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[dopeman]

I've just completed my first indie title, called Chains. So far it's been shunned by all casual portals. I'd like to get some feedback and bug reports (I'm especially interested if the game fails to run on your machine). Thanks for your time.

Chains is a puzzle game with a unique feel and distinctive vector graphics style. The object of the game is simple - to link adjacent bubbles of the same color into chains. As you progress through the physics-driven stages it becomes increasingly more challenging and your speed, strategy and skill will be put to the test.


Download demo - 16.9 mb

[Labbed]

The game fails to run on my machine I see an empty window and then I get an error.
The first time I started it I heard a bit of music playing for a second.

[Kneecaps]

The game worked fine for me.  I really like a bunch of aspects of this game, but I think that the objectives should be a bit shorter, at least at the beginning.  Right now, it seems stuck between an "endless" puzzle game and what I think you're wanting the game to be.  If you changed the pacing a bit, I could see this as really successful, as I really like the game mechanics, graphics, and sound.

[eddietree]

so psychedelic... i am trippin ballz!

[dopeman]

Labbed, I've uploaded a new build of the demo at:
http://2dengine.com/chains/Chains_Install.exe
Could you please try running it again?
Also, what kind of error did you get?

Kneecaps, you have a point. In fact, a few other people have complained that the first few levels are too tedious. So, I've made the goals easier in the latest build.
But I don't want to make them too easy because the game is just 20 levels. However I have to mention that many of the later levels have objectives that could take an uncertain period of time, like for example 'balance the scale':


eddietree, you're the first person that has categorized my art as "psychedelic". I would have just said "abstract"

[eddietree]

eddietree, you're the first person that has categorized my art as "psychedelic". I would have just said "abstract"

psychedelic seems much more fitting. anything can be "abstract", but it takes a little bit more crazy to be psychedelic.

[dopeman]

so you're saying i'm crazy?
ok, i admit that the colors are a bit whimsical

[eddietree]

Your screen name is "dopeman" for goodness sake!  :D

[Labbed]

Labbed, I've uploaded a new build of the demo at:
http://2dengine.com/chains/Chains_Install.exe
Could you please try running it again?
Also, what kind of error did you get?

The new build didn't work either... I got the same error:

[BestGame]

Game look great!

cheers

[dopeman]

It turns out that the there's a bug with the game running on internationalized versions of Windows.
Labbed, could you do me a huge favor and try running the latest build and tell me if it works or not:
http://2dengine.com/chains/demo.zip
or
http://2dengine.com/chains/Chains_Install.exe

[Labbed]

Sorry. I get the same error as before

[dopeman]

Labbed, do you mind trying to run the game again, we've just released an update to the engine.
Also, we've lowered the price to $9.95 and the latest version includes a fix for the colorblind.

[Labbed]

Yaay it works now
Very nice game! But when I exit the game it stays as a process in the task manager and uses 50% of my CPU constantly until I end the process.

[dopeman]

I'm happy to announce that our little game got an 89% score in the 3rd issue of Indie Game Mag: http://www.indiegamemag.com/2009/02/issue-3-now-available.html

Also, check out a video of the game:

[dopeman]

We're happy to present an early port of Chains for the Mac.
It's a 32-bit universal binary, but for now it's Leopard only.
Backporting to Tiger is on the way.

We'd really appreciate any feedback on whether or not it works on your machine:
http://2dengine.com/chains/demo.dmg.zip  ~18 MB

[dopeman]

We are proud to announce that Chains will now be distributed by Canadian publisher Meridian4.
http://www.meridian4.com/games/chains/

You can download/buy the game here:
http://2dengine.com/chains/

[HybridMind]

I watched the youtube video a few posts back and just wanted to say that this game is a  cool idea and seems implemented quite well.  The way the level design combines physics objects with a match-x type mechanic is great.  I like how it would appear that some of the time while waiting for the minimum # of balls to be next to each other to make a chain you have to rely on the physics objects slowly rotating (or in the case of the level with the timed pistons) positioning the balls into place for further removal. 

EDIT:  I see you have a demo there.. sweet!  I'm downloading now. 

EDIT #2: Played the demo!  That was a good bit of fun to play for sure.  The clicking mechanic was a lot better then I thought it might be.  I didn't realize that you could just click once for awhile and was trying to hold the mouse button.  Also, once I realized how flexible the chaining was along with a forgiving range it got easier.  I wasn't able to beat the 'keep the stream going' level but I was able to beat the ones leading up to that.  I think the most challenging one was where you had to make a chain that was exactly a certain #.  That was a lot of fun to piece together!

Good luck with the distribution and the game!

[dopeman]

HybridMind, I'm honored by the positive response.


I'm glad you liked the game. Actually, one of the (valid) criticisms for Chains is that you can't easily tell the linking range.
By the way, for the past 4 months I've been working on a new title - an 2d exploration shooter. It's way way more advanced than Chains and a lot more fun too.

[dopeman]

We're happy to announce that Chains is now available on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/11360/