Let’s look at level design (sorta) and the 鬼. Er, I mean GUI.

This post will be a bit brief, as the things I’ve done with Gonna Catcha are rather simple and better expressed in a series of images.
The first thing was to the grid resolution for the game’s levels.  The old 16 x 16 cell size made the test levels feel small and their designs limiting:
Not that I actually tried designing them.  I mean, putting
Internet speak into a level’s design is SOOOOO gauche.

So I reduced the cell size to 8 x 8, allowing me to cram more details, hallways, twists and turns into a single level:

This might be a little overboard.
Feeling… lonely?
The second thing are some proposed changes to the user interface at the top of the screen:
Possible new user interface.

The addition of a round timer below the round counter.  To my knowledge, all arcade games have a way for it to reliably to bring itself to a game over state, in case the player(s) abandon the machine mid-game.  That way, it wouldn’t waste precious quarter-sucking time.  For many arcade games this comes naturally, by having enemies that persistently chase and/or attack the player(s) until all lives are lost. For games that don’t have that guarantee (Gonna Catcha included), a round timer is used to make sure the game ends.

Also, if the either the number of lives remaining or number of spirits in-hand exceed five, then that counter will switch to a digital counter:

Too…much…stuff…

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