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Tetrimals's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Innovation | #2 | 3.733 | 3.733 |
| Gameplay | #3 | 3.867 | 3.867 |
| Theme | #3 | 4.267 | 4.267 |
| Overall | #4 | 3.933 | 3.933 |
| Audio | #5 | 3.467 | 3.467 |
| Graphics | #7 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Really cool idea and great execution.
Hi,
My anti-record is -400 :D.
It's really cool that you added a "how to play" section to the game. And it's also really cool that you added an "achievements" section!
The music and graphics are nice.
It's cool to have 2 game modes to choose from, unfortunately chickens don't lay golden eggs :). Good game balance!
I would like to have a return button in the game menu when you see that you definitely won't win, but there's still a lot of time on the timer, or you want to change the game mode or start a new one.
Nice game, congratulations!
Thank you for playing; There is a surrender button at the top right of the timer bar :)
Oh, I see now, thanks :).
Great game, reminded me of old school puzzle games like tetris and dr mario. Fun idea to let the player select the music like in those games. Great overall presentation with start menu, how to play, achievements and all! I like how it highlights any matches. Maybe there should be an upper limit on how much time you can have banked, like one minute or something, this could help increase time pressure. Maybe also reducing how much time is added when making matches. Strategy wise I found it hard to plan ahead but was easy enough in the chill sheep mode. Maybe instead of subtracting from score there could be a limit to how many times you can remove a piece, or a powerup you collect allows it or something. The chicken mode was more difficult though I still haven't fully figured out how to play that one yet. You should consider putting this game on newgrounds, I think they would really enjoy this there and it is easy to hook up your achievements to their api using the littlejs plugin!
Thank you very much for your feedback. The game already is on Newgrounds, some seem to like it, some don’t (especially the medal hunters; yes, some of the medals are hard, but this is how it works). I’d greatly appreciate any tips on getting more visibility, since it only has 200 views so far. Regarding the chicken mode: It’s all explained in the ‘How to play’ section, if it is insufficient or does not explain it sufficiently, feel free to let me know. However, I totally agree that most people won’t read that anyway, especially when bulk-playing a lot of jam games. Unfortunately, I did not have time for an in-game tutorial, which would be very helpful, I think. (Also for the Newgrounds crowd for example, as I think that a lot of bad ratings are a result from the game not being understood quickly enough.) About the clock: The time is supposed to run faster with every hand (which is why I was asking for the frame delta time earlier :D), so once you pass a certain threshold, 60 seconds will feel like nothing (this is why the time bonuses are so large, and they are even larger in chill mode). I found, that this approach is the only way that works because hard-capping the time and not accelerating it would be too easy for good players (with one minute for example, I would be able to just play endlessly) and too hard for new players. And one final gameplay tip for anyone who reads this: You won’t have to plan ahead so much, if you go for all-clears :)
In the how to play section, i didn't realize there were multiple pages of text. I think it would make more sense if next to the OK button there was another NEXT button. I see your game is on NG now! They can be a tough crowd for sure. It can take a while to build a following, and gradual improvements to your game are a big help. If you release any big updates be sure to post about it too because that will make people notice.
I would suggest maybe lowering the bar for some of those achievements. Players can be motivated by achievements but you have to give them some right away and pace them out so they have achievable goals. 1000 points would make more sense for first achievement. High score boards would also help bring in players, you probably could use 4, for each combo of sheep/chicken chill/stress.
I did not realize the timer was going faster with each hand but honestly I don't think that's a good idea. Players expect timers to go at the same time. There are many other ways to achieve the same thing without changing the the rate. Maybe just give less extra time for each hand and start off with less time initially. If you give less time, presumably as little as 0, and have an upper bound on time, you can put a much better time lime on the game. More options to increase difficulty would be add random junk tiles, add more colors of sheep.
Another small thing I noticed. I am not an expert player but it doesnt seem necessary to show the next piece for all 5 pieces. I'm sure it could help plan in theory but just feels like information overload. Or maybe since you already implemented that, only show it in the chicken mode since that is a more advanced mode?
Thank you, these are some valuable and useful insights (both, regarding the ux issue in the how to play section and Newgrounds). Also, good takes on the gameplay improvements.
I still don’t think that hard-capping the time is a good idea, since I want to reward the player’s skill to find better combos, and therefore they should be allowed to build up a time bank in order to survive longer. However, I think you proposed a good solution by suggesting to decrease the time bonus after each hand instead of making the time run faster. (Maybe a mixture of both - Hard-capping the time, but not decreasing the time bonus, if the time cap would have been exceeded for a certain amount of time (depending on how much it has been exceeded) would be the best way from a technical point of view. However, I don’t know if implementing such obscure mechanics is the right way, since a game that is competitive in this way should be transparent in how it works. On the other hand, explaining this in detail is what the “pro tips” page of the how to play section is for … I’ll think about it.)
Lowering the bar for some achievements is something, I also thought about. Will do. Along with integrating the leaderboard, which I wanted to do anyway, but this has to wait until March.
I like the idea of junk tiles very much. But those would either never disappear or have another mechanic that removes them from the board, so I though about combining your ideas of junk tiles and more colors. For example, there could spawn a red sheep every 300 points or something (thinking 300-500, need to play-test that). That way, there would be sheep that will definitely stay on the board longer than others, but they can disappear eventually.
About the next-display: I don’t think it’s necessary either. Definitely more useful in chicken mode, but in general, you want to keep the board as clean as possible, so if you play well, especially in the earlier phase where you have much time, you’ll start into the next hand with 0-3 sheep left on the board. In later stages, you’ll have less time to think ahead an make quick decisions, so you won’t be able to additionally process the next-display. However, this got requested in the jam comments, so I implemented it. I don’t think it’s distracting because the display is rather small.
I...COULDN'T.....STOP....PLAYING! This is a great game! It just hits right like Tetris...iykyk! All Around 5 stars! Would be surprised if they don't win. Congrats!
Pretty fun game! You can keep deleting your hand and have your score go into the negatives, but it's a pretty minor thing since you still lose out on time eventually.
Nice incorporation of theme!
I played a handful of games, but never really seemed to catch on to much strategy to playing besides make your pieces fit as quickly as you can and then delete one if you can't fit on the board when you are done.
I think I did pretty well, especially my last time, but I really don't feel much better about how to actually play than when I first started. I'm not sure if the pieces and white and black sheep combos are all tailored to fit into each other or just generated randomly.
I played on chill speed the whole time and it was still a bit too fast for me. I can't imagine what stressful speed is like!
I didn't try chicken mode yet, because like I said I'm not quite sure on the standard mechanics yet.
I do think that the game itself is very well made and implemented. I didn't encounter any bugs and everything worked as expected.
Thanks for playing, I really appreciate it. Apart from the things I knew by programming the game, I figured out major parts of the strategy by playing myself, so I think this is pretty normal. If you were going to give it a shot again some time, I’ll leave you the following tips: The larger your combo is, the more time & score you’ll get. So taking your time to find larger combos is usually more effective in order to stay alive and score higher than simply just rushing it. Also, always try to get as many sheep/chicken into the combo as soon as possible, i.e. try to leave as few on the board as possible, this will greatly increase your chances to score an all-clear which is essential in order to get high scores. Try to not delete more than one piece per hand (as it gets progressively more expensive within a hand) and only delete if placing it would make the board-structure worse.
Regarding your question: Piece shapes are generated by a bag system which guarantees the equal distribution of all possible shapes even in shorter periods of time. In this particular case, you’ll see every shape twice before you see an arbitrary piece for the third time. colors within the piece are random, and yes, some patterns will be much harder than others, but this is the point where the player’s positioning skill can shine :)
Thanks a lot for the more in-depth explanation of things! I may try playing again soon now and see if I can't follow some of your advice :)
Nice incorporation of theme!
I played a handful of games, but never really seemed to catch on to much strategy to playing besides make your pieces fit as quickly as you can and then delete one if you can't fit on the board when you are done.
I think I did pretty well, especially my last time, but I really don't feel much better about how to actually play than when I first started. I'm not sure if the pieces and white and black sheep combos are all tailored to fit into each other or just generated randomly.
I played on chill speed the whole time and it was still a bit too fast for me. I can't imagine what stressful speed is like!
I didn't try chicken mode yet, because like I said I'm not quite sure on the standard mechanics yet.
I do think that the game itself is very well made and implemented. I didn't encounter any bugs and everything worked as expected.
Nice simple game with polished style! I originally didn't understand that I could proceed by deleting tiles when I got stuck, but other than that it was easy to understand, with helpful instruction on the screen.
Great game! I love it :)
Chicken mode is great!
It's challenging but really fun. I don't have any suggestions that weren't already mentioned.
this game has a great concept that incorporates the theme of the jam very well, i really liked the twist in the chicken mode. mixing and matching different combinations in a chill mode is a way to go for me to enjoy this game at its fullest.
it would be amazing if i could see what puzzle pieces are coming up in advance, as it is, i came across a multiple situations that i couldn't have foreseen and improvising only got me so far before i got to delete a piece which was super punishing for my score. i also wish the score reduction was more lenient with how the game currently works, i did find myself a couple of times just waiting the time to run out because i didn't want to risk my score getting lower.
the presentation is clean and readable and i appreciate having multiple songs to listen to. the game is well explained both in how to play and the on screen control instructions provide all the info you need. i wonder if you can bring back the control instructions after you turn them off, i did that on accident my first time playing ;-;
overall, nicely done!
I’m pleased that you liked it, thanks for the valuable feedback.
I noticed the issue with the score penalty too, but it was too late to change it since other things still had to be done, but decreasing it in general might be a good idea for a temporary fix.
I was thinking about a queue system that shows you the next X pieces at any given time, but I wanted the player to operate with sets of 5 pieces at once, hence I decided not to give a preview of the pieces that are coming up next. However, I don’t think it would be a bad thing to see the next hand that is coming up, I hope I can find some time on the weekend to put it into the game. But I can give you a little tip: The game uses a so-called “bag system” which is incorporated in many games that deal with Tetris-pieces. What it does, is basically ensuring the equal distribution of the pieces over short periods of time. This game puts every shape into a queue twice, in a random order. When there are less than five pieces left, the game will repeat this. So, you’re guaranteed to see every shape twice, before you see a certain shape for a third time. (I was thinking about creating another section “Pro Tips” in the How to play hints which explains this, but then I completely forgot.)
Regarding the control instructions in-game: Once they’re off, they’ll be gone for the duration of the game. But they re-appear on every new game that is started. But you’re right, maybe this could be turned into a toggleable display.
Your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Nice game. Is there any way forwards when you block the last tile from being placed. Or is the slow death intentional, so the player can reflect on their stupidity?
LOL. No, it’s not necessarily a slow death. You can remove a piece from one of the five hand slots by right clicking it. However, this will result in a score penalty which increases with every piece per hand that you delete this way, i.e. the penalty is reset on every new hand. Sometimes, it is worth it, sometimes it’s better to let the time run out. But I agree, I was thinking about a resign button or something.