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[adam a]

Kaptilo is live and out right now. It's pretty cool to see it on the Android Market like a Real Game and everything. There is a demo and full version. And a snazzy web site at http://kaptilo.com, all very sex-like.

Screenshot:


Free version:


Full version:


Original post below:

I have been working like a horse the last few months and Kaptilo is nearly done! I have new spiffy art, no more beach balls. I've got new levels and high scores and all sorts of cool things that you love. It's better than sex. It's also worse than sex because once you play Kaptilo sex become an irrelevance and you can't even remember. I'm going to get a video together soon and put it on the market and make my million dollars that they have reserved for me. But until then I Need YOU! to test it. Please just tell me all your bugs, I want to fix every bug there ever was and can be. There will be no more bugs in any of your games, or your friends games, I will fix them all in this one game and bugs will be a future impossibility.

I will probably return tomorrow morning and rewrite this in a more nicer way. Blerg.

Joe

http://kaptilo.com
http://kaptilo.com/Kaptilo.apk


Original post below:

Hey y'all, I've been working hard on a game for Android called Kaptilo over the last month and a half. It was originally started for the Ludum Dare October challenge thing, but I didn't quite make it unfortunately . I have carried on like a soldier though and the game is now ready, at least to get some feedback on. So without further ado, and in big letters:

KAPTILO



It is a simple puzzle game, you have to roll a beachball around a maze and collect gems. Every block you pass through gets blocked off after you so you have to plan your route carefully. And to get maximum points you need to try to fill up the whole level.

It may not make tons of sense but have a go please

Download here for android



I would love to get any feedback on the idea in general but more specifically what levels do you like, what do you hate? Does the control scheme make you want to smash up the canned goods isle at your local supermarket (or any other isle for that matter)? Do you like it but feel like if only it had Facebook integration or if you could tweet about how awesome the game was whilst playing then it would be complete?

Obviously please let me know about all the awful bugs that I haven't seen yet. Also if you're feeling super energetic and full of love then try out the alternative control schemes (there are three, this has been a problem for me ).

Phew... done. But stop reading now and go and try it out!

[Noah!]

It's a neat idea, and not a bad puzzle game, but for me it was kinda buggy: (for reference, Motorola Droid running 2.2)

* Tilt mode seemed to make it crash twice as often. A shame, really, because for me it was the most fun (and expected).
* Follow mode seemed to register my finger an inch to the left of expected, even though the circle was right where my finger was. Or is that a feature?
* Jumping was inconsistent, at one point the ball jumped 2 squares, and blocked off the square above me, screwing me over. A minor annoyance, and only happened once, but still...
* By the way, when installing, the permissions including "reading phone state". What is this for?
* The menu UI was sometimes nonfunctional.

Still, you're developing for Android, so good job on not making an instant-force-quit and keeping the major bug count under two digits. ;-)

On to the gameplay, I really like this! At first glance, the "you can't go back" mechanic seems like a forced way to give each action some consequence, but you do some really cool stuff with it (like how jumping works). Unfortunately, right now, the current batch of levels is really easy; I 100%ed all of them in under a half an hour. Also, some of the levels that rely more on action than strategy (like the gap jump and the last one) are really hard just because of the Android's input system itself. But on the plus side, I really like how you personify Kaptilo, and I think that you can really expound on that should you decide to add more to the game.

Overall, good job! Even though you may have not fit an arbitrary deadline, at least you got the game done, which is more than many people can say!

[adam a]

Thanks very much for your feedback

I am still working on the game, this is supposed to be a beta of some kind. The controls seem to be the number one thing to get right at the moment, I'm spending a lot of time on those now. Thanks for trying all the controls too, it is interesting to get a perspective on that, though I need to add some explanation, at least of the finger follow one. If it was drawing the circle in the right place then it was working but the way it works is not obvious I suppose. Kaptilo moves towards your finger and jumps if your finger is above him but will always keep a certain distance, so that he doesn't disappear under your finger. So you can kind of push him towards the side tiles. It's quite precise I've found but unfortunately quite unintuitive.

As for the permissions and reading phone state, I have to say that one suprised me. I need to look up what those warnings specifically mean so I can let people know. It can be a bit worrying when you see all these weird permissions that a game needs.

You said it crashed alot, was this mid game or going back to the menu or starting a level or some other time particularly? I might see if I can collect logs in the future (I don't know yet how easy it is to do yet), I really want to get it as un-buggy as possible

Anyway, I'm adding some new features to make the puzzles a bit more interesting, and I'm leaning towards taking out the action elements and sticking more closely to the puzzle aspects. I'll post more here when I have a new version.

[Noah!]

To be honest, really the only time it frequently crashed was on Tilt Mode, about every other level (right after the level dialog box, and before the actual level loads). Aside from that, I think it only locked once and force quit once. So I kinda blew that out of proportion. Sorry.

[adam a]

Not at all, any crash is a crash. I'll scratch my nogin on the tilt force quit. It's hard to try and debug these things when you haven't got the phone, probably the most annoying thing about developing on android.

[OneMoreGo]

I launch it, see a Kapilo screen with some small scrolling boxes underneath and one saying "go go go". Pressing that doesn't seem to do anything.  

I did get it to launch a dialog (saying "play" and a couple of other buttons) earlier but not sure how I managed it.

This is on a Nexus one running Froyo (2.2.1)

[adam a]

@OneMoreGo Thanks for trying the game. There seems to be a bug with the buttons, my friend has a Nexus One with 2.2 and has the same problem. It seems like if you press on the "Go go go" box, then somewhere else you should get the dialog up which lets you play the level (each box is a level, the "Go go go" one is the only one you have unlocked). I want to look into it but I am actually using Android's standard buttons, just with a new graphic, so I'm not sure where to start debugging tbh :S

[adam a]

I have just released a new version! Better graphics, more puzzles, smoother controls!

More detailed info at my blog.

Please try it out.

[OneMoreGo]

Tried your latest. Still have the problem with pressing the first levels button but once i've got past level one the other ones seem to launch fine. 

On the "You Win" screen the cancel and OK buttons are very close together (and the cancel button is bigger) so it's quite easy to hit it by mistake, also is it necessary to ask me my name every level?

As for the game mechanic, it's interesting but i'm not sure it's my kind of game. I suspect it would be more fun using tilt than tapping and swiping. 

[adam a]

Hey, thanks for the feedback. I agree about the ok / cancel buttons, I'll change that for the next release hopefully.

I also plan to have tilt controls in the future, I actually had them in a previous version but I took them out in this version because I wanted to put the game in the recent indiePub compo and I didn't have time to test the tilt controls.

Also, I am currently working on putting Open Feint leaderboards and acheivements in the game. I looked at Score Loop too but it seems that Open Feint is a bit more widely used and also just works a bit better. Does anyone here have any experience with these mobile score / achievement platforms, or any particular reasons to go for or avoid them?

[adam a]

New version. This is a ready for release beta, only a few more levels to put in but apart from potential bugs it is done. Hoping people can help me find bugs and also tell me which levels suck.

I've updated the first post with all the reasonable details.

[adam a]

Kaptilo is now out on the Android market. The first post has all the details.