That Phial Game
Inspired by that mobile game, try to sort colors together by pouring them from one phial to the other.
Controls
Z or 🅾️ to select [Special action on double press]
X or ❎ to select
Arrow Keys to move selection
Game Modes
Puzzle
Start with a random arrangement of colors and try to sort them all.
Special action: Undo.
Infinite
Colors get added every 5 turns. When all phials are full, you loose. Try to survive as long as possible.
Get two turns of additional time when you complete a phial.
Special action: Skip to the next drop.
Please let me know what you think!
cool game, but it is very hard to complete the puzzle without the possibility of putting a color on top of another (like this game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=152600#p).
another way would be a empty container to make the color management easier.
Thank you for playing my game and for your feedback! Yeah I agree, puzzle mode is pretty hard. The randomness of it means that sometimes you get a really easy config, sometimes a hard one. In my playtesting, I found I was almost always able to complete a starting position. That's why I give unlimited undo (press o twice). I could probably add difficulty levels with fewer colors but the same amount of phials.
I'm afraid that by allowing you to put a color on top of another, the two games would become very similar, and the inspiration for this game didn't allow this.
I spent a long time (30+mn) on puzzle mode, backtracking a lot and finally giving up.
After retrying via the pause menu, the "no more valid moves" message stayed on, so I reset the cart, and got a much manageable board that took 5mn to solve.
I suspect the 1st board was impossible. Maybe add a check, and redraw if impossible.
Another way could be to use fixed random seeds and printh the resulting boards to a file, and solve them programmatically with a non pico-8 program.
That way we could have a list of seeds that give a valid board, and pick a valid seed at random.
A zoom in option with graduations on the tube would also be welcome, especially on small mobile screens.
Good game. Got 48 in infinite mode
Some suggestions if you have the energy:
- getting perfect in puzzle mode with no undos (might be there, but haven't got it yet lol)
- casual puzzle mode: can add to any unfilled vial regardless of color or amount remaining (can top off)
Tried infinite mode and quickly lost (score 7), but I made the wrong assumption that any drop in a full vial would be game over.
With the knowledge that drops to full tubes are discarded, I carefully played, trying to always have 2 or 3 full tubes to reduce average drop speed. Chose to skip turns a few times to not get a bad colored drop rather than playing from a full tube.
Highlight of the run to the left where two tubes got filled by drops at the same time.(drop in 9 !!)
Stopped playing at score 50. Was playing less carefully in the end, but while the situation doesn't look great with too many colors in the full tubes, it's still probably salvageable with careful play and a little luck, I just don't feel the point any more. Figuring out the quasi-infinite strategy was the fun part to me.
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