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[Kolba]

Rebound is a simple arcade/puzzle game about a bouncing ball.

Download Rebound at box.com (10mb):

https://www.box.com/s/7bec9af6f477e9042e97

Help file excerpt:

"With each bounce of the ball against most walls, the ball's counter decreases by one; the level progresses if this counter reaches zero within the time limit. Create artificial barriers in order to trap the ball into ever smaller spaces and cause it to bounce more frequently."

Screenshots:



Rebound was created in GM8.1, more as a way to get to practice with GM than for its own sake. I grew fond of the project and stuck with it longer than intended to add levels/new elements etc. As the project grew in complexity, I was required to use more GML, so staying with it has been a valuable learning experience.

Now I'd like to know what the public thinks I still have plenty of ideas to make it a more rounded game, so it might yet expand. Thanks for your interest!

[michaelplzno]

Link's broken, will try when fixed.

[Kolba]

Thanks for letting me know, I've edited the first post.

[michaelplzno]

First of all, my first PC game was a twist on Jezz Ball. IDK if you've ever played Jezz Ball as part of the windows entertainment pack, but it has a lot of similarities to your game. And I like Jezz Ball so that's cool.

Notes (In order they occurred)

• Nice little menu. Little polish goes a long way. You could reduce the amount of time it takes for the name of the game to show up. Just make the walls move faster. Also move the title layer over the bouncing ball layer so the yellow is never hidden.
• Music turns off when you switch to full screen mode.
• You absolutely should do this one: When the timer runs out you should have the "you loose" screen pop up instantly.
• Similarly there should be a reset button for when you screw up a level
• I think in the level 5/20 +1 its possible to fail the level in such a way that it just loops forever. If you get it stuck against the +1 wall it can just keep going up unless there is a cap, I haven't tried it
• Level 7/20 Box Clever I did manage to get stuck b/c I screwed one up and then just fired the other ones foolishly so it bounced in the middle forever.
• When I first encountered the +1 blocks I didn't know they were bad even though you made them red. I would make them an up arrow, maybe even just a simple upwards facing triangle thats red.
• Also I'm assuming there is a way to get silver and gold medals (IE its possible to do) It seemed like that would be quite hard unless I'm missing a gameplay element

This is a good first effort. You need art, but if you did what I suggest and this had beautiful shaders with ripples and particles and all the bells and whistles this would be fairly legit.

[Kolba]

Thanks for playing, as well as your detailed feedback msilver.

-Regarding the menu. I realise it's quite slow. It's possible to skip by pressing <return> or <escape>. In the next version I'll put a 'press escape to skip' hint at the bottom of the screen. I'll see how it looks with the ball beneath the yellow lines.
-Music doesn't turn off when I enter full screen, either with f4 or from the options. I'd like some other people to test this if possible.
-I considered having the level end as soon as the timer runs out, but sometimes it's a good strategy to see where the ball is about to go next, even if you know you have already failed this time, so that you can make use of the knowledge on your next turn. It's possible to restart the level at any time by pressing <R> once you know you have failed.
-Yes, infinite loops are possible, but with the <R> key these aren't an issue.
-Would a red up arrow be any more obvious than a red +1? If in doubt, the help file does describe the different blocks and what they do.
-There is indeed a way to get silver and gold medals, but these are not the goal for a first playthrough, they're there for some replay value. You can get them by (usually) trapping the ball into very tight spaces.

Again, thanks a lot for the feedback. Since this is a small project I wouldn't go with highly technical art unless I though there was a lot of interest in the game. Though I realise it might take the former to achieve the latter!