I have never in my life owned a drawing tablet nor done digital art but I really wanna get into it. I was considering getting an ipad, which are kind of expensive so I thought of asking first what would you recommend getting.
I would appreciate suggestions and any information.
I am working on a Rhythm game with a friend. I am a big fan of difficulty in video games while he is more chill but my favorite rhythm games will forever be the Rhythm Heaven series while his only framework for rhythm games is Sekiro and Crypt of the Necrodancer.
I created a very challenging Rhythm Heaven-like demo for the game where you only have to press one input at the correct time. The game is flavored as you blocking sword attacks from an enemy.
He enjoyed it a lot, many people would play it for hours trying to perfect it and agreed that it was very very tough but in a good way.
Now, my friend proposed that I should add a health bar to the game, which I immediately rejected. In my logic, adding a health bar would only make me have to reduce the difficulty in order to avoid it being frustrating rather than fun. In fact, back when people tested it, rhythm game enthusiasts shared that they really appreciated that I _didn't_ add a health bar that forced you to restart. However, he says that without a healthbar there's no real incentive to play.
A different friend then proposed to meet halfway and add an Osu-like health bar, that can be refilled by doing it correctly, but idk, in my vision of the game, a healthbar just gets in the way.
Especially cause I don't actually think it is as difficult as it could be, since the first half of the song is mostly an introduction to how to play the game.
There are already grades in the game, I don't know if they'll matter for anything beyond being grades since I don't really think I'd like them to stop you from progressing the story... Maybe only the worst grade would, but even that makes me feel weird.
Yet they both claim that otherwise I'm just making a game that plays itself, comparing it to 'Mixtape' and the like.
He really tries to mention the Dark Souls series (my favorite games of all time) in order to give me the idea that that'd be the fun, but to me this is a rhythm-first action-only in flavor game and to do it that way is nothing but trial and error.
I am willing to change my stance on health bars and maybe give it a try, but I wanted to hear what a public that is more experienced with rhythm games might have to say.