E: Futile
Hey guys... so here's my submission:
It's a little puzzle game where you have to get your balls to the bullseyes...but there's a catch: all the balls move together... and there's random shite in the way...
Check it out (Unity web player & ~6MB for the game)
Controls:
Mouse - scroll for zoom, drag for panning
Keyboard - Arrow keys to move
This is only the first iteration of a game that I plan to release a bit later... but I thought it was complete enough to count as a game just the way it is now.. ;)
Have fun!
:)
It's a little puzzle game where you have to get your balls to the bullseyes...but there's a catch: all the balls move together... and there's random shite in the way...
Check it out (Unity web player & ~6MB for the game)
Controls:
Mouse - scroll for zoom, drag for panning
Keyboard - Arrow keys to move
This is only the first iteration of a game that I plan to release a bit later... but I thought it was complete enough to count as a game just the way it is now.. ;)
Have fun!
:)
Futile.png
725 x 719 - 787K
Comments
This game already seems pretty solid. Great sounds and polish. The world gives really good feedback.
Some criticisms (that I hope are constructive):
You kind of throw everything at the player in the first level. I like that there are multiple ways to solve the problem. But I don't like that the problem is so open as to be daunting, there are too many choices for a new player and the choices don't mean anything because a new player doesn't know what the mechanics do, and the majority of the problem space is redundant anyway (because it'd actually be a challenge to use all of the problem space).
I solved the first level just using the floor arrows. That seemed immediately useful (because I could understand what they did at a glance). I tried going into the fire (in the hope it would give me fiery powers) but I just died.
I'd suggest trying to teach the player the mechanics gradually. I'm not advocating one-solution problems, I don't want that, but I do want levels that encourage me as a player to break out of my comfort zone.
What do the exploding blocks do? What does the blue block do? Is the crate box something different to the cardboard boxes? Is there a use for the fire? I saw the matrix blocks can move through teleporters, but I'm not sure why I'd want to do that.
I'm not certain whether your scoring method really works for this game (as it stands). The ideal score is getting the fewest moves possible, and with random levels that means scumming for an easy solution, getting a really high score, and never playing the game again.
I like the random level generation, and I think that could be a great draw for the game (like random levels in DD, or random Minesweeper levels, or random levels in Spelunky, or even random levels in Snood). But all those games have a lot of unknowns at the start (like hidden tiles in Minesweeper, or the colours you get in Snood). In Futile it is possible to figure out the solution at the start, it's only a question of whether you spotted the best solution.
I feel like in all those games the player enters into a situation that they know only some of the variables of, and then once committed have to use their resources to best solve the problem as information becomes available. This doesn't happen in Futile, which isn't a problem in itself, but it seems like scoring system relies on this being the case.
I'm not sure what the difference between 1, 2 and 3 levels were.
thanks for the feedback guys... I was a bit vague on purpose to get a proper perspective of first impressions.
So... here's what I left out of the intro:
1. I have built this game so far in about 4 days. My aim for phase 1 was to get the core mechanics working, which would be the 3 levels (each a bigger size), all the objects working properly, and the game mechanics working from end to end so that I can submit it for E: :)
2. My plan is to have 3 game modes: (1) "puzzle mode" that are provided out of the box - maybe 50 or 100 of them - with progression, scoring, leaderboards, social, etc. (2) "sandbox mode" with auto generated levels - just to have a quick whack at it for a few minutes (3) "creative mode" where players can create, submit, and share their own levels.
What you see now is just the sandbox mode. It generates levels based on very basic rules, and does not contain some of the more advanced objects like switches and doors etc. It also does not have proper puzzles. And the random generation sometimes causes quite funny levels.
Before I can start on proper levels, I need to get the back-end in order so that the game can download/update these from a web service whenever the user chooses, and so that I add levels dynamically, and don't need to use local storage.. etc. (this will ultimately be published on all platforms from mobile to pc to web to console). Once I have this in place the standard training levels, and progressive difficulty, etc will be in place, and everything will make more sense. This is where the real work starts... to make a successful puzzle you need to think twice as hard as any player who will eventually play it. This takes blood guts and sweat... by the gallon!
But just some info for now:
The movable objects are boxes, crates, and containers. For simplicity sake, let's say they respectively weigh 2, 3, and 4. You can move a maximum weight of 4. This means that you can move one, two, or any combination of them as long as the combined weight is less than 5.
Boxes burn immediately in fire. Crates burn out after 10 seconds, and containers can not burn. Explosive crates burn for 5 seconds, and then explodes, as well as burning all objects immediately around it. The burn effect will be used to create urgency with the use of crates in some cases, as they expire in x time. Explosions can be used to clear our difficult areas, etc...
Teleporters teleport, and converyors convey... there are also switches and doors, as well as powerups that adds lives, extra time, or gives temporary fire immunity, or strength to the player.
3. Scoring will be based on the amount of moves vs the amount of time remaining at the end of the level - I'm still working on that :P
Ideally levels will combine all of these in such a way that a player will need to really think it through - just imagine the possibilities.
Cheers.
Added some training/help stuff and a lot of back-end for the later version of the game.
For now just play offline or log in as guest :)