Off to a neat start! It's great to see that you're experimenting with original puzzle mechanics, planning designs on paper, and challenging yourself to create so many of them. I agree with the strategy that the way to become better at puzzle design is to get as much practice as possible with making a big number of them - that also frees you up to take a look at patterns of what is working and what is not, to inform your next puzzle designs with a "grammar" for your game's mechanics. I'm looking forward to seeing how this progresses.
Note to anyone who thinks they are "winning" by disintegrating the lungs: you are losing, very badly, and spending a foolishly long time doing it. The way to actually Win this game doesn't take very long at all. (Does someone win at smoking by smoking nonstop until they die? No. They win by...)
Seemed to be going fine, then suddenly my $ froze, the office building all hovered 1 higher than the ground, an elevator froze halfway through the rooftop, and I was unable to play. The continue button did no good upon returning, apparently the game didn't (doesn't?) save at any point. Test and fix your game please :(
I think it's pretty chill. Not hard, sure, but really relaxing, which I don't mind for a puzzle game. 5/5 from me (and I beat the last level!). I also like the game making stuff the Edit button goes to.
Thanks for the comments!
RoninTenkai and Juze - what you are referring to are not bugs, they are the original collision rules as they behave from the Atari 2600 game, Super Breakout, skipping/diagonal/directional anomalies and all. :)
Both of the points you brought up are responded to in earlier posts, but I think they're now buried on another page. To reiterate:
"Clocks are a bit too round for that though."
Everything that wasn't in the 2600 game (text, clocks) is deliberately not styled to look like it was. And vice versa.
:)
"Kinda buggy detection of a hit"
Not a bug. The collision detection is designed to emulate the TIA single-line buffer sprite collision system, which from time to time exhibits these same anomolies. If you're referring to when it goes through several bricks at once, that's part of the design for Super Breakout, and has to do with a sign flag that flips on the ball after hitting the back wall, until it next touches the paddle.
Thanks for the feedback!
Haha - hells yes. Way to go Acid! A couple of more subtle developer hints for anyone aiming to break Acid's "low score": (1) When the clocks are at the bottom, the balls move slightly faster than when the clocks are at the top. Every ms counts when going for a high score, so when in doubt, drag down! (2) Try to have the first released ball at around the same height and already moving downward when the second ball is released, so that both can be turned to hammer away at bricks before either goes anywhere near the paddle. Good luck!
Thanks Max and Booksnake! And right on, Acid! I've uploaded a new version, changed only in: 1-quieter sound effects 2-fixed a bug that caused high score text to linger after the next play started 3-removed the weird 9999-score element from high scores table (if this affects your score, sorry!). If it's any consolation on #3, I think my latest score is lower than any of the prior top 3 (acid:166,max:177,awalters:195) anyway... ;)
PS The endgame in particular - clearing the last few bricks in a reasonable amount of time - is a rather challenging task, and readily separates a skilled from an unskilled player. Time control alone isn't enough to trivialize the activity at that point. If the high scores list having less than 23 people on it is any indicator, a lot of people are calling it quits before reaching the hard part.
(And thanks for the comment!)
"...but removes all challenge from gameplay"
Indeed, anyone can finish it. The challenge comes in trying to clear the level as quickly as possible, through a clever combination of paddle and time control.
As best as I can tell, the crown is still with awalters... ;)
acidDICA - Thanks! I'd like to better tune the volume of my games, but I'm not really sure what's a good frame of reference to normalize them against. Any suggestions on how to get this reasonable on some universal scale?
I'll update/fix this iteration later tonight with the sounds dampened a bit.
"Could also use some tweaks to the collision detection system..."
I went to great lengths to emulate Atari 2600 "physics" - which means a bias flag is flipped after a back wall rebound, a ball moving at an angle can "skip" bricks, etc. Skipping a brick at high speed is consistent with TIA 1-line sprite buffer collision system.
;)
"it could be cleaned up a little graphically and have some music or something"
As mentioned above, I was really striving for the visual and basic gameplay aesthetic of the Atari 2600 Super Breakout game. No music, tinny sounds that rattle up when scoring tons of points, full/rectangular brick layout, no power-ups, layered 1-3-5-7 scoring, etc. Changes to these things might be more alluring to a modern audience, but I wanted to keep everything that wasn't new (text and clocks) matching the old stuff where possible. I think you're spot on that I'd probably get better ratings with more modernized stuff.
Thanks for the feedback!
Nothing - in fact, as much as possible, you should! Good observation.
Everyone should be able to clear the level... it's just a matter of how quickly you can do it.
Using the pads wisely is essential to clearing the bricks as fast as possible, which is the form of High Score kept for this game.
Thanks for the question
It would seem that the URL in the game's end screen is causing an error when clicked on Kongregate - I'm looking into fixing this asap. Sorry for the mix up :).
"When you hit an angel and there’s ballons on the air, they aren’t affected by the new gravity." Yep! This is intentional. I was not aiming to simulate a physical system, but to develop an abstract game, and I liked the aesthetic of balloons moving in unique reference frames.
:)
"Please, implement the scores/stats API." - I develop in ActionScript 3. From what I was able to find in the forums, I am under the impression that there is currently not a scores API for AS3... am I mistaken about this?
Thanks for the feedback!
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It feels Awesome to see someone interested!! Thanks for taking the time to check it out!