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!
Viewing post in Tetrimals jam comments
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.