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We are developing game with moving hero and many static (not moving) speedboosts which speed hero up for 1 second when collected.
We allow user to upgrade speedboost during gameplay for 1$ and that extend speedboost duration to 2 seconds.
From UX point of view and when user upgrade speedboost we wonder if all boosts should give player speed of 2s or only boost which are not yet on the screen should give user extra speed? What do you think?
This seems like an implementation detail leaking into your design. It seems to me that the only reason to have only off-screen power-ups changed is that they haven't "spawned" yet, and you don't want to change something that's already spawned because that's not easy in whatever game engine you happen to be using. Am I right in that?
I personally lean more towards upgrading them all at once - otherwise you run the risk of creating disconnection between the upgrade and the in-game effect. Players love to immediately see the effects of their actions. In fact, you should change the appearance of the speed boosts when they're upgraded, so players can see that there's something different about them now, even before they collect one.
This is an "it depends" answer since we're inside a gaming environment, where UX have many shapes and forms. I think you should go back to the "game objectives and strategy" document and find out what your game does, and how users get more fun (if that's the objective).
But my answer to the question would be - let all speedbosts have the 2s impact on lower levels, and disregard them on higher levels (as the user gets better at the game). By this you can keep up the "I want to solve this game"-feeling a little time longer.
Unless you provide some form of radar indicator to notify the user of off-screen power-ups, the existence of off-screen power-ups is an implementation detail which users should be unaware of. So, you should pretend (for gameplay purposes) that such power-ups do not exist.
