutes with 22 deaths for my best, and then went on to do FML with about 1.3k deaths in 30 minutes. free fall and amazing are insanely hard in that mode.
Extremely fun game. I now almost play this game at least once a day, often when I wake up in order to see just how awake I am. my current highest score is 1,227,327 with a combo of 456.
and Razbal, I hope to have a competition with you over time. :P
Very fun game, but it almost seems too random if you'll get a get score, since you become entirely dependent near the end on the power-ups, the best being auto-pilot to guarantee you hit every ball later in the game, causing a massive score, or a triple score, and with luck, getting a massively higher score than you would have ever gotten before. all the times I was below 100k, it was because I only got good power-ups when I still only had to deal with 1-2 balls. One suggestion that I do have, is that instead of making the paddle move with the arrow keys, give us 3 keys on the keyboard corresponding to the paddle placement, it would allow us to instantly move it where we need it.
Great game, but a little predictable at times.
Things I'd suggest:
~ A %-complete per level rather than overall, to let you know when you've missed something in that specific level.
~ Change the controls a bit. It was a bit awkward using spacebar for shooting rather than jumping, and I'd often make the mistake of trying to jump via spacebar, even on the boss. A replacement could be shift or ctrl, since they're near the pinky and not being used. I would have suggested e, but that can make moving right a bit difficult at times.
~ To go along with my above suggestion, possible an options menu to change the controls ourselves.
~ Lastly, a bit more explaination into what each thing you're collecting does early on rather than letting us figure it out entirely on our own. it wasn't until around lv 3 that I noticed what golden eggs actually do.
The levels are too randomly sorted. some are way too hard and given to you too early, and others are too easy and given to you too late.
the scoring needs a little more work, since it needs to be able to tell when you made the right image, but it's just moved over a bit.
more stencils per level need to be available, even if not all are used, since knowing the exact shapes I need to use made it too easy.
advertisement every 5 or so levels is annoying, I know you want to get paid for your work, but that's what the tip jar is for. I wouldn't mind an advertisement on the main screen or credits, but having it somewhere you may accidentally click is annoying.
3/5
The AI needs to be better and/or scripted events need to be in place. too often I can hide in a place that the AI never paths to because of the way their movement is based, and just wait there till the green guy comes nearby, pop out, kill him and run back. hell, the hardest part isn't killing the green guy, it's trying to get to the semi-randomly placed exit without being seen. There need to be scripts in place such as guards that actually follow the target, the target staying in a set area, the exits spawning in a set area away from you, and guards actually following bloody footsteps instead of running in circles in what is effectively a closet. I've even had it once where I killed the green guy, the AI pathed near the corner the body was around, ignored the footsteps and turned around, and the exit spawned directly in front of me.
203 on my first try. it only got difficult after the second time the difficulty was increased (think it was at 180) because the 4th game added an extra bar to the top and bottom that was slightly away from the edge. far enough to not notice right away, close enough that you could hit it. I actually lost on the 1st game, but because I concentrated too much on the 4th.
 "Box Clever Level Pack"){kind=icon}
 "Pel"){kind=icon}
 "Farm of Souls"){kind=icon}
 "Diamond Hollow II"){kind=icon}
 "Picma Squared"){kind=icon}
 "Rebuild"){kind=icon}
 "Give Up, Robot"){kind=icon}
 "King of Shapes"){kind=icon}
 "This is the Only Level TOO"){kind=icon}
 "Dale & Peakot"){kind=icon}
 "Copy Cat"){kind=icon}
 "Ultimate Assassin 2"){kind=icon}
 "Multitask"){kind=icon}