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[mitkus]

Hey tigers,

Some time ago me & my friend made this little sandbox zen puzzle thing for iOS. It was a colossal failure and sold very few copies, so we moved on to other things. Still, this game always had a place in my heart and I couldn't completely forget it. Today we made builds for Windows & OS X and decided to make it a freeware game on PC. Here is a little teaser video:





You can download it here. I'm really interested in your reactions. Is it any good? What would you have made differently? Do you think it could have future as a web/flash game?

[erik]

The Mac download didn't work for me under OS X 10.6.

I think the visuals and the audio are both pretty nice.

I had a little bit of fun with it, but ultimately I didn't find it all that compelling.  The game seems to have two sources of challenge.  One is kind of a puzzle element, where you are trying to figure out what you need to do to eliminate all of the particles. And the other is the action element, where you are clicking to get the particles to move around.  I found that the two challenges didn't mix very well.  When I was trying to do a specific set of interactions, the indirect controls mostly felt frustrating.  And when everything was flying around and bouncing and merging, I couldn't really tell what was going on or how I would want to affect the outcome.

Also, I think it took too long to introduce the timed levels and the ring particles.  More variety earlier in the game might have made things more interesting.

I played on a laptop with a trackpad and didn't use the right click at all.

I'm not sure about attracting and audience as a web/flash game.  It seems like it has potential, but the fun just wasn't quite there for me.

[FloatingCoder]

Played the first 11 levels, feels ALMOST compelling enough to enjoy as a mobile casual game. I likely wouldn't play it on a PC (but I'm glad you released it that way for testing) but I could see playing it now and again on a mobile device.

I think Erik's right, the two elements don't mix well. I also found it hard to figure out what the different combinations do, to the point when you introduced the ring element, I was just like "Oh great, how does that work? Now I gatta figure that out too."

I'd say there are 3 aspects to the game.
1. Figure out what combinations do what.
2. Figure out what combinations you need for what you have.
3. Make them do that with the pushing and pulling.

As a mobile game that I would only play occasionally when I have a few minutes, I think I would quickly forget what combinations do what between plays, which would be most frustrating.

I think for a mobile game, you would need to just tell me what does what in an easy to reference guide so I can look at it if I haven't played for a while. Perhaps just some icons across the top, it there's not to many combinations on one level to display that way.

I too found the movement system cumbersome. I like the idea of the balls moving, but seems like they need to be a tad easier to control. Perhaps if I could add force to one object at a time?

I like the movement, but not the wrapping around the screen. I think it would be better if there where walls around it and the orbs bounced off of it. Another issue with the wrap around, if an orb is on the edge, it shows on both sides. When trying to do quick counts of orbs, I double counted a few times because an orb was showing top and bottom.

I much prefer the levels that start with all the orbs still, since you really need to count them all to see what you need to do. When they all start flying around, I just have to wait for them to settle down, and / or try to stop them so I can see what's going on and make a strategy.

Also, levels with too many orbs seemed tedious to get started, because I had to spend a while just counting. "Lets see, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2... OK, I need one more black, and 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, looks like I need 2 more white. Or did I double count these..." I'll have to count again and point to where I started on the screen and follow a pattern so I don't count any twice. Turns the first 30 seconds into a counting game before you can even start making a strategy.

Over all I like the idea, keep it up! Just seems to need a little tweaking to get it just right.