[Released] Phaze - a sort of physics puzzle
Check out this game. Its my first game to release publicly.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gravitygames.phaze&hl=en
Its only available on android right now. I will release it on iOS soon.
I started building it in cocos2d-x about a year ago. I recently started playing with unity, and I could port the entire game over in a few weeks (part time).
I also did the art(with my very limited skill)
It still has some bugs, and it needs way more levels.
Give it a go and leave some feedback.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gravitygames.phaze&hl=en
Its only available on android right now. I will release it on iOS soon.
I started building it in cocos2d-x about a year ago. I recently started playing with unity, and I could port the entire game over in a few weeks (part time).
I also did the art(with my very limited skill)
It still has some bugs, and it needs way more levels.
Give it a go and leave some feedback.
Comments
Do you have a video of it being played? It looks quite interesting from the screenshots.
The game controls is to rotate the device in order to change the gravity vector of the shapes, so it will be tricky to illustrate in a video, but i'll try.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2LxRlZtxGg
I feel right now it's a bit lacking in the sense of agency - it's like you don't have to do much to get a match going, and if you do it takes quite a while for them to clear (long wait time).
Of course I see that matching two will leave behind an orphan if there's three of the same colours. That may be a good incentive to "go for three stars" as it were, to clear everything.
Here are some untested suggestions :P
1. Make the match 3 or more, that makes the game more interesting, gives the player more impetus to manipulate the field. You can always have 4 of the same around to make it hard to clear everything.
2. Feels like you need some kind of different rates of movements, some kind of terrain thing. I see that there are dividers, but they aren't very interactive yet. Maybe sticky surfaces that will stick/release over time, or gravity wells, or something that goes on/off to vary the rate of movement, to give players a chance of manipulating the shapes in more "intentional" ways.
3. Make the match happen quicker? The waiting seems a bit of a downer.
4. Do the shapes match with shapes? Like two different coloured squares matching?
5. Combo chains and multipliers - give players incentive to "play well" - stacking things in a certain order that can clear blocks one after another quickly, or something.
6. Maybe let players "hold" one or two blocks? Not like 5 finger grab everything, but just one? As a temporary power up?
That's it for now :) Keep rolling, it looks cool :)
1. The number of matches is tied to a score multiplier. So 2 is only worth 20, where 3 is worth 40, 4 = 60, ect. Also time left after a level also adds to your score. And for now having orphans left, just means less score, but in the future it might be requirement to unlock more levels (or something like that)
2.The two levels in the video is very basic. Later levels do have moving parts, which causes more frustration. I will definitely introduce more interactive elements, like switches, doors, sticky walls, gravity wells, trampolines, conveyor belts, and maybe even things which can destroy shapes like spikes and lazers!
3.Everyone says that, but after playing it for awhile they tell me to keep it as is. You don't want shapes to pop too quickly either when you are trying to get them together. I'll tweak it a bit.
4. Right now it matches only on colour. Shapes are only there to affect the movement. I've played around with ideas to make similar shapes blend together. For instance a blue and red block becomes a purple block. But I just kept it simple for now.
5. I'll give that some thought. Could be cool to link up the matches.
6. Interesting idea, I'll make that an iap :) just kidding. I though about power ups, but wasn't sure what. This could be it.
Thanks for the feedback. Now I have an update to work on.
I'd agree with @Tuism that the matching delay slows things down a lot. Obviously there's some strategic usefulness in that delay, it gives players more control to get the 3 stars, but it really does look like a slowdown.
(Is there any reason for the long matching delay other than avoiding accidentally matching two shapes you don't want to match yet?)
So, I'm not really a match-3 game designer. I've never made a matching game, so any advice I give isn't from an expert.
In terms of speed, I've always felt that part of why Candy Crush Saga was so successful was that it made matching stuff really easy. Getting good combos requires some strategy, but many combos start chain reactions that clear a lot of extra candies. So while Candy Crush Saga is a fairly generic match-3, one of it's big draws was that it made players feel more skillful than in other matching games, through adding mechanics that allow well chosen player actions to have more effect on the match-3 board...
And this was especially gratifying because the effect that the action had was essentially random (because the chain reaction is often humanly unpredictable) which made it even more compelling because humans freaking love random rewards.
Also, full disclosure, obviously I love chain reactions (I'm the principle chain reaction designer on our game), so you can assume I have some bias regarding them.
So I guess what I'm getting at, is that without that that thing Match-3 thing that happens when you match 3 gems (and the board moves to fill the space and you get a combo, and if you're lucky or skillful you might make an extra combo), you're missing a big part of what makes match-3 games compelling.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. As a physics puzzle game Phaze has other appeals. But if you wanted more match-3 goodness I'd suggest:
Some sort of combo mechanic... e.g. making a match-3 makes a mini black hole that pulls shapes towards it, and if they match then you get extra combo score.
Regarding the delay before shapes match: If you want to keep flow going, shapes that match could stick together, they could still take a while to disappear, and it gives you a chance if you're skillful to stick other shapes to it
(I know that with this solution you might prematurely match 3 things instead of 4 or 5, but I'm not sure that asking the player to pause often for several seconds is the right solution... maybe there's another solution?)
At the moment there seems to be some score stuff going on, but it's also a puzzle to solve. I'm not too sure how it plays out, but in the video it seemed like there's a clear upper limit on how much score you could get. The score and the puzzle game (in the video) don't appear to interact perfectly. I'm not really too sure what role the score plays?
This is just me... again... not really a designer or player of match-3 games... but I'm not too fond of puzzles that must be solved in time limits.
I'd rather it be something like many of the levels in Candy Crush, where you have limited time, but your objective is getting a high score, and there's almost no upperlimit on how high that score can get.
If you wanted to make the game more like a score attack, maybe shapes keep appearing whenever a shape disappears... and the objective is to match as many shapes as possible within the time. Then it'd be a rush to match as many shapes as possible, rather than a puzzle.
Which might not be the game you're trying to create I realize now.
btw. Sorry to fixate so much on Candy Crush. I don't expect this is the sort of game you're trying to emulate... though I think it has some lessons to teach.
Anyway! Thanks for posting the video. This looks like a cool idea! I hope you're not done with it because it looks like it has a lot of untapped potential.
P.S. Have you tried putting faces on the shapes... I heard that makes every game better :P