Fatalxshot, I'm confused and a bit disturbed by your comment.
I've submitted my games over the course of a year, and spent a good deal of time making this one.
In addition, the game now removes time for incorrect choices. You lose one second for each incorrect answer so far in the level. So the first error costs one second, the next two, the third three seconds and so on.
This is intended to prevent progressing to the next level using random clicks without punishing people playing normally. As such, the current high-scores are still valid.
The game now has Mochi-highscores (in addition to Kong highscores), so you can compare your score to the rest of the internet.
Or at least you will as soon as I've released it into the wild.
*How the controls work:*
Pressing (and holding) a button accelerates you in that direction *relative to the screen not the fish itself*. The rate of change of speed is deliberately low - this is for gameplay purposes. The other fish accelerate just as slowly, so you're not hard done by. If you don't like this go play "Big Fish, chipped":http://www.kongregate.com/games/Lysis/big-fish-chipped instead.
Eating your babies (if you touch them) is deliberate, *not a bug* as otherwise these levels would be very easy.
Minor upgrade. I've tried to fix the problem with difficult-to-read formulas. Firstly, the "*" symbols for times have been replaced by "x". This isn't ideal, but there isn't a true times symbol in the font.
Secondly, I've darkened the green background for the levels which involve divide ("÷") symbols - hopefully they're easier to distinguish from plusses now.
Oh, and, new developer website (this game isn't there yet).
Thanks again for your feedback. Don't be shy now.
New version now uploaded. All the bugs I know about are fixed, answer buttons never entirely leave the screen, and there are two more levels added on the end. They're meant to be challenging but possible - hopefully you will find them so.
Thank you all for your feedback.
I've fixed the bugs, but not uploaded yet; I'm working on further levels. 5/5 was an oversight and the 7/6 problem was due to an issue with floating point rounding. According to flash, 3/6+4/6 != 1/6+2/2.
I've also changed level 3 so that although it partly leaves the screen you can still click on it.
The problem I have now is deciding what the new levels should be, and how to make them hit the right level of difficulty. I think I'm leaving the fraction level at the same position, but it'll probably end up being the hardest.
Please bear with me, I'll have a new version up soon.
Mmmm... OK. The answers only leave the playarea on one level, and that is for a bit of variety. It also makes that level a bit harder than it would otherwise be - which I thought a good thing.
Does everybody hate this feature, or are some people silently liking it? I could remove it very easily.
Thing is, though, that this promotes strategy - there are often several circles with the same value on this level; pick one in the outer ring if there is one.
Juze, it has API, go and bug Greg. :)
I'm also interested that people want more levels. I wasn't sure how far to take it, and kind of ran out of steam after the brackets level. What would be suitable? I have a couple of ideas but am open to suggestions.
M3nTo5, what you suggest wouldn't work - at least without making it a rather different game. The fish face their direction of travel - see how they turn when out of the water. Not only would they look like flyds if that didn't happen, but you'd end up facing the wrong way. Furthermore, it may work if there are only a few things to pay attention to, or the interaction is slow or imbalanced (you have a heath bar which takes a while for enemies to grind down, or they have very deterministic behaviour). But with it as it is, you'd just end up with many more unavoidable or random deaths.
I'm not sure why you object to axis-aligned controls anyway, they've been a staple of game control since the beginning. Do you also hate pacman's controls? What about pretty much every platformer ever? What about moving your mouse around? I'm not saying rotate and forwards isn't a good system, just that its not for every case.
TheWinterCold, I'm glad you like the game. Regarding the babies, maybe giving them that behaviour was a mistake - but on the other hand it would make protecting them very very easy. Basically I initially thought it was a cool way of giving extra lives every now and then, and a bit of gameplay variety. But I have to say, I think level 10 hits an absolute sweet spot in terms of challenge. I must admit I'm surprised that people seem to have so much difficulty with level 3 - I find it almost trivial. (Let them all run to the corner, then 'hover' just nearby by tapping the down button.)
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I did think about having different shapes of fish, but it would have meant a lot more drawing - which is not my strong point. Also, I use circle vs circle collision testing, which is very fast. Having very different shapes would prevent that.
Generally I try to make my games very different. I think this game covers most of what I can do with this topic. And the average rating this game has received is also rather a blow to me, to be honest. Your enthusiasm for it does make me feel a bit better though.
I spent _some time_ tweaking the buoyancy and acceleration to be *just right*. The buoyancy, in particular, has to be there as otherwise a lot of gameplay possibilities the later levels explore are ... just lost. Think - without it the biggest fish could just swim right down and gobble everything up.
I think what is special about this game is really the symmetry between all the fish. They can do exactly what you can (at any given size). If I made you able to turn on a dime, then they could too - or that would all be lost. I could make them stupid - or you would just be eaten in a fraction of a second. Neither of those possibilities is satisfactory.
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XavierMace, you *do need* to learn from the big fish in level 4. The trick is to swim upwards, break the surface and dive down. And the acceleration is a constant - it doesn't change whether you're accelerating or decelerating. Well, there is some drag, but that's another thing...
Regarding the graphics - they are the best I could do. I could use an artist - if anyone wants to help with my next game, I'd welcome a collaboration!
Aaaah, is it the buoyancy? The bigger you are, the more you float. That isn't the controls - its the physics.
The huge fish TheWinterCold mentions is meant to show you how to deal with this - if you accelerate upwards and break the water surface, you can then accelerate again on the way down, so you can get to the bottom. (Also I though it was funny.)
You see - those fish are quite smart.
Some of the later levels are designed to use this effect in various ways. One of them is my favourite.
Honestly you guys, please perservere with the controls - the slow acceleration is in there for gameplay reasons. I could easily have made it a mouse-over reaction test, but this isn't that sort of game. If it was a car racing game, would you want the cars to go from 0 to 60 instantaneously?
Put another way, all the fish have the same acceleration as you. Would you want them to eat you on the second frame of the game?
The challenge here is to outwit the fish in the face of the symmetry of control. If you can complete level 12 (where you go from being a smaller fish to potentially the largest) then you've got skill, not just quick reactions.
Look ahead, and imagine what the other fish will do. Did I mention that the different colours behave differently? They have different personalities in the face of food and threats.
 "Rocket Racers"){kind=icon}
 "TwoThree"){kind=icon}
 "Mathspin"){kind=icon}
 "Big Fish"){kind=icon}
 "Line Snafu"){kind=icon}
 "Piu Piu"){kind=icon}
 "Big Fish, chipped"){kind=icon}