Tetrominoes... where do they come from?
the goal of this sliding tile puzzle is to make tetrominoes.
when you make a move, there are 3 possible outcomes:
good move: you've connected 4 tiles of the same kind, and made a tetromino. +1 on score. there's a little tune. the cleared tiles are replaced by random ones.
free move: not a good move, but the tile you moved connects to one of its kind. there's a "satisfying" beep.
bad move: the tile you moved is isolated. the board shakes, there's an annoying noise.
in twenty mode, you are allowed 20 bad moves until the game ends.
in marathon mode, you start with 4 bad moves and gain one for each tetromino you make.
the number of different tiles may vary from 4 to 6, but stays constant for the duration of a game.
8 game presets, 2 modes (twenty & marathon) x 4 sizes (5,7,9,11)
...
2 game modes in four sizes.
there might be some randomness in difficulty as I'm still trying to figure things out.
also later on I might add a timed mode without penalty.
is it fun? or tedious? ugly? what works, what doesn't? let me know :)
cool idea! i have two suggestions:
a) don't generate regions that would clear if the player had made them
b) make it so the player has to form regions of exactly four blocks, rather than at least four
i think both of these would lend a sort of consistency to the game, especially if you explained the rule of four.
edit: oh, i guess i missed the part where some regions of more than four blocks are specifically recognized…
It's mildly fun right now. I second the suggestion to make the game not generate clearable region by itself.
One thing that would be nice would be a more "organic" goal - getting the twentieth tile is neither more difficult nor more interesting than the first one. Maybe clearing the board in some way could be one, maybe some "obstacle" blocks could appear?
I'm also not 100% clear on the rules behind when you lose energy, and when a move is "OK". Whatever they are, maybe they aren't needed, and you could just charge energy per move? At the very least, you could explain them :).
thanks for your feedback!
I tried to make things intuitive, with simple controls (arrow keys) and visual/audio feedback, but it seems there's too much friction to it. I've added game rules to the op, and will do in the game itself later.
about the "already clearable regions", you're supposed to roam them by yourself. you're moving one step at a time, often with a penalty. so there's some kind of strategy in clearing them while 'exiting' at the right place for the next tile chunk. if the tile setup is too sparse you'll have to actually gather them, and that usually costs a lot. hopefully actually knowing the rules could clear this up ;)
also 'large marathon' allows more than four blocks, but that's a mistake. it takes other potential scores from you while only adding random tiles.
in the end it's more about strategy in randomness (maybe not such a good mix?).
thanks for your time :)
it sounds like i didn't explain my first point adequately, since i wasn't able to connect what you said about it with what i was saying.
i think it would remove a potential point of player confusion if they didn't see collections of 4+ blocks on the board already in the right shape, but not clearing, because they were generated that way and the game didn't check. i also think it would make it subjectively feel more consistent.
this could be done by checking over the entire board right after it's generated and changing one block in each grouping you find of 4+ blocks so that it's of another type; and since only up to 4 blocks can surround a block, and there are more than 4 types of blocks, there should always be a "safe" type to change it to that doesn't require re-checking the board.
let me know if this explanation makes sense or no.
helado: the thing is, the clumps are actually a boon: free moves and score garanteed if you manage to reach them. otherwise you're mostly grinding to get tiles together, so I think they're a relief in that context. actually I was thinking of biasing the random generation to CREATE some when playing with 6 colors!
also the game is really cursor-centric. I think it makes sense that tiles should be inactive all over the rest of the board. there's no premade match, it's the cursor that connects them (note that the board tiles are shown as single tiles while the tetraminoes look connected). I'm thinking maybe I should replace the cursor graphics by a special tile or a little guy to make it more clear it's active and not just a selector. animating the swapping could help too.
food for thought, thanks!
I REALLY like this game. Super great job!
It took me a few seconds to get that the black space was not just a cursor moving around and in fact "pushed" (or swapped) pieces around. once I got that it was a lot of fun. I could see myself playing a lot of this (and have downloaded the cart with the intention to do so).
thanks sloum! glad you like it :)
yes, the cursor feels weird with direction keys. I changed it for a peg and made a few other tweaks, will post an update soon.
This is really hard! :( A video tutorial might be useful
it seems most of the feedback I get is of the confused type. I think most are expecting a bejeweled/candycrush mechanic, which it's not. I don't think the rules are that complicated, but there's enough friction to it that it doesn't seem worth it. must be I'm off base, an actual candycrush clone that does tetraminoes would be more fun.
actually in the meantime I had started a 3d-iso version. the exact same mechanic, but maybe more appealing and without the candycrush stygma. I'll be posting it in a while (my isp seems gone for the weekend, I'm on a crappy "4g" connection)
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