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[Jonsm]

PLAY HERE: http://www.kongregate.com/games/JonSM/balls-to-the-walls-beta

Updates
01/09/15: Released!
01/05/15: New levels and visual effects, fixed pink lines bug
11/27/14: New web player: new levels and GUI

Hi everyone,

So for the last few months, I've been working on a puzzle game called Balls to the Walls. Recently, it's gotten to a playable stage, and I uploaded a beta with the first few levels on Kongregate.

Screenshots



You can also follow the devblog at jfsm.tumblr.com

[Ooops]

Aside from the disturbing purple lines (they were ubiquitous for me), it looks polished and professional.
The mechanisms make for interesting puzzles, so I think you're really onto something.

I just hope the 7 levels at hand are not meant to be the first ones, as I found them very difficult.

[NeonFace]

Interesting concept, forces the player to think multiple steps forward. Gameplay works smoothly. The look of the game is alright, quite generic, but that's better than distracting. The new GUI is better than the current one.

The first puzzles are too difficult (considering they're first). I got stuck on the fourth level. The ones before that might be easier to solve if there was some sort of tutorial. Also, you might want to start out with just two directions and gradually work into four so that players have time to learn the concept.

[Jonsm]

Thanks for the feedback! Seems like the learning curve is definitely too much -- I'll try to add some easier levels at the beginning. I've noticed when making levels that it's always a fine line between an obvious solution and a really tough one.

What kind of tutorial would you be interested in? Strategies, solutions? Or are the game mechanics unclear?

As for the pink lines, that's a problem that comes from the sprite atlases. To know where to cut the sprites out, I put the lines in between each image. It appears on some resolutions, these cuts aren't perfect and the pink pixels can bleed in. However, once I'm done with the sprites and I have no new ones to add, I'll be able to remove the pink lines and there should be no problem.

[NeonFace]

The game mechanics are very clear, but the concept requires the player to re-adjust their brain.

In terms of motivation and later challenges, I think having the player figure things out will work better than explaining the solutions or strategies. I'd recommend having five levels with just two directions, then five levels with three directions, with the very first level being just two balls, one of which has to push the other one.

[michaelplzno]

I thought the learning curve was fine. What you need is a button that lets you move back just one step at a time. Undo.

Edit: Wait you have that, you should make it space bar. Also it needs to animate them moving backwards. Also moar lvls plz.

[Torfi]

Fun little puzzle game. I definitely agree with the previous posts about the difficulty curve. The jumps at level 4 and when the rotators are introduced are pretty significant. You could try letting the player experiment with the rotators in a level with fewer balls first. Also maybe make a simple level that makes it really obvious that you have to move a ball that is not on a rotator in order to rotate a ball on a rotator further as that mechanic is not completely intuitive.

It confused me a bit that the first level has these big clearly marked areas where the balls were supposed to end up but in the next levels it is just a small light on the wall. They seem a bit overly conservative, too, and can be hard to read at a glance.

It would also be nice to be able to see which direction a rotator spins while there is a ball on top of it, sometimes you take a some time thinking about the next move and forget.

One more small thing I would mention is having to press 'Start' to dismiss the dialog every time you restart is a bit annoying. I feel like this is a game where you want to experiment and restart a lot and having that unnecessary click makes you just a tiny bit more apprehensive.

[Jonsm]

Fun little puzzle game. I definitely agree with the previous posts about the difficulty curve. The jumps at level 4 and when the rotators are introduced are pretty significant. You could try letting the player experiment with the rotators in a level with fewer balls first. Also maybe make a simple level that makes it really obvious that you have to move a ball that is not on a rotator in order to rotate a ball on a rotator further as that mechanic is not completely intuitive.

It confused me a bit that the first level has these big clearly marked areas where the balls were supposed to end up but in the next levels it is just a small light on the wall. They seem a bit overly conservative, too, and can be hard to read at a glance.

It would also be nice to be able to see which direction a rotator spins while there is a ball on top of it, sometimes you take a some time thinking about the next move and forget.

One more small thing I would mention is having to press 'Start' to dismiss the dialog every time you restart is a bit annoying. I feel like this is a game where you want to experiment and restart a lot and having that unnecessary click makes you just a tiny bit more apprehensive.

Thanks! These are all really good points. I'll definitely be adding some more basic levels in the beginning. It's funny how easy it is when you're designing levels to think the solution is trivial, when really it's only because you made it yourself. I'll also prevent the start screen from showing up every time you restart, and I'll see what I can do about making the rotation direction more obvious.

[Jonsm]

Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates. What do you think about this new level select screen?

[Jonsm]

Hey everyone, I've updated the web player. Click here to play! I've added 3 new (And hopefully easier) levels here, which hopefully address some of the concerns about the difficulty curve.

One thing, I'm getting a strange bug on the level select screen with my development computer, but I can't replicate it on any other machine. Does anyone else get something like this?
(Also, this happens only in the web build, not on standalone, which is weird)

[Jonsm]

Update! I've added a bunch of new levels, and I implemented Torfi's suggestion about the rotators. There are a bunch of other minor visual changes as well.

Two questions:
- Has anybody played the new levels yet? Is the difficulty curve OK or does it need to be even easier?
- Does anyone know a good source of free, royalty free music?

Thanks! It's almost done!

[diegzumillo]

I played the first 5 levels and it felt great. The only reason I didn't play the rest is because my brain is not in the mood for puzzles right now, because it's a very compelling puzzle game and well executed.

Suggestion: make it completely playable with the keyboard alone. It's very common for browser games to have the game play with keys and the menus with mouse, and it's annoying. You have to take your hand from the mouse to the keys, from the keys to the mouse etc. Add a small letter to the menu items indicating it also works.

[Jonsm]

Hey everyone, it's released!
diegzumillo: it actually is playable with only the keys. It doesn't say it explicitly but you can always skip to the next level by pressing space or enter. You can also reset with r and undo with u.

[Stals]

Nice game, feels polished, i like the mechanic =)
Some things I've noticed:
You can restart while playing by pressing 'R' but on the "Failure" screen it doesn't for some reason.
Also - undo button is not really visible (you could try putting an icon near it maybe) and it is not obvious you can use 'U' key to use it from the keyboard.
Mobile version would be interesting to try using swipes as an input maybe.