[Prototype] Edge Match Puzzle

flobar

Description
A small prototype with 6 puzzles.
Move or rotate tiles to match the colours.

Gameplay


It's a very simple concept but I haven't really found any other games similar to this. Unless I didn't look hard enough.
What do you guys think?

Play the game

francoisvn

A puzzle game with grids and stuff? I felt the summoning ritual ;)

Here's my thoughts as I play now:

• Minor, but your embedded image in your OP isn't working. You might have better luck hosting it somewhere like imgur.
  
• It was a bit confusing that you can both rotate pieces and swap them around. When I swapped with another piece it was initially unexpected.
  
• It seems like most puzzles can be solved with just rotation, until quite late in the game. That pacing feels a bit slow for something that's there from the start and you can accidentally trigger.
  
• Playing again a bit, I realise that you might have wanted rotation to come in a bit later. When I clicked a tile and swap the rotation buttons, my instinct was to use them.
  
• The goal of trying to solve within a limited number of moves isn't very exciting to me. Personally I enjoy the aspect of trying to solve a puzzle, but I don't really care to try minimize the number of moves. YMMV
  
• The UI is quite polished, but also pretty functional. Well done :)
  
• I feel like I've seen the concept before, but don't let that bother you - you can always make it your own.
  
• Interesting that you wrap the levels when finished. Not a problem at this stage, just an interesting choice.
  
• I think you'd get more of a response if you made it easier to play (accessing the game, not the difficulty). Personally I've found good success by uploading an HTML5 build to somewhere like itch.io
  
• The colors on the tiles are all fairly similar. That might not work very well for color blind players. You could improve that with a more specific set of colors, or by adding some sort of pattern/texture (like purple has lines, blue has dots, ...).
  
• Other mechanic ideas: tiles that are fixed and cannot be moved/rotated. Tiles that can only be rotated or moved, but not the other.
  

flobar

@francoisvn thanks for checking it out.

- Weird, I see the embedded image on my side. Will look into it thanks.
- Eventually I will add a quick tutorial on how to move and rotate the tiles to hopefully make it clearer.
- I wanted to keep the pacing slow as I want to target a more casual player and gradually increase the difficulty.
- Another idea, in regards to the rotation buttons, is to have them on screen initially but deactivated until you select a tile.
- I added the move and best count as an additional challenge for a player. But maybe I emphasized it too much? I could make it less prominent. I do however like the idea of trying to complete a level in the least amount of moves. This is the reason why I kept most of them somewhat simple so that you have a better chance of figuring out the best moves.
- Thanks. I'm a UI designer/developer so I guess it shows haha.
- I have seen the concept before but I think I can improve on it.
- I wrapped the levels at the end so that I didn't have to create an end screen for now.
- Yes I should create an html version.
- I've thought about color blind players, and I've seen games with a color blind option, but I think it's something I can focus on later.
- The other game I mentioned that was very similar actually implemented these ideas.

Thanks again for such constructive feedback.

francoisvn

flobar said:

- Weird, I see the embedded image on my side. Will look into it thanks.

Have a look in an incognito/private browser window. You can probably see it because you're logged in.

flobar said:

- I wanted to keep the pacing slow as I want to target a more casual player and gradually increase the difficulty.

I think my original comment was badly written. What I meant was that it feels wrong that you have mechanics that are present and really easy to stumble into from early on, but you don't require them to solve the puzzle until a lot later in the game. The pacing of difficulty isn't the problem, and I am generally a fan of slower pacing (rather err on the side of being slightly too slow instead of too fast). However, if players can access (what is effectively) an optional mechanic, but it's not part of what players are interacting with to solve puzzles (making it optional), then I think they will fail to learn how your game works and get the vital feedback at the right time. Later in the game when you actually need them to use that mechanic, they will be less likely to do so.

If you only introduced the second mechanic a bit later, and made sure that it is required to solve that puzzle, then players would be able to focus on it and have a much better chance of internalizing it. That introduction of and focus on mechanics is the pacing I was referring to :)

flobar said:

- I've thought about color blind players, and I've seen games with a color blind option, but I think it's something I can focus on later.

FWIW I don't think you need a color blind option, you should be able to incorporate it in the core of the game and IMHO it would be better for everyone, not just color blind players. Although something like 5-10% of the population have some form of color blindness, so even if it just helped them it would be a win.