Bennett
Jinky Jonky and the Spell of the Advergamez 3
Level 10
Posts: 1821
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« on: January 04, 2009, 05:11:17 PM » |
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I've just put out my new puzzle game, Evacuation! A collaboration between me and a friend of mine who is much better at AI programming than I will ever be.  It's much more casual than my previous game, QWOP, but we don't want it to be so easy it's boring. So I'd love some feedback on that score: is it hard enough? Too hard? What can we do to make it harder/easier? The link! Link |
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« Last Edit: January 04, 2009, 05:25:08 PM by Benzido »
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J.G. Martins
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« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2009, 05:17:16 PM » |
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Not that I have time to try it, but... link?  |
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Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.
"Good!" cried the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But iron, cold iron, is the master of them all."
--- Rudyard Kipling
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Bennett
Jinky Jonky and the Spell of the Advergamez 3
Level 10
Posts: 1821
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« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2009, 05:25:34 PM » |
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Oops! Thanks.  |
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J.G. Martins
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« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2009, 05:53:30 PM » |
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Hey!
I just tried it! I think the mechanics are pretty deep and interesting, but the first levels (say, 1 to 10 or 15), for me, were mostly a question of opening one type of doors. Out all the aliens went, without any astronauts with them. I rarely had to think too deeply about which doors to open, or even to move astronauts around much. Of course, in more advanced levels (only played twice, mind you) things get more interesting with the open-but-also-closed doors of the same type:)
You should include some sort of mechanic in the spaceship generation algorithm that guarantees that levels aren't that simple to solve. Either that, or just keep generating until you find one that isn't as easy, since verification is probably easier to implement.
Also, even if no astronauts die, it's impossible to get new recruits in later levels? At some point it becomes just survival, whereas in the start it's pretty cool trying not to get any astronaut killed so you can get more recruits. The mechanism sort of balances itself, I suppose, since with levels with more astronauts, the chance of one of them going "overboard" is much higher. You could also make it so that you'd need to pass two levels with no deaths before recruits start showing up again (actually, is this how it works? Didn't check. Simply did not get recruits after a certain point).
Again, I thought it was pretty fun! Good job!:)
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Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.
"Good!" cried the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But iron, cold iron, is the master of them all."
--- Rudyard Kipling
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Bennett
Jinky Jonky and the Spell of the Advergamez 3
Level 10
Posts: 1821
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« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2009, 05:57:34 PM » |
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Thanks for the comments!
Yeah, I think the open-door mechanic could come in a bit sooner. It's quite hard to make an algorithm to verify if a level is hard or not, since there are multiple ways to solve each level.
Currently the situation is that you have a fixed number of total recruits. We're planning to try balancing this by letting the veteran recruits turn into indispensable captain-type officers, so that the game ends if they die.
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yscik
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« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2009, 06:07:11 PM » |
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The open-closed-doors were a bit unexpected for me, I just figured I'd close them, and there went my crew to the dark and cold space. Until that, it was pretty easy; maybe take the flags away on some levels, or make some sort of criteria of whether or not they are available. Not that I'm not okay with it now, I'm happy I don't have to think that hard  Good job  |
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Sparky
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« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2009, 06:34:14 PM » |
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Hi Benzido-
I remember being interested when you posted a screenshot a while ago. The game turned out pretty well!
I really like the game idea, and I liked the levels that required a bit of moving the crew around. I never ran into any situations that required flushing crew members. It was fun to retry levels until I got 0 casualties.
When I finish level 9 the game starts over. Is that supposed to happen? I tried it three times. I wanted to play more levels.
Difficulty-wise I think the game might be more appealing with a slightly steeper ramp, and a larger number of levels to appease people who like the game. I also wonder if hand made levels wouldn't work better in a puzzle game like this, especially seeing as it's all about planning ahead. The generation made some pretty weird decisions. Once it created a room full of spacemen with only one door that lead out into space. Often the generation breaks the difficulty ramp, too. Later levels are sometimes generated so they are only a one or two click victory, which feels kind of weird sandwiched in between two tricky levels.
This is an awesome game, though. I really enjoy playing it.
P.S.- why is the captain naked?
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Bennett
Jinky Jonky and the Spell of the Advergamez 3
Level 10
Posts: 1821
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« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2009, 06:40:40 PM » |
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We made the open-doors levels kick in earlier. Working on the officers. When I finish level 9 the game starts over. Is that supposed to happen? I tried it three times. I wanted to play more levels.
The game doesn't start over at level 10 for me!  Are you pressing R to retry a level? That prevents you from advancing further... maybe you have a computer that can't cope with numbers bigger than 9? P.S.- why is the captain naked?
He's not! Either he's wearing a red suit, or at least he's wearing a chest-patch and helmet. Whichever way you want to see it, he's not naked. |
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Bennett
Jinky Jonky and the Spell of the Advergamez 3
Level 10
Posts: 1821
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« Reply #9 on: January 04, 2009, 06:54:32 PM » |
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Ha ha, yes it has an ending. I put a great reward for you on level 200.  |
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moi
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« Reply #10 on: January 04, 2009, 07:06:48 PM » |
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YEAH!
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Sparky
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« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2009, 01:41:27 AM » |
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Yeah, I was restarting most levels to try not to get any casualties. Actually I'm still kind of confused about what the rules are around restarting.
If I play without restarting I can play levels past 9.
I just encountered levels with doors that start open for the first time. That's a fun twist. I really like this, Benzido. It's a really fun little game.
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Pishtaco
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« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2009, 03:30:16 AM » |
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My shallow comments:
- Fun game, I like.
- The audio and visual feedback is great, except for being eaten, which I failed to notice or easily locate once or twice.
- The brown and pink doors are a trifle too close in colour for me.
- It would be great if the game window could be made bigger.
- What's up with all the dots in the text? The ellipses on the instruction screen look a bit unnecessary, especially the ,.. , and with the difficult font and the dots I'm afraid my eye skips right over the between-levels text. It's difficult to see the crossing-out of spacemen, too, and the green background doesn't seem to match anything from the game screen.
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William Broom
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« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2009, 05:22:15 AM » |
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I think I agree with Pishtaco about the text. It's whimsical for about ten seconds, then it's just hard to read.
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Bennett
Jinky Jonky and the Spell of the Advergamez 3
Level 10
Posts: 1821
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« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2009, 05:32:44 AM » |
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The dots are there partly for whimsy and partly because I can't figure out why the space character in my custom font works in photoshop but not in flex. Truetype pixel fonts are really hard to figure out!
The size of the window is to match the iphone, because I was planning to make a conversion. I might be able to do a x2 version on a different page, if people are interested...
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