So this is my submission in the Ludum Dare 29, which I worked on during the Sony Hackathon event in Lund, Sweden. It has been stressful times, as usual, but I think I managed to get something somewhat ready.
/*/ /* Gameplay /*/ The idea with the game is that you should destroy boxes/cubes. This can be done by dragging the mouse over a number of boxes (hold left mouse button), as long as they are: - The same value (diamond, heart, clove or spade). - The same color. - Connected to each other, either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally (or any of them all together). - On the same height layer.
The more boxes you destroy in one move, the more points you will receive, and the higher is the chance that a bomb powerup (rotating blocks) will be spawned. The bomb powerup block can be destroyed like any other block.
While playing, everything will move towards the player, increasing the danger bar unless you manage to completely wipe the closest block layers. Filling the danger bar will have you lose the game.
/*/ /* Known issues /*/ - Web Player: Input sometimes does not work. This is because the browser may ask you to enable unity web player before the game starts (and that somehow messes up the game input). It should hopefully work if you refresh the page. - Gameplay: If a bomb is triggered by another bomb, the bomb will not explode. - Resolution dependent: The gui looks okay when playing in the browser. Certain resolutions may cause elements to be drawn at wrong positions on the screen.
/*/ /* Fixed issues /*/ I should just mention that I updated the code a few hours after the submission deadline, as it turns out my last minute fixes was not really any fixes. The two things I fixed was:
- Danger bar now is clamped and never scaled. - Input.anykey is replaced with space, as it seems unity sometimes have issues with it. I've noticed the issue in the web player build.
I hope the community is okay with these last changes
/*/ /* Tools /*/ - Chronolapse, for screen capture (Timelapse coming soon). - Bfxr, for sound effects. - Abundant Music, for procedurally generated music. - Paint.net - Unity3D
Very cool idea and mechanics. Seems a little unfair that if you leave a single block on the top layer by mistake then you're doomed to fail unless a bomb spawns in the right place. A bit more polish and this would be great.
@ArcturusDeluxe, I totally agree! A thought I had that I never got the time to implement was to let you keep the powerups, and activate them at positions that you decided yourself. That way, those nasty pillars would more easily be clearable.
Nice game, but thues is a little frustration when only one piece is isolated and there is nothing to do to avoid end of game, but it's a good entry here ++
Wow, really addictive gameplay. I really think you need to polish this up a bit and release it for mobile. Seriously, I spent way more time playing than I intended, and I'm at least itching a little bit to try and beat my score. You're onto something, for sure!
Novel game, nice and smooth. Great 'against the clock' puzzler. I can't work out whether the singleton tiles on top layer are left behind because I played it wrong, or because the board initial layout was impossible... Is it always possible ?
Thank you guys for the feedback :). @mrexcessive, well to explain what I do, is that I first randomize all the tiles, and then go though them to ensure that they have a neighbour that is the same color/value. However, it is not foolproof, since some moves may prevent you from taking all the tiles. When I have played it, and try my best to think and clear the top layer, it still seems one or two blocks are left behind. The next strategy would be to try to get a bomb spawned near those occasional "left behind"-tiles, but yeah, it's difficult as well :S
@Geckoo1337, I'm glad you like it. That's a neat score, I haven't managed myself to get past 2000. Somehow, my girlfriend on the other hand, has managed to get past 2700-something. Feel free to try to beat that score as a challenge :)
Really enjoyed this. As someone else said, if you end up with a block or two left on a level it's almost impossible to get rid of it unless you're lucky enough to get a bomb on a lower level. Maybe with a different perspective you could allow matches between levels too?
This game really gets me. It makes a lot of fun. But for some reason I didn't get all blocks from the first plain and then the end comes near and I could do nothing, because the bombs are on other places. But thanks for that great and funny game.
Very well-designed game! And ahh the MIDI overdrive guitar, that brings back some fond memories for me haha. Aside from the pillar issue that a few people already mentioned, I thought this was great and has a lot of potential for being a good mobile game. I scored 913!
Dude, I don't know if you've realised this, but your game idea is fucking immense and you need to make a post jam version of this, on mobile or something. Swipe action would be awesome.
Like, this is almost a finished, polished game. All it needs are crazy tweening effects, a nicer looking GUI and a proper soundtrack that's more atmospheric and done professionally and you could have a real hit here.
Except one thing in your game mechanic: You need some way of destroying blocks that you "forgot about". If you fuck up and leave one block, that's it, it's a ticking timebomb to your doom. Like.. maybe the floating powerup things destroy all higher levels of the same type?
So I mean like.. you have a spade on layer 1, say that's still around, then you get a spade powerup on level 4, you destroy it and bam, all spades on levels 1-3 are gone. Or maybe like, you destroy every block around a tower for a couple of layers and it topples?
Short of that, which is a bit of a gamebreaker, you have a really great, balanced game here which you could increase the difficulty of by speeding up, add leaderboards or whatever. If I were you I would seriously, seriously throw at least a couple of months into getting this on smartphones (though smartphone is a hard market).
Thanks for the comment guys! @Alex Rose, yeah I'm thinking to do something about the "lonesome pillars" and to make the bombs more powerful in some way. New powerups would definitely make the game more interesting too, so I will experiment some and we'll see how it goes! Thank you for your feedback :)
I really enjoy the simple and solid mechanics. It feels well thought-out and polished!