next »

[Jonathan Whiting]

A glitch tetris-alike. You will be crushd.



http://jwhiting.nfshost.com/coding/crushd/

After putting off doing so for well over a month I finally tidied the edges of this, made a preloader etc. for this.  Faffed about for far too long writing a fancy replay recording/saving/replaying system that strikes me as completely OTT now (although it is kinda cool).

The initial learning curve is also unfortunately a little steep, and there's no obvious way of making it shallow.  Ah well.  Niggles aside I'm still pretty happy with it, hope some of you get some enjoyment out of it too.  Would love to hear what you think (good and bad!)

[Onza40]

Looking cool, like the art style, gameplay is very limited a quite slow paced though.
Not for me, but I'm sure there are people out there who will warm to it

[mcc]

Oh, I like this a lot.

You should look into getting this on iphone if the nonsense with the developer agreement and Flash is ever resolved.

My only feedback:

- The game does seem to start out rather slow paced, then get frantic when the water is introduced. The slow paced part is somewhat necessary to learn the game but makes repeat games feel a bit repetitive (a lot of "stay alive as long as you can" games have this problem). Maybe it would make sense to add an "advanced mode" where things fall faster or the water appears quicker?

- The scores on the high score menu seem to be divided by ten compared to the scores displayed in game?

And the replay feature is neat.

[davidfrankel]

Nice!  Despite being a Tetris-like, it feels pretty unique to me.  I like how Red gets all mad when you squash him.  It might be nice to be able to skip ahead so you don't have to redo the beginning phase each time, though I do appreciate the minimal menu/interface you have going on now.

[Zaphos]

Really nice work!  Just noticed that you can click high scores on the table to see how they played the game -- very cool idea

the water appears quicker?

I think the water appears once you reach a specific height?  So it does appear quicker if you're playing well.

[mcc]

the water appears quicker?

I think the water appears once you reach a specific height?  So it does appear quicker if you're playing well.

Oooh, now I get it

[Jonathan Whiting]

You should look into getting this on iphone if the nonsense with the developer agreement and Flash is ever resolved.

As far as I know it's firmly resolved, and the way it's resolved is "you can never have flash game on iPhone".  Having said that, porting isn't difficult, I just lack the requisite mac + device to do so.  Also, from experience the boxes would be a bit small to comfortably press on an iPhone screen, an iPad however...

- The scores on the high score menu seem to be divided by ten compared to the scores displayed in game?

Great spot, cheers.  I've fixed that now.  Serves me right for using the old-school arcade trick of "scores look too small, add a zero!" 

I think the water appears once you reach a specific height?  So it does appear quicker if you're playing well.

Yep, you've got it.  Water speed is tied to height, whenever there's a flash+earthquake (5 levels of height) the waterspeed and gamespeed click up a notch.  Once you reach 30,000 or so points it's preeetty frantic.

Thanks for all the kind words everyone :D

[Retroman]

Excellent little game. A simple but really fun concept, expertly executed.
The minimalistic retro graphics are nice as well.

Great work!

[Barefists]

Interesting game and great mechanic!  However, I found the learning curve to be very steep.  Maybe the flooding can be triggered when the player has reached a certain height instead of a threshold score?  This might give some distance between the player and the water to buffer him/her into the new challenge.

I also reviewed the game on IndieReview, if you are interested.  Keep up the great work!

[Jonathan Whiting]

Thanks guys, and especially for the comprehensive write up!  It means a lot to me

The learning curve is certainly on the steep (going on vertical) side.  I spent quite some time trying to find ways of easing people in a little, some of them are in the game (yes, it was actually considerably harder before) but the rest of them ended up compromising the game once you're past the initial speed bump.

I always intended this to be something I'd still find an entertaining challenge after I'd finished it, so I wasn't willing to compromise the late-game too much.  I also think there's a significant limit to how much easier I could make it anyway, it's sort of intrinsically hard.

Maybe the flooding can be triggered when the player has reached a certain height instead of a threshold score?  This might give some distance between the player and the water to buffer him/her into the new challenge.

The 5000 point cap before the flooding begins was intended to do this.  It gives players a little room to play around and get the hang of the mechanics.  However it does seem that a *lot* of people end up drowning soon after they hit it.  I'm not convinced there's a way of making this 'better' without making the intro tedious for more experienced players.

[raiten]

I love this  very suspenseful. I didn't think the learning curve was that steep though, I mean, not that I'm very good at it but I'm good enough to have fun with it.

[UltimateWalrus]

Nice job!  This was a great idea.  I really like the mood of the game, it's very tense

[kelkka]

this is great, dont change anything. its just perfect and genius, good job.