[prototype] Rocketto!
WEB BUILD!!!
http://www.tuism.com/rocketto/
ROCKETTO! is a simple, fast and chaotic game of match 3, where matched blocks TURN INTO ROCKETS and fly off to the opponent's end. As always, the goal is to clear blocks from your side and bury your opponent!
Rockets push blocks when they bash into each other, so the game is one of attrition where players are fighting for territory on a shared board. Blocks that rocketed remain dormant until they are unlocked by matches made adjecent to them.
WEB BUILD!!!
http://www.tuism.com/rocketto/
Changes 01/19/2014
1. After blocks have been matched, they turn into rockets and fly across. Dead rockets lie dormant until they are unlocked by a match being made next to them.
2. Can see next blocks :D
3. Placeholder sounds/music added
4. Win/lose screen added
Rocketto Diary 11/2013
This was *supposed* to be an E: competition game, but I know the deadline was missed *woefully*, so I'm not really expecting it to be in E:, but I thought I'd mention it :) The concept started with Tiltris (which I started for E:), and then some mechanics were thought up and added, and eventually @Loet offered to jam together, so I thought we'd start on something afresh. Big thanks to @Loet for jumping in the project and taking care of a lot of the code which boggles my brain!
We're busy converting the code into the new 2D framework, which is pretty cool cos there are some new methods that fit 2D much better. Yay :D We are however finding it super hard to find documentation for any of the stuff in the introduction video, which we downloaded just to scrub and scrub and scrub through: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/11/12/unity-4-3-2d-game-development-overview/
Stuff to come:
1. Bug fixes for pushing blocks
2. Changing the grid size to pace the game better
3. Rocket blocks to "unlock" back to normal blocks when matches are made around them.
4. More mechanic brainstorming for maximal fun engagement
Then:
5. Decent AI
6. Single player campaign/mode
7. More...!!!
http://www.tuism.com/rocketto/
ROCKETTO! is a simple, fast and chaotic game of match 3, where matched blocks TURN INTO ROCKETS and fly off to the opponent's end. As always, the goal is to clear blocks from your side and bury your opponent!
Rockets push blocks when they bash into each other, so the game is one of attrition where players are fighting for territory on a shared board. Blocks that rocketed remain dormant until they are unlocked by matches made adjecent to them.
WEB BUILD!!!
http://www.tuism.com/rocketto/
Changes 01/19/2014
1. After blocks have been matched, they turn into rockets and fly across. Dead rockets lie dormant until they are unlocked by a match being made next to them.
2. Can see next blocks :D
3. Placeholder sounds/music added
4. Win/lose screen added
Rocketto Diary 11/2013
This was *supposed* to be an E: competition game, but I know the deadline was missed *woefully*, so I'm not really expecting it to be in E:, but I thought I'd mention it :) The concept started with Tiltris (which I started for E:), and then some mechanics were thought up and added, and eventually @Loet offered to jam together, so I thought we'd start on something afresh. Big thanks to @Loet for jumping in the project and taking care of a lot of the code which boggles my brain!
We're busy converting the code into the new 2D framework, which is pretty cool cos there are some new methods that fit 2D much better. Yay :D We are however finding it super hard to find documentation for any of the stuff in the introduction video, which we downloaded just to scrub and scrub and scrub through: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/11/12/unity-4-3-2d-game-development-overview/
Stuff to come:
1. Bug fixes for pushing blocks
2. Changing the grid size to pace the game better
3. Rocket blocks to "unlock" back to normal blocks when matches are made around them.
4. More mechanic brainstorming for maximal fun engagement
Then:
5. Decent AI
6. Single player campaign/mode
7. More...!!!
Comments
Playable web build: http://www.tuism.com/rockettoGame/
> Changed over to 2D engine, lots of buggery, some cool new methods like checking for overlaps instead of damn raycasts :)
> The collisions are more robust, less block-eats-block scenarios.
> Made the field a bit smaller, as the large field felt slow.
Still more to implement before the core mechanics are in place - namely coloured lock blocks which could be unlocked, a more powerful rocket push when combos are made, and control tweaks.
The AI toggle toggles the AI on the P1 left side - not P2 on the right.
All inputs welcome! :D
http://www.tuism.com/rockettoGame/
We'll be pushing more updates as they come! Also working on putting some sound in. That'll juice it a bit :)
Update time!!! Big thanks again to @Loet for a hugest part in the code, I stared at the Unity code for EVER and could hardly make a dent in what I needed it to do, and Loet just kicked its ass :)
WEB BUILD:
http://www.tuism.com/rocketto
Changes 01/19/2014
1. After blocks have been matched, they turn into rockets and fly across. Dead rockets lie dormant until they are unlocked by a match being made next to them.
2. Can see next blocks :D
3. Placeholder sounds/music added
4. Win/lose screen added
Stuff to Note:
1. The visual theme/design is needing an update to reflect the mechanic, that's being worked on.
2. The sleeping blocks that gets waken up from matches being made next to them should be waking up AFTER the blocks fly off. The timing isn't quite right right now.
3. The AI player should be P2 (direction arrows) (when toggling with the P key), but is right now P1 (wasd). So if you wanna play against the quite stupid AI, please use the arrow keys and press P to toggle AI.
Again, you can play the Rocketto WEB BUILD right here:
http://www.tuism.com/rocketto
The controls:
P1 - wasd
P2 - direction arrows
Please gimme some feedback on this! :D Please please please please!
Specifically:
1. How do you feel about the pacing of the game?
2. Did anything seem confusing to you? What were they?
3. Were there any "aha!" moments from first play to later plays? Did you feel that there were any deeper strategy in the game?
4. Did anything behave in a way you didn't expect?
Thanks guys! :D
Very cool update.
The one problem with 2 player games is... it's a bit of a pain to play properly. Having AI is cool, but I think you may be well off spending a bit more time on it (it seems to play a few good moves, and then just give up... o.0). It's hard to give comments on things such as pace when I win so quickly.
(One quick way to improve the AI would simply be to not worry about matching, and just worry about placing blocks in the lowest possible openings, that will at least stretch out the game a bit, and by chance it should get a few matchings).
The one thing I do notice that it feels ever-the-less buggy - that alone improved the experience considerably.
Edit:
And one more thing, your use of "P" for the key and "P1" and "P2" confuse me each time I play it. For absolute confusion avoidance, make "A" the key to toggle "AI", and spell out player (it's the 21st century :P !)
Edit 2:
One last thing :P I quite like the clean lines of the loser/winner graphics (as opposed to the pixel-art in the actual tiles) - something to consider when you do the final graphics.
I completely agree on the AI thing - that was one of the earlier things I focused with Bear Chuck, so that people can test in single player easier. To that end, I'm still learning the basics of Unity and Loet is doing a heck of a lot on the basic mechanics, so we hadn't gotten to the AI yet. Right now the AI is utterly random :P
As for the interface prompt, yes I'll simplify it, thanks for the input :P A won't work for the toggle though as it's part of WASD, the gold standard in direction keys on the left hand side :P I'll find something else for it :)
And the art style - I'm working on the theme too so that the mechanics make coherent sense, and as part of that I was wondering about moving away from the pixel art style to something cleaner :) So we're possibly on the same page :)
What does everyone think, pixels or vector? I have a feeling that we're all possibly getting a tad tired of pixels :P
Thanks for playing! :D
Had a play and thought it was pretty cool. Looks like there could be some cool "attacks" happening on Combos.
like a 2 color combo shoots blocks right over to the other side of the screen and then explodes into double blocks!
Looking forward to the AI Fix, it's pretty funny how it just gives up and starts stacking randomly.
Played 2 player with Ruan yesterday. It's a rad concept for a game, there's a ton of potential here (and already a lot of polish).
My biggest criticism is that making combos can have very little effect on the outcome of the game. In fact I'd imagine a winning strategy (at low level play) might be simply placing as few blocks as possible and waiting for your opponent to fill up his/her side first (and maybe blocking the divide with random blocks). (I haven't actually tried this though)
@BlackShipsFilltheSky yeah that's one of the mechanical nuances that I've been toying with too - It creates a bunch of strategic concerns as to block placement which doesn't really exist much in other block games - but I did feel that not dropping blocks could actually be a strategy. The one way of changing this dynamic would be to have the blocks be pushed all the way to the edges so that any matches made will be advantageous regardless of position - but that changes a lot of strategy too. I would like to test more before concluding either way. We will definitely test that version too, later.
Oh and believe it or not I was very much thinking of exactly that example when I thought I should give vector a go. I totally fell in love with their site when I saw that updated vector style, it's so pleasing :) so considered :)
The spikes thing fit their game very well, I loved it - I'm pretty sure I saw it AFTER I started Bear Chuck, though I'm fuzzy on the chronology of it in my head now :)