-Huh -A very interesting idea, even if it's not an entirely original one -Why does it get harder with every restart? Or maybe it just adds more blocks to spice things up... -It seems like when you get rotating blocks, you can also get an extra turn with no other blocks appearing? I could be just going crazy -The fact that pictograms can wrap around the screen with their less usual effects (like pushing/pulling) fucks me up -I wish the manual was getting updated in real time to save all the pictogram effects that you have already discovered -However if that was a conscious decision on your part then it is very bold of you to put so much trust into your player to remember what every one of those symbols does -What does "Agni" pictogram do? I am a bit worried about it -The more you play, the harder it actually gets to lose, because it feels like you get easy rounds after failing. -God bless x3 speed -Honestly not much else to say, the game ate like an hour and a half of my time and I haven't noticed, and every time I restarted I found new types of blocks but I think I eventually discovered all of them -Never actually got to make the ZX Spectrum smile, because there appears to be no end goal even after I was around 43 mil dollars in debt
-Superb ambience and SFX, perfect for a small project like this
This feels more like a minigame inside of a bigger game. I enjoyed the discovery of how everything interacts with each other and how you presented new elements without any hand-holding, since it doesn't take a lot of time to restart and there doesn't seem to be any global progression (the latter seems to be more of a negative aspect, really)
Very neuron-activating and there are even slight hints of some kind of environmental storytelling, but mostly it feels like a fun little thing you did in your spare time, which I think is a good approach.
It isn't easy to tell if you've selected a square that has already has a white arrow thing on it.
I didn't play much, but I think this game should be restructured into seperate levels.
Right now you are just constantly watching the "money lost" counter go up. New symbol you haven't seen before appears? You are basically guaranteed to lose money.
Suggestion: If the game was split up into distinct levels that slowly introduced new mechanics, your progress of learning different mechanics would be visceral, you could see your progress on the overworld map or whatever. Because right now its like "the witness" if it only had 1 giant puzzle and a counter that said how many people you killed.
I liked this. Difficulty curve needs adjusting: goes from simple to overly complex in the space of a couple of puzzles. I’d suggest only introducing one new mechanic at a time. Give the player a simple puzzle with the new mechanic to teach them, then in the next puzzle test their knowledge.
^Originally wrote that for the first build. New build is better, but still maybe introduces things too quick.
For sure, I think now that the base gameplay works it would be interesting to add on some resource management, maybe even hand-design puzzles have have "days" you have to win. I uploaded a new build that adds UI for showing how close you are to losing, and a money counter that you can cheese and incrementally increase if you want. Not much difference, but helps a bit I think.
At first glance I thought "nah", but I got intruiged trying to figure out how the tiles work. But there were too many new tiles too soon. The combustion rule I couldn't figure out at all. Sometimes it was 2 tiles in front, then 2 tiles behind... Overall there was not enough chance to experiment with specific tiles, because I wouldn't get the new tiles interacting with anything. Then more new tiles would pile up and everything became a guessing game. And with many new tiles even 1x speed was too fast at times when everything exploded and new behaviours emerged. I did play it for probably 30 minutes.
Thank you for playing. I just uploaded a new build that makes introduction of new tiles much slower, I'd be interested if you find it any easier. I also completely revamped the combustion rules, so be sure to check the manual again.
The new explosion effect is nice and very readable. The 3 "health points" are a nice touch, too.
I just had some complicated chain event and wished for a way to replay what just happened.
Just realized that on explosion, adjacent tiles are being pushed which was a huge Eureka. But did the explosion pattern become simpler? It seems to be always all adjacent right now. Nvm... just read the manual.
The tile introduction seems a little better. But I still had some situations where multiple "new" tiles came up, and were in a group situation right away. Not sure if that's intentional.
Not sure what's the point of money lost? I guess it's a negative score? It goes up when tiles explode, but also when I make a wrong prediction. I don't think I can avoid them exploding? Or am I doing something wrong? - Ok, I tried something else. I thought I had to mark all the tiles that the explosion encompasses plus the tile itself.
Just accidentally clicked "cycle" before I had put down any prediction. Might be better to be locked before any input has been made.
Had some weird interaction with a "X with dots" and a "blue vertical+horizontal pull", where the X was pulled by the blue, which I thought wasn't possible. - Ok, had some weird interaction again, this time with "X with dots" above ["blue vertical+horizontal pull", "X with dots"]. I expected the upper to be pulled down to the [blue+, X], but the X stopped the movement. I feel like there is some nuance with combinations that I'm not grasping, but I can't think right now lol. Or is that a bug?
Is the order of tiles activating set at the start of the cycle? A tile pulled another from below to a higher level, and I expected that the one being pulled up would get executed next as it was now "up higher".
A "clear all marks" button would be nice.
I have a complex situation where I wished I had a second color xD Maybe even a third Q_Q aaaaand I failed by forgetting taking a last explosion into consideration.
Ok, I'm done for today. That was exhausting. There are still a lot of interactions that surprise me, or where I didn't think it through entirely. But it's fun, like some IQ test questions.
Comments
-Huh
-Superb ambience and SFX, perfect for a small project like this-A very interesting idea, even if it's not an entirely original one
-Why does it get harder with every restart? Or maybe it just adds more blocks to spice things up...
-It seems like when you get rotating blocks, you can also get an extra turn with no other blocks appearing? I could be just going crazy
-The fact that pictograms can wrap around the screen with their less usual effects (like pushing/pulling) fucks me up
-I wish the manual was getting updated in real time to save all the pictogram effects that you have already discovered
-However if that was a conscious decision on your part then it is very bold of you to put so much trust into your player to remember what every one of those symbols does
-What does "Agni" pictogram do? I am a bit worried about it
-The more you play, the harder it actually gets to lose, because it feels like you get easy rounds after failing.
-God bless x3 speed
-Honestly not much else to say, the game ate like an hour and a half of my time and I haven't noticed, and every time I restarted I found new types of blocks but I think I eventually discovered all of them
-Never actually got to make the ZX Spectrum smile, because there appears to be no end goal even after I was around 43 mil dollars in debt
This feels more like a minigame inside of a bigger game. I enjoyed the discovery of how everything interacts with each other and how you presented new elements without any hand-holding, since it doesn't take a lot of time to restart and there doesn't seem to be any global progression (the latter seems to be more of a negative aspect, really)
Very neuron-activating and there are even slight hints of some kind of environmental storytelling, but mostly it feels like a fun little thing you did in your spare time, which I think is a good approach.
It isn't easy to tell if you've selected a square that has already has a white arrow thing on it.
I didn't play much, but I think this game should be restructured into seperate levels.
Right now you are just constantly watching the "money lost" counter go up. New symbol you haven't seen before appears? You are basically guaranteed to lose money.
Suggestion: If the game was split up into distinct levels that slowly introduced new mechanics, your progress of learning different mechanics would be visceral, you could see your progress on the overworld map or whatever.
Because right now its like "the witness" if it only had 1 giant puzzle and a counter that said how many people you killed.
I liked this. Difficulty curve needs adjusting: goes from simple to overly complex in the space of a couple of puzzles. I’d suggest only introducing one new mechanic at a time. Give the player a simple puzzle with the new mechanic to teach them, then in the next puzzle test their knowledge.
^Originally wrote that for the first build. New build is better, but still maybe introduces things too quick.
Core gameplay is quite fun. Always cool to see simple rules cascade onto each other. Just feels like its missing some kind of goal to shoot for.
For sure, I think now that the base gameplay works it would be interesting to add on some resource management, maybe even hand-design puzzles have have "days" you have to win. I uploaded a new build that adds UI for showing how close you are to losing, and a money counter that you can cheese and incrementally increase if you want. Not much difference, but helps a bit I think.
At first glance I thought "nah", but I got intruiged trying to figure out how the tiles work. But there were too many new tiles too soon. The combustion rule I couldn't figure out at all. Sometimes it was 2 tiles in front, then 2 tiles behind... Overall there was not enough chance to experiment with specific tiles, because I wouldn't get the new tiles interacting with anything. Then more new tiles would pile up and everything became a guessing game. And with many new tiles even 1x speed was too fast at times when everything exploded and new behaviours emerged. I did play it for probably 30 minutes.
Thank you for playing. I just uploaded a new build that makes introduction of new tiles much slower, I'd be interested if you find it any easier. I also completely revamped the combustion rules, so be sure to check the manual again.
The new explosion effect is nice and very readable. The 3 "health points" are a nice touch, too.
I just had some complicated chain event and wished for a way to replay what just happened.
Just realized that on explosion, adjacent tiles are being pushed which was a huge Eureka. But did the explosion pattern become simpler? It seems to be always all adjacent right now. Nvm... just read the manual.
The tile introduction seems a little better. But I still had some situations where multiple "new" tiles came up, and were in a group situation right away. Not sure if that's intentional.
Not sure what's the point of money lost? I guess it's a negative score? It goes up when tiles explode, but also when I make a wrong prediction. I don't think I can avoid them exploding? Or am I doing something wrong? - Ok, I tried something else. I thought I had to mark all the tiles that the explosion encompasses plus the tile itself.
Just accidentally clicked "cycle" before I had put down any prediction. Might be better to be locked before any input has been made.
Had some weird interaction with a "X with dots" and a "blue vertical+horizontal pull", where the X was pulled by the blue, which I thought wasn't possible. - Ok, had some weird interaction again, this time with "X with dots" above ["blue vertical+horizontal pull", "X with dots"]. I expected the upper to be pulled down to the [blue+, X], but the X stopped the movement. I feel like there is some nuance with combinations that I'm not grasping, but I can't think right now lol. Or is that a bug?
Is the order of tiles activating set at the start of the cycle? A tile pulled another from below to a higher level, and I expected that the one being pulled up would get executed next as it was now "up higher".
A "clear all marks" button would be nice.
I have a complex situation where I wished I had a second color xD Maybe even a third Q_Q aaaaand I failed by forgetting taking a last explosion into consideration.
Ok, I'm done for today. That was exhausting. There are still a lot of interactions that surprise me, or where I didn't think it through entirely. But it's fun, like some IQ test questions.