Fruit Salad 64
Make a bowl of fruit salad by squashing matching fruits together. Can you finish all 3 levels? Fruit are worth more in the beginning, be fast to get a good hi-score!
C&C welcome
Controls
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←→↑↓– Move the selection -
X/Z– Pick and place items Enter– Pause/Settings
Update notes
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2022-12-07
- Updated cart image
- 2023-01-01
- Game session is now remembered across restarts (reset saved game from pause menu)
- Items can be picked up, even if there are no matching items on the board
- Items can be swapped if they don't match
- Added more levels
- Score can now reach hundreds of millions before overflowing
Very interesting and mindlessly fun (to an extent)! Of course I didn't finish it, that would be rather ridiculous, but I did check out the code and gave myself the win screen :)
I got a score of 16485 and a pear and called it a day.
It's kinda just relaxing to combine and combine and unlike other games like this not have a fail condition if you fill up your play area,
I feel like this and idle games have the same problem for me where I want to make one but I struggle to think of a gameplay loop a bit beyond that'd work well..
Anyways was pretty fun all I would say is I wish you could pick up a fruit even if it can't be combined and reorder stuff around... I had a strawberry sitting in a unfavourable spot for a while and it wasn't till the end I could move it to my stacks at the top.
And when blueberries spawn in I preemptively pick them up only to have it fail cause the other berry hasn't spawned in yet. anyways though fun stuff. played it for a while
I got to the fruit where the board expanded to 4x4, @thykka. The game makes me sleepy for some reason. It's really not bad. I want to give it a gold star so I will. It needs something else though. I'm not sure what.
I am also thinking that if you pick up a fruit and it does not match, do not just not allow it, instead swap places with the fruit so some motion is carried out, perhaps it makes the board more clear for the player in swapping some fruit positions.
@Munchkin Thanks! If my math is right, it would take 32768 pairings to finish the 4x4 grid. I've been thinking about a "give up" button, so that people could actually see the high score screen as they give up x)
@SmellyFishstiks, @dw817 Thanks for the feedback! Being able to swap items would be interesting, although maybe it might take away the only aspect in which having a plan gives the player a slight advantage 🤔 But yes, I'll experiment with that.
It needs a SAVE GAME option, @thykka. That's what it's missing. That would definitely make the game more interesting as you play for an hour, go do something else, then come back to it later. Days later you are still playing it.
In this way you truly will have people play it to the end and see the glorious ending. :)
You - ahh - do have an ending to the game, right ?
@SmellyFishstiks @dw817, thanks for your suggestions, I've added them to the game!
Added a bunch more levels too :-D
Hi @thykka.
Yay ! I win !
Wait. That's not right. All I did was choose Restart Game in the middle of the game.
Slight error. :)
Also, please add option to proper RESET game. That is while your game is saving just great, allow option to restart from absolute beginning. Something like, start over from beginning
The Restart Game option clears the current progress (level, board configuration, score), but not the high score. There is a function to clear the high score as well, but I disabled it for now. You can still reset it by clearing your browser data (IndexedDB).
But yes, I can see how the "You won!" screen can be confusing :D I'll give it some thought.
VERY WELL DONE, @thykka.
Your game is interesting and original enough I daresay someone from another game company, maybe even PopCap will steal this marvelous binary fruit-matching game idea you have here.
It certainly is original and addicting play. A real relaxed play. A real Zen. A class of its own.
Since you added fruit-swap and save ability. This is now 💗 Favorited !
Giving it some more thought, @thykka. If you want to and code space is allowing, you can add a list of achievements. Like a medal gallery for Bejeweled 3.
Not only would it show you the fruits you've discovered but if you select them and press the button they could give you an interesting story on each of them.
Not so much their dictionary definition but how each fruit type is related to mythology and astrology and where it is written for that.
Also medals for:
Discovered can swap fruit.
Discovered Banana.
Discovered Papaya.
Discovered Mango.
Made your 10th merge.
Made your 100th merge.
Made your 1000th merge.
Made your 10,000th merge.
Check your medals.
And of course these moves would only count if they convert one fruit to another. Swapping would not increase merge.
Also can you set it so each new fruit expands the board. I think you already have this but if not, set it so each new fruit discovered increases the board size. The way you have it now when you get to higher levels discovering a new fruit does not always expand or change the board, and that is a bit of a letdown.
2x2=4, 3x2=6, 2x3=6, 2x4=8, 4x2=8, 3x3=9, 5x2=10, 2x5=10, 4x3=12, 3x4=12, 7x2=14, 2x7=14, 5x3=15, 3x5=15, 4x4=16, 6x3=18, 3x6=18, 5x4=20, 4x5=20, 7x3=21, 3x7=21, 6x4=24, 4x6=24, 5x5=25, etc.
Great stuff, thanks!
Achievements are definitely on the list. I've been wanting to make an achievement system for a while anyway.
As for level progression, the current system considers a level done, when there's not enough room to clear the fruit - i.e. the level's dimensions determine how many new fruit will appear before the level is complete. That's why sometimes getting a new type of fruit doesn't unlock a new level. But it does make sense that unlocking a fruit would be the winning condition of each level.
My main concern is whether the game sticks. Is there the gameplay interesting enough to bring players back for another session? Currently there's no way for the player to make a bad move, and getting the best possible high score is trivial. I could fix these, but is adding challenge the right direction for this type of game? OTOH I don't want to make this a copy of every other Android game, by implementing the same kind of mechanics they all have.. :D What would you say are the current version's fortes, the stuff I should try to keep?
Hi @thykka.
Oh ? So the board must increase in size for each fruit ? Hmm ... Well, let me think then.
I guess the size table could be 2x1, 2x2=4, 3x2=6, 4x2=8, 5x2=10, 4x3=12, 7x2=14, 5x3=15, 4x4=16, 6x3=18, 5x4=20, 7x3=21, 6x4=24, 5x5=25, 7x4=28, 6x5=30, 8x4=32, 6x6=36, etc.
I'm not sure how big your fruit is. If it can go 9-across there is also 9x2=18 and 9x3=27.
The game is definitely interesting enough for ME to come back. I would be even more interested if I gained a new board every fruit, if that could be done.
As for Android mechanics, I would not worry. There are a great many Android games out there that do quite well for themselves. If the mechanics are good, consider using them, if not, don't.
As for keeping stuff, definitely keep the music and possibly expand it a bit if you can. Maybe even setting it so every level you get a "bit" more of the song before it repeats, where the final level might even be a 5-minute long composition.
Keep the animations. The flickery 64x64 screen and animated cursor are awesome. Really very well done.
Keep the sound effects. As players I think we are delighted to hear a new sound for new fruit being discovered and matched.
Maybe fix it so when you choose to RESET the game you do not get the "You Win" screen. Save that ever and only for the diligent player that really does play through all of your fruits.
Another mechanic Android games use is to reward the player for coming back and playing "the next day." While I cannot see that being useful in this game it is certainly something to consider for future carts.
They call it "a playing streak."
This game is so well done in every way. Very inspiring! I especially love how the selection UI bleeds into environment.
I've got one pepper so far, working on the second.
I think my only minor gripe is that in this late stage of the game where you have several high tier fruits on the map, I find myself frequently getting slowed down by the respawn rate of the fruit. Maybe this was how the mechanic was intended, but I really enjoy the parts of the game where I'm in a flow state making really quick merges, and getting blocked by the respawn rate takes me out of that state and encourages the player to slow down. But perhaps this was intended to make the game longer?
Anyway I've been having a blast playing this game, as well as your other carts and am blown away by the artistry.
@tubeman thanks for the comments! I think you're spot on about the respawn rate - it should be faster towards the later game, as there are generally less spots for fruits to spawn in, and the player has probably learned to play the game faster by then.
The game's got juice! I didn't read the rules until level 2, so I didn't know whether I was supposed to be racing the fruit. Needless to say a very addicting game!
i was almost quitting. :)
i spotted a score bug. it wasn't showing the entire number
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after closing and opening the browser, the cursor only showed two dots instead of eight until the end of the game. the score bug appears again
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final print before quit playing. thankfully it was ending :D
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finally!
cool game. i like the animations and it fells good to merging the fruits.
aside the score bug previously commented, it reseted at some point. if i'm not mistaken, i really think i got to the 1.000.000 mark.
i also noticed the score isn't always summing the fruit price. it shouldn't be always the same? the fruits' respawn slowed down the gameplay time to time. but overall, really nice game.
I love the fruits and the animations, also the particles are awesome.
But I do think the 64x64 resolution limits too much.
Still I love the Game, keep up the good work :)
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