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Good example of impact luck has on this game. Level 39, have all but the top 2 blocks killed, but setting off the top bomb will pop them. I have a pink piece underneath the bomb, and a wild card next to the space above the bomb, and 5 moves. So all I need to do is keep popping that piece above the bomb until I get a pink one, right? 3 blue and one white piece spawn instead. Frustrating.
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In Level 45, I think the blocks are supposed to be single-strength, not double-strength. They're so awkward to hit! Or if the X spell just hit the gaps in the X, or if we had a C-shaped spell that zapped the contained spot...
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game is easy folks! no randomness at all. just use some strategy, and be the developer and your problems will disappear!
This is silly. The point I was making was that a game that was random, and not strategic, would be difficult even for me to win. Since it isn't difficult for me to win most levels in one or two tries - especially the earlier ones that people are complaining about - that is proof that the game isn't luck based. So, like I said, the problem is probably that I didn't explain it well enough.
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Review Comment #3 of 3: Oh, also, I nearly lost the round I finally won because there was a wild in one of those top 2 squares I reference, and apparently the ice doesn't break if there's a wild there. Thankfully I had another couple turns to click something else to make the wild drop and then could click that square again and clear the ice with my last turn. I decided to go back and check, and even if you cast a spell that covers where the wild is, the ice doesn't break. Specifically I got a column starting at the bottom with a wild at the top that technically was not part of the orbs used for the spell. I hope that aspect is unintentional, because it can penalize you for getting those combo spells and having multiple MP orbs on the board, which when they are necessary to achieve a score victory is pretty ridiculous.
I'd say more, but these comments are long enough as it is. I hope you re-evaluate what the majority of your players seem to be telling you about this game.
You underestimate the power of the multiplier. The scoring is (num orbs) x (num orbs) x (multiplier). If you were to focus on clearing the glass for most of the level, and you got, say, 10 spells during that time, it would only take one or two large blasts to get your full score at the very end. The eye pieces are also WILD, which means they can be used for any part of a spell or to connect large blasts together. While playing the game, I can usually find a spell for every move - but sometimes it's better not to use one if clicking a group will create a larger mass.
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Review comment #2 of 3: (likely via another spell) to drop that orb the required 5 spots to bring it to the bottom to receive the x2 MP. Even with that perfect start you'd still need to remove, on average, 9 orbs per turn on a board that averages 11 of each orb available. If you continue to be perfect and get a spell on turn #3 that brings the second MP orb to the bottom for a x3 MP, now you only need to average 7 orbs per turn for your remaining 12 turns to barely hit the 2500 point cap limit.
That's all just for the point challenge, then you gotta worry about the ice! Hitting every single square at least twice is difficult for multiple reasons:
Due to the click blockers, there are 4 particular squares which can only be hit by the X spell, no other spell can reach them. Sure, you can manually click groups to knock them out, but two of those four are at the top of the grid and thus are 100% dependent on orb skyfall, which unless I'm missing something, is entirely luck based.
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Review Comment #1 of 3: Let me see if I can explain to the developer why this game is luck based, using level 24 as an example. It is a 6x6 grid with the corners removed, so 32 squares total. Your tasks are to score 2500 points and clear the ice in 15 moves. The ice covers every square on the board AND requires two hits to fully remove, so 64 total hits to clear. Oh, and two separate 2x2 grids in the center 4x4 are click-blocked - this means out of 32 squares, you can only achieve a spell if the center falls within one of eight squares. Fun times.
Your scoring appears to be +50 for each spell, plus the square of the number of orbs removed in a single turn. There are 3 colors on the board, so on average 11 orbs of each color. Score cap/# of turns requires 13 orbs per turn with no multiplier (MP), or 169 points per turn. Since MP orbs are always placed at top of the column of the orb clicked/center of the spell, you'll need 1 turn to create the MP orb and another...
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Solid mechanics, but as mentioned by many other people, the randomness can mean that a board can be finished trivially, or completely impossible. Using strategy is only helpful if you have actual moves you can make, and randomized drops often mean that the spheres end up in a completely unhelpful position. "Blasts" make it easier to get "blasts" in the future - but you might start out needing to make a dozen moves in order to get them into a useful position, wasting most of them to just get started.
Once you clear the blocks, the whole board is open for just two types of gems. This means you can get huge scores on the last few clicks. It's worth sacrificing a few clicks to get one or two good digs into the middle in the beginning. Don't worry about the glass, it'll clear itself, just get rid of the blocks, then make some really big combos.
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its difficult to get the right set up. i played lvl 17 probably 30 times before i beat it, lvl 18 took me one or two tries, and now im stuck again on lvl 19. you can only strategize so much before getting screwed by the randomness. thats kinda the nature of these "get 3 in a row" things, but some boards are needlessly complicated.
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The cycle "This stage is just bullshit, how do they expect you to [do thing]??!?" ... Anger and Despair ... "This game is bullshit." ... Beat stage ... "Hot damn I'm a sexy god of puzzle skill, this game is the bee's knees." ... Next stage ... repeat.
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The rules aren't entirely clear to me. I don't understand what 'get three special pieces' means, and what decides how I get them, for example.
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Really level 17?! Everything? And a huge amount of points too?! What else, level 17, do you want me to do a handstand and walk your dog while I complete you?! Sorry, but this is some BS.
Once you clear the blocks, the whole board is open for just two types of gems. This means you can get huge scores on the last few clicks. It's worth sacrificing a few clicks to get one or two good digs into the middle in the beginning. Don't worry about the glass, it'll clear itself, just get rid of the blocks, then make some really big combos.
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Ridiculously difficult/impossible if you don't happen to start with just the right combination already on the screen...
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The most annoying thing is when you need something to roll down, and it's competing with other things that could roll down, and IT JUST DOES NOT GO.
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decent game, like the premise, but it seems like the number of moves you get changes the game balance heavily in favor of "luck". I don't know what version the dev is playing, but I'm not to level 30, and I don't beat each level in "one or two tries". More like 20-30. It seems like I can clear the blocks or whatever the sub-goal is, OR get the required minimum score, but trying to attack both seems to always end up short in the other goal.
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So the developer claims the strategy part mitigates the luck. This claim very much underestimates the amount of luck involved in this game and is completely ignoring the fact that the strategy that is supposed to mitigate the luck is entirely based on luck. You can not make those strategic moves if they simply are not there. There's not enough moves if you have to waste them setting up big moves.
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Another bunch of restarts on later levels in addition to the comment by the developer got me change my rating from 5/5 to 1/5. This game really started out very very pleasureable. Which started to diminish around level 18 and didn't get better after 18
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Actually, the randomness pushed me down in the comment section and I see a lot of what I wanted to say. Plus, I'm right now trying to solve 18, like the guy just before me, I really want you to demonstrate on this particular level how this is not majorly influenced by luck.
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Needs new tags: Luck, Randomness. Sound and visuals are gorgeous, but the game itself is just a frustrating series of continuous fruitless attempts.
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Dear Kajenx, please explain to me on the example of level 18 how this game is not considerably luck-based. To win this level, I need to set up spells, which is nigh-impossible when starting out. So I waste 5 or more moves trying to set up a spell that is able to clear one or more blocks. During these moves I only gain an insignificant amount of points due to the lacking multiplier. If I somehow manage to break the blocks, I'm out of moves before being even close to reaching 7500 points. If you still insist on this game being largely strategical rather than luck-based then I'll respond that you most likely failed to convey the necessary skills/strategies to the player. (And yes, I've restarted level 18 about 30-50 times now and I'm still stuck on it)
Level 18 is one example where getting a spell in the very beginning will make a difference. It's not as big a difference as you'd think, though. Once you get one block cleared, you can get rid of the rest pretty quickly and rack up a good multiplier in order to make some big scores at the end of the level. I just got two stars in my first attempt with three moves left, was 50 points away from 1 star on my second attempt (took me a bit to get going), and got 2 stars with 8 moves left on my third try. That isn't luck. Here on Kong you can even cheat a bit and restart until you get a spell on the opening board if you want. That should make it easy for you to pass this level at least.
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The luck does play a major factor. Where finishing a level relies on the fact that your first move gives you a spell, luck is involved. If it's not a spell, you spend most of the moves attempting to get that spell to show up, at which point you don't have enough points, or are simply out of moves to even finish the rest of the level. I'm mostly on the "out of moves" bit by level 14. Enjoying it, but it is frustrating as strategy doesn't apply when all you can do is match stuff up hoping the one you want will appear.
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Lol was getting anxious couldn't find the mute, didn't even expect the purple arrow to be options. labels would help but meh oh wells clever dev click baited the track :3 good game tho.
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I'm kind off annoyed by your comment Kajenx, this game is hard and there's no need to be smug about being better than most of us players. That being said, there's alot of luck involved in how stuff are initially and there's really no way to go around this. These "match 3" games just work like that from the core.
I'm not being smug. I'm just saying the game is not based on luck. If it was, it would be just as hard for me to win as a new player. I was actually trying to be encouraging... If people think they can only win by getting the right random number, then obviously the game is frustrating and not really worth spending any effort on.
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"You have to use strategy to win." Ah ok so it's my bad planning and playing skills that are keeping the colors I need from appearing.
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I'd love to see a help function with the shapes of the blast radius for each pattern, how to tell if a block takes two or more explosions to clear, etc. The blast shapes, especially, are hard to map out because they show and are gone again so quickly.
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I really like the concept here. But too many of the levels are based purely on luck. A little randomness is one thing, but when you have to restart more than a few ties just waiting for the exact config needed to hit the goal... not so good. (L21 is a good example of this issue.)
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Surely, if lots of people comment on how random the game is, a comment from the developer pointing out that it's easy for them is a little counterintuitive? Yes, of course it is Kajenx, it's YOUR game. It's really not the 'strategy' that makes this a little frustrating dude, it is the heavy dose of luck often required. Maybe a skip level feature?
I don't understand your logic. If it was just luck, then it would be just as hard for me as a new player. Luck is random for everyone, even the developer. If I can display a level of skill with the game, that means the game has nothing to do with luck. So, my conclusion was that I wasn't explaining the game well enough.
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It really seems that if you trigger multiple spells at once, they should each damage blocking pieces/glass that the resulting blasts touch. It's disappointing when you trigger 8 spells at once and that blocking piece is still in your way.
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A "Play Again"/"Next Level" option at the end of a level would be wonderful! Also, any way to have the game remember where on the track you are when you reload - instead of having to scan right every time? Otherwise, great game. I often play each level not planning to win the first time, just to see what strategy is needed
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round 22 beaten in about 30 attempts, only after I was lucky enough to get 4-spell start. The random factor really screws it up.
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I really like the concept and gameplay but as has been mentioned by many others the luck required to clear some levels is just stupidly high. It doesn't help if you can spot all the combos when there's no combos to play so you have to use 5 moves to get anywhere and that's already enough to quarantee you lose the level.
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Why this game is more luck based than strategy: You have too few moves available to set up your combos. If you can't start with a few combos it means you also don't get wildcards meaning it's even harder to get more combos set up. This has nothing to do with strategy and all with initial board setup. I too feel too limited because of luck rather than lack of strategy.
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can't beat level 82. Didn't reach 40k pts even once and never cleaned from all stones anyway... always 2 corners stays
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Fun to play, but it's frustrating having to try and get combos to beat a level. You say you tried to make it more strategy than luck, and that's great! It doesn't seem like the luck requirement is very low, however.
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The hardest part for me is visualizing the "s" shapes. Maybe having a little panel that shows the different spells would be very helpful.
I really like the game. Great visuals, great music.
I think people are just having problems understanding the spells/remembering to use them. The multipliers are so critical.
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Never use yourself to test your own game. Ever. You made it of course you know how to get through it easily! You're too biased. You need unbiased testers to know if your game is flawed or not.