D : 6 sided anarchy.
Ok, so this will be my first attempt at one of the MGSA competitions.
I want to build a puzzle/twitch game. In a fashion similar to the twitch type play or Tetris. You have to think and plan ahead as much as move and adjust fast enough.
Below are some screen shots from my game-play test. Still many tweeks before its fun. Blocks fall, each type is of a different material so slides bounces acts differently. You move the catch left and right and catch the blocks. When 3 or more similar blocks touch they disappear and you gain score. If they fall off the sides you lose a life/spare block.
As levels progress more types (up to 5) of blocks will fall and more frequently. I am still considering adding obstacles on levels for the blocks to fall through and also dropping them from differing locations making them spin etc.
Also considering adding a two button press feature activating the power-ups you might collect time will tell if I get to that.
TODO List. (i.e. everything I can think of right now)
1) Nicer objects to represent different materials.
2) Nice paddle
3) Score leveling life counting (done)
4) Sound
5) TWEEEEEKS to physics
6) Nice collection and death particles (1/2)
7) Background (1/8)
I want to build a puzzle/twitch game. In a fashion similar to the twitch type play or Tetris. You have to think and plan ahead as much as move and adjust fast enough.
Below are some screen shots from my game-play test. Still many tweeks before its fun. Blocks fall, each type is of a different material so slides bounces acts differently. You move the catch left and right and catch the blocks. When 3 or more similar blocks touch they disappear and you gain score. If they fall off the sides you lose a life/spare block.
As levels progress more types (up to 5) of blocks will fall and more frequently. I am still considering adding obstacles on levels for the blocks to fall through and also dropping them from differing locations making them spin etc.
Also considering adding a two button press feature activating the power-ups you might collect time will tell if I get to that.
TODO List. (i.e. everything I can think of right now)
1) Nicer objects to represent different materials.
2) Nice paddle
3) Score leveling life counting (done)
4) Sound
5) TWEEEEEKS to physics
6) Nice collection and death particles (1/2)
7) Background (1/8)
Thanked by 1Nandrew
Comments
I think instead of the player dying they should just lose some points. This will allow players to way up the risk of chasing blocks versus the penalty of losing blocks.
Then you can add a bomb block that loses the player significant points if it's not caught.
Don't forget you can also let special abilities fall such as one that turns all the blocks in the player's tray to lead while retaining their match color so their easier to move with or an ability that makes your tray wider. In fact, just steal all the Arkanoid abilities :P
Want some super powers not sure about making the bench wider since when it shrinks you going to cry, :) will test that and a few others. Of course limited time limited buttons limited everything.
I prefer no death but some penalty. Perhaps you need a score each block you drop counts against each block you collect. Then how many blocks you take it how we measure how well you did that level.
Not used to working on a game with a community, for me this is a great chance to learn.
I imagine the game view being really tall - even more so than Tetris- so that you can see the blocks coming down and you try to plan where they might go, but by the time they reach the tower, the entire structure has changed and you have to reconsider.
I high game view would also have a really neat difficulty scaling as you could physically see the rate/type of blocks changing far before you have to use them.
Makes me think of a crazy fast World of Goo, but with no significant time for planning :).
Saw this before, thought the hilarity of it could figure into something like this :)
Power outage last night so playable prototype will be up some time today.
@Tuism - you could steal some ideas here for Battle Blocks - different physics for different colored blocks?
Another idea for you:
Have Peggle-like 'pins' that the falling blocks have to filter through, so they'll bounce and toss around unpredictably!
They only gone if the fall out the bottom.
@Tuism I already have although will have more then just colors the different graphics will represent the physics. So wood, stone, ice etc.
I'm guessing one day I'll have to go to Unity for realistic physics that I don't have to break my brain coding :) (I heard of Box2D in Game Maker but I'm never sure about built-in physics)
@tbulford The Not Tetris game is ridiculous! They probably count pixel volume in a row - there's a graph to the left side that you can see, and it kinda fills up bar-graph style... A row doesn't need to be 100% full to wipe - and the results are nuts! Not too fun after a while :P
Maximum sarcasm say's that's how I'd do it ;)
Controls:
Left goes left.
Right goes right
Left+Right changes the spinners direction.
You must match 3 or more blocks of the same color n number of times to complete each level. Blocks that you miss are collected on the left or right of the screen. If either side fills up you loose. However you can still match 3 or more blocks on the sides. These will cancel out but wont count towards your level completion.
Still plenty game and polish to be done.
TODO:
1) graphics all items on screen.
2) more types of obstacles
3) designed levels not just placements and change.
4) make purple bouncing blocks rainbow so they can match with any two other blocks.
5) help screen
6) splash screen to loader
7) management for screen resolution
8) sounds (currently playing in a vacuum)
9) ... think of more things todo.
http://downloads.celestial-games.com/2312432321324/6sa.zip
I think it the cubes could be dropped a fraction faster, because sometimes I feel like I'm waiting for them.
It would also be cool if you could delay the scoring of 3 cubes so that I could try to score 4 or more touching cubes.
As a suggestion would be possible to have cubes "stick" to each other if they're the same colour? Firstly this would be me bigger cubes to play with and allow me to try to sticky 4 or more cubes (e.g. if I have 3 stuck together cubes of 2 each).
I love how the second level introduced a second spinner and then discovering I could control their rotation by hitting both keys. This allowed me to juggle a lot of cubes; hence I'm asking if it could be possible to allow stickying and combos.
Hmm I have thought about the more the three thing I have seen 4 in a row but its very rare. The sticky idea could work although I would be inclined to make that a special type that changes to the color it touches first and sticks (Well I am thinking of attaching them with a joint so they still rotate independently)
I think perhaps when 3 collide to stick those for 100ms before deletion and each one that joins delays it another 100ms something like that.
BTW you get up to 6 spinners and then they change materials over time. In an ideal world (one where I had more time before the deadline) I would design each level with specific spinners to create specific challenges.
Also thinking of some spinners that act like paddles in the same fashion as pinball. The paddles would trigger on the double press too.
One bug is id you hit 2 blue against a side blue they will use it up and complete a row. Its not a bug but its broken after that happens. And that's really really hard to test.
Oh and I don't like the way the camera works on some resolutions. I need to make sure you can see the side bars in all play modes.
Can you put in some indication how much you have to go before the next level?
I second the sticking of like-coloured blocks together. I feel that once I've maneuvered them into position, I've fulfilled my skill requirement, rather than having to bash them together to register the match. Accomodating the other loose blocks once I have a monochrome block monolith, well, that's yet another challenge for the player. ;)
An observation - at one point, I was able to keep my paddle stationary, and use nothing but spinner manipulation to get the blocks where I needed them. This approach kinda fell apart when more than two colours were introduced, but I thought I should raise it anyway.
I will give more though to the sticky idea. I like it as a feature for some blocks rather then all blocks. Say a blue block with some corners that show it will stick to another blue block. But now all do that.
My main concern right now is the curve seams too steep, but if I make it more gentle it seams too easy. :s
I suspect we need more subtle enhancements to create a more gentle difficulty curve.
Anyway 6sa is now Gemegedon.
DOWNLOAD HERE
Video Stage 2 lvl 4