itch.io

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.

Fun game, took me a bit to understand, but once I did, I really enjoyed playing. Selecting units is quite hard sometimes. Also, I’d suggest to implement a map-drag with right click when nothing is selected. Maybe extend the building/development options and add more kinds of enemies to get more depth and you’ll have a really nice strategy game going!

I love this game! Some may find the gameplay boring and I can see that, since it’s grinding and pulling - But that’s exactly my thing, I love pulling packs and a grind that rewards steadily; very very nice. The Keep & Sell button is a game changer, very important UX feature, great job. The only thing I’m missing is an overview of the stuff I have vs what is available.

The game looks very good, I like the arcade style. Jumping feels good und the leopards are well balanced; I feel like the pose a challenge and are not completely predictable but can still actually be avoided. I didn’t even notice that there was no walking animation until I read the comments.

I get the joke. I’m not sure if I find it funny in that state, though. Imo, some message boxes that pop up every now and then, questioning the morality of the player, or criticizing the player’s actions, while also increasing the player’s score with every hit could be funnier. I think the game also has great potential in conveying a message. For example, the chance of of spawning a panda could decrease with every kill until it eventually gets so small, that none will spawn anymore which implies that they have been killed to the last single one. I think this could trigger thoughts in players and actually make them reflect about endangered species. Great potential there.

Thank you for playing; There is a surrender button at the top right of the timer bar :)

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 :)

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 :)

The game is super fun, I like it a lot. I also enjoy the visuals very much. The only thing I’d suggest would be to additionally, i.e. you can keep the bindings on X & Z, bind jumping and shooting to W/ArrowUp and space, respectively. I think some people could find those more comfortable than the X/Z bindings.

Love the concept of the game. I liked to play 2048 a lot back in the day and I think the incorporation of the snake is a very nice refreshing take on the game. Levels of World 1 seem very well designed (I envy that talent!); I hope I’ll find time to finish the rest of the game before Christmas.

Very cool game, I learned something and I was even surprised about how some of them sound.

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.

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.

I like the visuals very much, looks very good. It’s easy to understand and pretty much explains itself, that is a very good thing in my opinion. Also, I like games that track scores, it makes them competitive. I can see myself playing this a couple of times. However, since I like competition, I tend to look for potential strategies and advantages and I noticed that walking from the very left to the very right takes about 5 seconds - always - whether I walk in a straight line, or in a zig-zag line; that basically means that you are faster when walking diagonally, which might be an advantage in some situations. It does not brake the game and I think the potential advantage is not that big, however I am not sure if that is intended. (It can be fixed by normalizing the input vector before applying the speed.)

I like the concept very much, it’s an interesting idea for sure. However, I don’t know if certain things I do on the farm, e.g. feeding the animals, mean or do anything; I think the game would benefit from being more clear on that. (I mean, I get that placing objects is supposed to make it look nice, but I don’t know if it makes a difference if I feed an animal or just throw the food item away. I think it would be good to include this in the description.) Also, I think you should point out in detail how the matching works - In my opinion, the description is perfectly fine for this, no need for an in-game tutorial yet, but it still took me some time to figure out how the matching actually works (for example the fact that you can match diagonally). But once I understood the matching, it became really fun and I think you can even utilize it more, for example matching larger combos could grant rarer or higher quality rewards for the farm than smaller combos.