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Your aim is to build a mysterious multicoloured substance known as tricone. To crack each level, you'll need to figure out the right sequence of interactions to bring each coloured piece together, changing the cell structure by breaking open walls or creating new divisions. You'll need to unlock resources then use catalysts to create the compounds you need. As you progress, new and unusual elements emerge and combine together inside shifting cell structures to challenge your lateral thinking.

Features:

• 100 standard levels (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/screenshots).
  
• A graphical editor where you can create your own custom puzzles by simply drawing them.
• Tricone Lab Online (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/online/): click a button to upload your custom puzzles and share them with other players.
  
• Browse and download custom puzzles created by other users, and see if you can solve them!

Tricone Lab is now available to buy / play on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com)!  Here is the Tricone Lab Steam store page (http://tinyurl.com/qemooxr). If you would like a Steam key for press purposes just email me.

If you would like to be updated about the development and release status you should either subscribe to this TIGSource thread, follow the game on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/392610/) or follow me on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/joshuabsinger).

Tricone Lab is also on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/TriconeLab)

Any other questions? Please just PM or email me (http://mailto:[email protected]).

I love the design behind this!  Can't wait to see where it goes!

very interesting puzzler, I've never seen anything like this before.

I can't wait to see more. I'm hopin' there's a demo cause the gameplay looks like it feels very satisfying. I love the biological take on a puzzle game. The only puzzle game I can think of that goes for a biological theme is Splice and even that still felt sort of mechanical, somehow.

Thanks for the positive comments. I'm preparing a playable demo for Windows. It includes 26 puzzle / tutorial levels. Later on in the game I'm planning to introduce more biologically inspired mechanics such as cells which subdivide autonomously, and plant-like structures.

OK a downloadable demo is now available!

Here is the link:

EDIT: link removed. PM me if you would like a Steam key for the game!
 
Minimum system requirements: Java 6.0+, decent processor (e.g. i3 or better), graphics card which supports shaders. Any feedback much appreciated. The project's focus is gameplay (smooth learning curve, satisfaction of solving puzzles etc). There's no sound (yet) and the art is pretty minimal. So gameplay feedback would be particularly useful. I've only tested it on Windows thus far, so I would especially like to hear from anyone who tries it on MacOSX or Linux.

For the downloader / installer I decided to go with Java Web Start in the end. It was fairly easy to get started with it, and it offers a lot of functionality. The fiddly thing was actually getting desktop icons to work. It seemed some time back that asking users to install Java first before installing the game was too confusing. I guess Minecraft proves that where there's a will, there's a way.

I still have some reservations about Java Web Start. My game needs to read / write files locally in order to store the user's progress. This means I need to give the application extra permissions, so web start pops up a scary message that my game might be harmful. It isn't but I can't seem to avoid the message and stay within the web start framework. I guess I will at least register the certificate properly at some stage.

The game feels great to play. The pacing is incredibly relaxing and it's awesome to watch all the components interact with each other. I love breaking an interior wall and watching the whole cell collapse a little and reinflate. I occasionally found myself hoping that the game would introduce a new component that would add something to the game mechanics but gameplay stayed compelling through all twenty-something levels even with the relatively few components required to solve the puzzles. I think it particularly helped in the later levels that I had to start thinking outside the box cell.

The visuals benefit from being easy to read and certainly don't take anything away from the game but I feel like they're too simple for a game that feels so organic. The only thing I think the game really needs, though, is sound. I just really wanted things to "pop" and "squish" while I was playing.

---Miscellaneous Comments---

• I understand that Ctrl+Z is probably a comfortable Undo for most Windows users but I think it just adds an unnecessary step for so many of the hotkeys to require Ctrl. I also think that the hotkeys would be a little easier to use if they were all based on the left side of the keyboard since the main key I used was F1 (and esc). The hotkeys for Info, Pause and Redo are all a little inconvenient while one hand was on the mouse.
  
  
• A restart hotkey would be much appreciated.
  
  
• I'd like to be able to select multiple Breakers or Tricone Catalysts so I can synthesize (or break) some or all at once.
  
  
• I find myself hitting F1 as soon as the Breaker's connected and then again when it can actually break. I'd prefer it if Breakers would que a break order so that once they reach a wall they'd break automatically.
  
  
• Breakers "arms" seem to get confused if you try to pull them past a wall too quickly and instead of connecting to it they just bump against it until you reposition the mouse directly on the wall.
  
  
• I got a crash once after I finished Enough Breakers on M4, as the next two levels were "inflating" but it didn't happen again after I restarted and loaded M4.

------
Awesome game! Can't wait to see what's next for it.

Thanks so much for playing the game through all the current levels and for the detailed and constructive feedback.

I will of course introduce new components after map M4. As you mention maps M1-M4 are restricted to a fairly narrow set of components (sythesis, breakers, breaker-synthesis, breaker-moves and cell-balance). My rationale was this:

a) Since the game is abstract, it can, depending on the player, be hard to remember and reason about the puzzle components. Therefore repeated exposure allows the logic for these components to "sink in" to the player's mind, before we move on and introduce something new into the mix.

b) As you mentioned, even these few components allow quite a wide range of puzzles, and even a certain amount of lateral thinking "outside the cell". I read an article on puzzle design which recommended trying to see how many different puzzles you can make out of a small component set. If you can make a lot, then that is probably a good component set.

I've got several other components in the pipeline. When these combine with the existing set and with each other there should be quite an explosion of puzzle possibilities. But it also seems critical not to get too complex too early, you need to give the player enough practice on each component to build up confidence with it.

I will definitely be adding sound effects, I think it will add to the overall feel of the game and also make interactions a bit more intuitive. I just don't have good skills in that area, so I'll be working with a collaborator on that.

Your suggestions on the hotkeys were very good and I will probably incorporate most of them.

The bug / crash which you got is a known issue which occurs occasionally when level nodes inflate on the map. It's quite rare, probably depends on some very specific conditions, so I need to get a simple reproducible test case, then I'll fix it.

The usability issue with "breaker arms" (I call them "mover lines") is also a good point. I should be able to fix this with a fairly simple change.

There is also obviously quite a bit of polishing to do on the overall appearance -- unfortunately I enjoy designing levels a bit too much and so I sometimes take a while to get around to the other stuff ....

Looks interesting!

I downloaded and tried to run, but nothing appeared after I clicked Run on the security popup after the Java loading splash after installing. I wasn't sure where to look for logs.

I'm running Windows 8 on a VM:
   VMware Player 5.0.1 build-894247
   Windows 8, 64-bit  (Build 9200) 6.2.9200
   java version "1.7.0_21"
   Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_21-b11)
   Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 23.21-b01, mixed mode, sharing)

Hi gears, thanks for trying it out. I've had a few startup crashes on friends' machines so be assured it's very probably my game not your setup. I've hardcoded some of the display properties in the version you tested, so that could be the issue. Next release will make these configurable.

To see the log of a Java Web Start application, on Windows (7) you would do this:

Start -> Control Panel -> Java -> Advanced -> Java console -> show console.

This pops up a console window when you run the application.

May I ask what is the host OS in which you are running the windows VM?

The host is Win8 x64 as well. Here's the error:

Exception in thread "LWJGL Renderer Thread" java.lang.IllegalStateException
   at com.jme3.system.lwjgl.LwjglAbstractDisplay.runLoop(LwjglAbstractDisplay.java:147)
   at com.jme3.system.lwjgl.LwjglDisplay.runLoop(LwjglDisplay.java:182)
   at com.jme3.system.lwjgl.LwjglAbstractDisplay.run(LwjglAbstractDisplay.java:223)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Hi gears,

I think it's crashing for one of the following two reasons.

a) -- in the release you tested, multisampling is hardcoded, but actually many gfx cards do not support it and it's not necessary to run the game. So in the next release this will be configurable but it will default to off.

b) -- the host has a gfx card / driver with sufficient capabilities but the vm's gfx card, and/or its driver doesn't.

I will add more diagnostics output to the log in the next release, this should shed more light on it.

Thanks again for your patience.

I have played through all 4 maps and really enjoyed the game.   Some random thoughts that occurred to me while playing:

1) The "organic" feel to the game is quite unique.   I think the only game that I have played that was anything like this was LocoRoco on the PSP, although the gameplay is quite different.   I really like the way that new levels bubble and explode, and everything has a nice gloopy feel to it.

2) The game would work very well on an iPad and other tablet devices.  It seems like it was designed to work with a touch-based interface?   You would probably get a much bigger audience if it was an Android or iOS app.   I found the Java installer to be a bit cumbersome as there was no file association for JNLP and the installer took an age to verify at the end.

3) It would be nice if you could drag from the tricones back to the synthesizing unit - I found myself trying to drag in the wrong direction all the time.

4) Is there any reason not to synthesize automatically when all of the connections have been made?   The "synthesize" button seems a bit unnecessary.

5) I didn't use the undo, redo, and pause buttons.   I think the UI could be simplified down to just quit and restart buttons (break could be done with a double click)?   At the moment I think it looks a bit clunky with the large buttons and text.    Using icons instead of text would also let you internationalize the game more easily.

6) The game could really use some sound effects to add atmosphere.   I wonder if it would be possible to automatically generate bubbling and popping noises in response to the actions of the player?   A Google search for "sounding liquids" turned up some interesting articles.

7) The game could use some cool particle effects when things happen, such as breaking line segments and synthesizing tricones.

8) Some ideas for additional game mechanics:

a) Combine multiple tricones to produce new cells
b) Magnetic particles could be interesting
c) More use of colour, e.g. tricones of the same colour, mixing coloured regions (similar to the + and - areas), colored line segments.
d) Fluid and gravity would be cool, e.g. fluid that drops down when you open a cell, but probably extremely hard to program!
e) The rubber-banding effect is cool - could it be used to fling particles together, or into dangerous areas?
f) Anti-tricones that must be kept separate from normal tricones
g) Heat or radiation could add a timing dimension to the levels, e.g. you have to complete some tasks before the cell gets too hot, or radiation destroys it.

I'm hoping you will produce more maps soon?

cd-w

Glad you liked it and thanks so much for playing and writing detailed feedback.

It actually did not start out intending to look biological but it ended up that way. I've added a bit more gloopyness in the next version (in the map screens), and I have some ideas for beefing up the graphics to gloop-up the look of it even more.

It was not designed originally for touch screens but a few people have mentioned that it would work well. I'm going to get the Win/OSX/Linux version finished before I think too much about porting to Android / iOS. JNLP download: not sure whay you don't have the file association? Was this on Windows? If so, what browser? All the other windows machines I have tested have started javaws based on clicking the link to the jnlp file. On Linux and MacOSX I don't think they have the association. On the verification times, there are quite a few jars in there which I don't actually use so I will look into removing these to make the download / verification quicker.

Interesting. Technically you mean dragging from a resource (small white node) to a catalyst (large white node), rather than dragging from catalyst to resource, which is the only possible direction at the moment. I observed another player trying this early on but it wasn't a problem for him after a few levels. There's nothing in the game to stop me adding this in, but it sort of seems wrong in the sense that it is the catalysts which have the power to synthesize, whereas I see the resources as more inert. I'll think about it.

Yes, a couple of reasons. One is that I think it is clearer for the user that the connections and synthesis happen in two steps. The second reason is that sometimes, depending on the level design, a synthesis might be possible but you don't actually want to do it.


Some people do use undo and redo, it's especially useful if you make a silly mistake on a complex level. However, maybe it makes the game too easy? Not sure. Also not sure if undo should pause the gameplay or not.

I've thought about icons but I think the text buttons are actually very clear. Personally I find icons more confusing than text unless it is very clear what they do. If it does get internationalized, translating the button text is not a big deal, as there is quite a bit of other text to be translated anyway (e.g. node descriptions). I might combine icons and text e.g. with tooltips.

I will definitely consider adding double-click as a way to perform the selected node's main action (i.e. synthesize or break in the current map set). Good idea!

Yes! I'll cover this in another post on this thread.

I guess you mean apart from the little dots which burst out? Things like smoke effects etc?

Lots of ideas there!

a -- Yes! There are two new mechanics in the pipeline which will allow the user to create new cells. One is a movable node which, when activated, inflates into a bubble which becomes a new cell. Not sure what to call these ones, maybe "cellformers" or "bubblers"?. Another mechanic which is coming soon is the "constructor" node. Dragging a line out from this node creates a new border, so it can be used for example to create a new floating cell, or it can be dragged to part of the existing cell structure to connect things or subdivide the existing cells.

b, d and g -- I want the game to be a pure logic puzzle so things like aiming accuracy and timing do not matter. So, I'm staying away from mechanics which would introduce a skill requirement into the game. I could see how these would be fun for a lot of people, but it would be a different game.

c -- I may bring in more color later in order to represent new mechanics. Originally the + and - cells were purple and yellow, and the neutral cells were green. But, apart from this being way too garish, I found that using + and - symbols gave a more understandable look because you can see them flowing between cells when a border is broken.

e -- The line-dragging is already used to combine and move nodes, I guess. Other than that if you had to aim where to fling things I think it might become a skill game?

f -- Yes! I've got a new node type (in my head) called the "anti-catalyst". It is like an "enemy" catalyst which is out of the user's control. It grabs hold of any resources it can in the same cell, removing them from use by the player. So it needs to be kept apart from these resources, therefore motivating use of the "constructor" nodes.

The next version has got a large number of "engine" enhancements, which I have already completed. I've left the new level design until last as I find that the most fun bit. So the next version will have a new "transporter" node type and there will be at least one new level map, containing a set of levels based on this new node type.

Future versions will contain more new puzzles, but this time round I had a lot of feedback on the engine stuff so I focused on that.

Thanks again for the feedback!

With great fanfare I am pleased to announce that I will be collaborating with the accomplished sound designer, TIGSource's very own KomradeJack (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=profile;u=6432) to produce some much needed sound effects for tricone lab.

Yay. Welcome on board, Jack.

You could give the option of playing on some kind of hardcore mode where there's no undo or redo and if you get stuck you have to start over (or maybe just the map you're on?). Might be interesting. The player would have to put more thought into a level before they actually play it. Maybe that wouldn't be as meaningful if it was just replaying the levels you've already played, though.


Awesome news! Can't wait to hear the sound design, too!   :beer:

Thanks for the warm welcome!  I am happy to be on board.

It is on Windows 7 + Firefox 17 - I'm not sure why the file association wasn't made automatically when Java was installed.   There was a bug in Java 6 (http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=7086260) and perhaps it didn't create the association when I upgraded to Java 7.   Speeding up the installation process would be good - it took 5 minutes+ on my i5 laptop.

I think of it as adding "ingredients" to the synthesizing unit, so it felt like I should drag the tricones to the synthesizer not the other way round, but that could just be me!   I don't think it would affect the mechanics to allow either direction?

The levels are not timed, so the pause seemed unnecessary (you can just minimize the window)?   I think undo does make it a little bit too easy - there is no incentive to avoid mistakes, and it might encourage a trial-and-error approach to solving the levels, rather than thinking things out logically?

The text is clear, but it looks a bit unpolished at the moment.  Some graphical buttons, tooltips and a better font would improve the appearance of the UI.

Similar to my previous point, the game is great but needs more polish.   If you look at a typical puzzle game on the DS or PSP, there is a constant stream of visual and audio feedback.   Every action that the player performs is accompanied by an effect.   Objects pulse and sparkle, the screen flashes, trails of dots emerge, etc.   Have a look at YouTube videos of Lumines and Lumines 2 on the PSP.   It is a rather average puzzle game, but the OTT effects make it feel much more exciting!   I'm not suggesting you go that far, but more visual and audio feedback would be nice.

Great - can't wait to see the new levels with these cell types!

The engine is very neat - it gives the game a unique feel and has plenty of scope for enhancements.   I'm looking forward to playing the next set of maps.

cd-w
 

OK that is a bit unusual, I have not seen installation take that long on other machines. It should improve when I get rid of the unnecessary jars. Maybe I'll add something on the website for other people who hit the file association issue.


You are right that it doesn't affect the mechanics. Still not sure about it.


OK everyone agrees pause is unnecessary. Yes, I am worried that people might fall back to undo/redo trial-and-error whereas it is supposed to be a logic puzzle. As a compromise maybe I will let the player undo the last action only, and no redo. And no pause/unpause.


Button appearance, fonts etc, fixed in the next version! Still need to do some work on the dialogs etc.


Yes, I know the graphics are a bit basic (or minimalist, if you are being generous). I've got some ideas for this but I want to finish fleshing out the gameplay, sound effects, and level editor features first before going back to add more polish.

I had a bug similar to oyog, but it didn't crash the game. It was on map M1, after completing a level and having two more to go. There didn't seem to be enough room for the last two levels to inflate, so they just bumped against the border until I reset. It only happened once in 3 playthroughs.

Depends on who you identify as. If you act as the catalyst, you should drag the resource towards you. If you act as some sort of overseer, you should direct the catalyst to the resources. ;)

Hi Rusk, thanks a lot for playing and giving feedback, I hope you enjoyed the game.

Ah yes, it's a different bug. Probably quite rare. You're exactly right, it is a case that there wasn't enough room to inflate. The code which creates the inflating bubble waits around until there is enough space before triggering inflation (to avoid any topological inconsistencies). It can wait indefinitely if these conditions don't arise. I think I might have crammed too many levels ( 8 ) into M1 and M2. I might shift levels around so there are only at most 6 levels per map in a later version to avoid this issue. Another fix might be to have the uninflated level node repel surrounding vertices until there's enough space, but that might look a bit wrong.

Hi folks,

Version 0.002-alpha is available to download. Highlights: MacOSX/Linux support, improved playability (thanks oyog!), a slightly more polished look, a new mechanic (transporter nodes) and a new map M5 for this mechanic.

Please see http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/download/ (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/download/) for download instructions.

I've only minimally playtested this new map M5, so I'd be especially interested in any feedback on the difficulty of this map.

Here is the full changelog.

• Resolved platform issues for Mac OSX
• Resolved platform issues for Linux
• Added test for gfx / shader compliance, with a swing dialog displayed in case of failure
• Added file log as part of run record.
• Better logging of diagnostics, e.g. gfx card vendor etc.
• Added scripted messages explaining about hotkeys / right-click / restart / undo
• breakers and transporters accept keystrokes during a move and apply them once stable (idea from oyog)
• "Level complete" done as large overlay text. Any mouse click or key click clears this and triggers the fade. During this period the game does not pause (idea from KomradeJack)
• A system of player preferences
• Added transporter, transporter catalyst and resources
• A level map for transporters
• mover lines behave better when the cursor moves outside the current region (idea from oyog)
• Level name to be displayed as overlay to main display area
• Player can set window size
• Moved "drag from here" nearer to source
• Updated font for text guides.
• Play / credits / quit actions on start page.
• improved the presentation of buttons
• Added "level complete" guide text to first 3 completed levels, until level 4 is complete
• small explosions on level map as link and level nodes inflate
• simplified hot keys. added hotkey for restart (idea from oyog)
• updated font for text at top of right hand GUI panel which indicates selected node.
• In BreakerMoves[M1] the starting positions are changed slightly.
• Level editor: added a "playtest" button for puzzles

Special notice -- if upgrading from v0.001 to v0.002

Hi,

Installing the update

If you already played v0.001 and you want to try v0.002, you should be able to do this simply by clicking on the webstart link:
http://www.triconelab.com/download/webstart/tricone-lab.jnlp (http://www.triconelab.com/download/webstart/tricone-lab.jnlp)

This should trigger an update. If it doesn't work contact me via PM and I'll help you.

Future updates should work automagically when you launch the game from the desktop.

Keeping your progress

Installing v0.002 will reset your progress to the beginning of the game. If you would rather not replay through already-completed levels again, contact me via PM and I'll send you some files which will move your progress forward to where it was before you updated. Again I'm hoping to automate this better in future versions.

OK, so as well as Windows users, Mac OSX and Linux users can now also try the game.

I've now put instructions specific to each operating system on the download page.
http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/download/ (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/download/)

Please get back to me via PM if you get stuck with your installation.

After installing the new version I started from the beginning. After finishing M1 and starting M2 I got impatient to see the new levels and followed your instruction and unlocked all the maps. I played the first two levels of M5 and after finishing the second the map looked like this: (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1733072/Tricone%20Lab/M5neuron.bmp)

Pretty neat, actually!

I tried clicking on one of the other levels and got a crash. I'll PM you the logs.

Hi, thanks for the feedback. This is a known issue, again it only occurs quite rarely so is hard to fix. There's some condition in the topology logic which means that the game layer gets confused about which areas are in/out of each region. The inflation forces end up getting reversed so the regions appear to collapse in on themselves. I should make a catalogue of these problems on the website. I'll look at your log and investigate a fix in the next release.

To work around this, you should be able to just reset the level and continue playing. Let me know if you run into any more problems.

Turns out the bug which oyog found is not that rare at all. I was able to reproduce it this morning. Looks like a bug in the bubble-inflating code, which was written as I remember on an extended hardcore coding session which carried on until three in the morning. I think the bug is brought out on the M5 map because the third level node is packed in quite tightly.

Anyway being able to reproduce it should help a lot in being able to fix it. So I'll look at that with high priority and once I figure it out I'll do a minor release containing the fix.

Thanks again oyog.

Version 0.002.1-alpha available

This fixes both the bug found by Rusk (level nodes not inflating on map) and the bug found by oyog (inconsistent topology after level inflation on map).

If you have 0.002-alpha already, an auto update should occur the next time you launch the game, via the magic of Java Web Start! If you are starting from 0.001-alpha then you can get it by clicking the web start link below.
http://www.triconelab.com/download/webstart/tricone-lab.jnlp (http://www.triconelab.com/download/webstart/tricone-lab.jnlp)

Full changelog:

• On map, an inflating level node must clear three full edges on each adjacent line before inflation is triggered (previously there was no minimum, which led to inconsistent topologies)
• On map, level nodes which are waiting to inflate exert a large repulsion force on local nodes, lines and the map border. This creates enough space for them to inflate in.
• Input events are stored in the run record directory by default. This is a debugging feature intended to allow repeatability of any further topology bugs.
• The storing of input events in the run record (on by default) can be enabled/disabled in the Debug tab of the game settings dialog.
• Better layout of the game settings dialog.

Argh - I'm stuck on the "Cauldron" stage in M5 - is it actually possible?

Heh heh, yes! It is a tough one though. Shall I pm you a hint? If so, how strong a hint would you like?

I got a crash when finishing the level Enough Breakers (I think it was called). The error occured just when I synthesized the tricone needed for the objective. The popup window just said "Null" and the location of a runrecord file, which I'll pm you.

edit: I finished it. I enjoyed it, it's a fun game. The difficulty curve was pretty flat with a few exceptions. I was stuck for a while on "Cauldron" as well. ;D

Here are some notes I wrote down.

I know it's alpha and you are still working on the mechanics, but I would definitely like to see some more color, sounds and some sort of setting (either educational or at least some vague "dr mario" kind of character in the background). Otherwise I feel it might as well be as abstract as minesweeper, using default windows widgets.

When you move to attach a breaker or mover to a wall, when the wall highlights you can see a dot somewhere along the wall. You can't attach to the wall close to the dot, which has led to misclicks sometimes. I suppose this dot is some internal thing that maybe could be hidden from the player?

Sometimes you need to make a mover to move a mobility unit. But there's a difference between a mover that can move one mobility point, two spaces away; and one that can move two mobility points, one space away, right? They take the same ingredients to make but the result depends on the order they are added? Having to rely on undo to get it right isn't the intent I hope.

For the sake of comfort, I would like to see less alert windows and more streamlining of the mouse commands. I don't use the keyboard commands because I don't feel there's enough to do to require both hands.

• How about left click for selection, right click for action (synthesize/break/release)?
• Dragging for connecting is cool, at the end I would just like to be able to click a couple of units and get going.
• How about being able to move a breaker/mover through several walls at once, by targetting the destination or at least dragging a path through several walls?

Finally, if you have an installer, you should have an uninstaller as well. :P

Not yet - I need to think about it some more :)

Chris

I also had some trouble with this initially. Reading the recipes in the Transporter's description helped a lot but maybe you could let the player know they're available when they first encounter a Transporter.

I got up to MTrans almost a week ago and then work started absorbing all my time. I finally had the chance to finish it. Ctrans is making my brain hurt.  :waaagh:

Hi Rusk,

Thanks so much for playing all the way through and leaving detailed feedback. Really helpful.

Thanks, I got your PM, I will take a look.

Glad you enjoyed it. There will be more mechanics and a lot more levels to come...

I will definitely be adding sounds in the near future, and a bit more UI polish.

I have thought a little about characters etc. However, the focus of the project is to produce a good gameplay experience, which I think derives more from the puzzle design than the setting / backstory / nice graphical effects. That's just my personal opinion of course and I realise there are a lot of different player types out there. Anyway, because of this focus I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these items at this stage; rather I'll be looking to develop the gameplay further. I do take the point that it may mean the game does not at this stage instantly appeal to many game players, but the project is not at the moment on a standard commercial pathway, it is really just about creating an interesting form of gameplay.

Well spotted. This is indeed an internal engine thing. You will see the dot when attaching to a cell which just consists of a floating bubble. The line which forms the bubble must have a node on it somewhere, this is one of the assumptions of the topology layer. The dot you can see is that node. I should be able to both hide the node and also allow you to attach your mover line to where the node is.

Heh, okay we are veering slightly into spoiler territory here!

I can confirm that the type and nature of the compound node which is produced by a transporter catalyst is totally predictable based on the order of the player's sequence of actions. This mechanic is of course at the centre of one of the levels that you have completed.

I realise that this mechanic breaks a minor game design rule of mine, which is that the state of the game must be fully visible at all times. In this case, you can't tell (after the fact) what order the resources were linked to the transporter catalyst. Do you think this is a major problem? What about if it was explicitly spelled out in the node information dialog?

I'll be adding double-click for synthesize/break/release pretty soon. This will mean you can play the whole game with just left clicks inside the main playing area, unless you need to undo / restart.

I've thought about moving through several walls at once, assuming that the moving node has the mobility level. Unfortunately it would be quite hard technically to bring this in. Did you find it really annoying to have to do the moves hop-by-hop?

Good point. It's a standard JavaWS application, so JavaWS provides the uninstall method. I'll add some tips to the web site to cover this.

OK so it is intended that the player has to understand this before solving MTrans. However, it is also intended that the description dialogs should be usable as a full and accurate "reference manual" of all the mechanics that the player has encountered so far (which I realise it doesn't at the moment). That's because the puzzle is supposed to be solving the current level rather than memorizing all the details of the mechanics. So, I am going to do a general overhaul of the description dialogs, after which, this aspect will be spelled out in the description of the transporter catalyst. Do you think that's fair?

I hope it's a good form of brain hurting that you're experiencing? As I mentioned earlier, map M5 was not heavily playtested before I posted the update, unlike maps M1-M4. So do you think it might be a bit too much of a leap at this stage in the game?

Hey, it sounds like you have most of what I asked for planned. Regarding the multijumps, I didn't find it a huge annoyance, but the entire move is one "logic step" in the puzzle so I thought it would fit better as one input.

Regarding the order of the resources. From making earlier compound nodes, the player may already have learned that the order doesn't matter. But perhaps figuring it out is part of the puzzle. I didn't read the descriptions, and I probably won't the next time either unless I get really stuck. ;)

I finally completed the Cauldron level - I haven't had the time to attempt CTrans yet but it looks rather complex!    The difficulty for M5 is certainly way higher than M1 through M4 - I was able to complete the earlier maps in a single sitting.    Some minor comments:
1) The transporter catalyst and transporter units look very similar, which is a bit confusing.
2) The ordering of links when building a transporter is a bit non-intuitive.   Would it make sense to synthesize the transporter first, then attach it to a unit to transport?
3) I'm still trying to create the links in the wrong direction :)

Chris

Hey Chris,

Agree with you on the similarity between the appearance of the transporter catalyst and the transporter template resource. I'm going to change one of them so they are clearly distinguishable.

Thanks for the feedback on the difficulty. I think we're all in agreement that M5 is too hard as it currently stands. It's good news really because I can quite easily come up with another 4 or 5 easier puzzles based on the transporter mechanic. I'll slot these in before the 3 uber-hard transporter levels (MTrans, CTrans and Cauldron). Then there should be a smooth difficulty curve generally for transporter, plus I will have generated two whole maps from that mechanic which is a sign that it is a good mechanic, according to this puzzle design article (which has influenced me a lot).

http://devmag.org.za/2011/06/04/how-are-puzzle-games-designed-conclusion/

As part of this smooth build-up I will make sure the player has a bit of exposure to the ordering mechanic for transporting mobility resources. This, taken together with an improved description for the transporter catalyst should I think be enough to overcome its non-intuitiveness.

Having the mobility resource transporter created in two steps was also suggested by my girlfriend. The trouble with this is that it is a little out of kilter with how catalysts work generally, and it would mean all transporter synthesis would have to be done in two steps, which is quite a heavy "click burden" given that you are often transporting something other than a mobility resource.

I have not ruled out dragging from resource to catalyst -- just need to think a bit more about it.

I'd also be interested to hear what you think is the relative difficulty between MTrans,  Cauldron and CTrans (when you've finished it).

How about a preview of the result somewhere and an option to flip between possible results before you synthesize? Or maybe have the arms looking slightly different so that it is apparent what goes where.

Nice ideas!

More food for thought...

Some updates...

I've incorporated a set of nice sound effects which sound designer KomradeJack (http://www.jackmenhorn.com) has made! Amazing how much difference it makes to the overall game experience. These will be in the next alpha release.

Adding another small dab of Game Polish, I've redesigned the UI, to fit in with the overall look of the game:

(http://imageshack.com/a/img853/4829/vfc0.png)

I have also recruited Holobeams, a.k.a. Iain Foxwell (http://soundcloud.com/holobeams) to do some melodic beatless synth vibes for the theme music. Check out his stuff, it's great.

Update:

Had a couple of long train journeys last weekend on which I was able to finish a robust implementation of the anti-catalyst node type mentioned previously. This will make an appearance along with the constructor node type in the next release. So the engine-related work for these two mechanics is out of the way. I now need to polish up their appearance then I can get on to making the puzzles.

The anti-catalyst is exciting (for me anyway) because it is a node which makes its own autonomous topology changes.

Sorry TIGsource people for not updating this devlog! I've done a lot of work on tricone lab, just didn't feel there was anything particularly newsworthy until now.

Anyway I now have a total of 42 levels in the game, including 4 for the new anti-catalyst mechanic (M7) and 5 more which combine anti-catalyst and the new constructor mechanic (M8).

There are also 2 new fairly easy levels to help players learn the transporter mechanic. The transporter levels are redistributed across two maps: M5 and M6.

I want players to be able to access different mechanics without necessarily having solved all previous levels. In other words, the game should support non-linear progress as much as possible.

So, I decided to reallocate the levels from M1 and M2 across three maps: M0, M1 and M2. M0 and M1 are basic tutorial levels and must be completed first. M2 contains the harder breaker puzzles, but after M1 is completed a number of levels with other mechanics also open up: M3, M5 and M7. Some limited testing has found that people can go from M1 to M3 or from M1 to M7 without much difficulty.

As I've mentioned previously, I want to provide players with a concise written reference of the mechanics, via the node description feature. Players do not need to refer to this at all throughout the game as all mechanics are revealed via the level design. Many players will not read the description and that's fine. However, I have found some players like to look things up either before solving a level or when they get stuck. Also, someone might return to the game after a break, and not remember the fine details of what they learned.

However, I don't want to include in the description information on mechanics which the player has not yet encountered. For example, catalyst synthesis is inhibited in negative cells, but I don't really want to tell the player this until they have encountered negative cells: it's confusing and spoils the later reveal.

So, in order to support both non-linear progress and gradually revealed descriptions I have decided to use a mechanism called progress keys.

These progress keys allow me to track fairly explicitly what the player has learned about the mechanics.
New progress keys are added as the player solves more levels. The more progress keys a player has, the more detail is available in the node descriptions.

Rather than having a direct relationship between maps (e.g. completing M1 unlocks M2), new maps are unlocked based on what progress keys the player has.

This should also be useful when there are user-generated levels -- players will only download levels which they have learned enough mechanics for.

Here was the overall map-of-maps for v0.002.1 alpha:

(http://imageshack.com/scaled/640x480/513/kz21.jpg) (http://imageshack.com/i/e9kz21j)

For the v0.003 alpha the map-of-maps has changed to become non-linear. But also shown here are some of the progress keys which are gained by completing a map: these are the ones which unlock other maps. In one case, M6, you need multiple keys to unlock the map. As I add maps and levels which combine multiple mechanics, I'll reuse this multiple keys idea.

(http://imageshack.com/scaled/640x480/32/yysd.jpg) (http://imageshack.com/i/0wyysdj)

v0.003 is on the way in the next few days, I just need to finish tying up the node descriptions with the progress keys.

@Rusk, this is fixed in the next alpha release. There is no visible dot, and you can connect the breaker, or other mover node to where the invisible dot is.

Wish I had done this earlier, it looks much better!

OK so highlights of this alpha are:

11 new puzzles. 2 new mechanics.
Sound effects (for some things anyway).
Better presentation. Fewer bugs!

As before, if you played a previous alpha and don't want to play through old levels again please contact me and I'll give you some magic files.

Here is the full changelog:

• Double click can be used to execute the primary spot action.
• Transporter catalyst is clearly distinguished from transporter template resource
• Possible to join mover / constructor line to single dot on bubble cell
• transporter catalyst description points out ordering mechanic
• Improve content of node and other descriptions, and these are driven by progress keys
• single dot on bubble cell is not be visible when border is selectable
• Removed unnecessary jars and fixed the webstart build accordingly.
• reorganized map dependencies to introduce key-based map unlocking
• Added Lead-up levels for transporter
• Shuffled maps so that there are at most 6 levels per map.
• Improved UI look and feel (player mode only).
• Added sound effects framework
• Fixed NPE bug found by Rusk.
• Moved to git for version control
• Added Jack Menhorn to sound effect credits
• Pause action removed (player mode)
• Improved repulsion force for inflating level nodes on map
• undo / redo no longer pauses game (player mode only)
• Uprevved to latest Jmonkey
• Map selector indicates the number of completed levels on each unlocked map
• Player settings: added ability to set sound effect volume and disable sound effects entirely.
• Added constructor, constructor catalyst and resources
• Added anti catalyst
• Tutorials and puzzles for anti catalyst
• Tutorials and puzzles for constructors
• smoothed out hardness a bit with a couple of filler levels for anti-catalyst and constructor

I am keen to get feedback on the puzzle difficulty. Also PM me if you have any puzzle ideas which combine the existing mechanics.

v0.003.1-alpha released

-- fix (hopefully) to native OpenAL library loading on 64-bit linux.

Uninstall instructions added to the website.

v0.003.2-alpha released

Faster burn times on map links between levels

Cool. I'll check the new version out this weekend. :)

I have been trying to install the game in linux. I haven't gotten it to work very well though.

In debian, I had to start it with the full path to the java 6 binary: /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-386/jre/bin/javaws to get it to work. The java 7 directory (the default) didn't have a java binary for some reason...

Then, I got an error about "Insufficient graphics capabilities". I guess I need some graphics card driver.

Trying in knoppix instead, I got it to run, but only at 5 fps and pretty unresponsive.

So, I installed java in windows. Rant: It's so nice to have a fresh windows installation, but then you have to add all the adware, bloat and crap like skype, flash, and java. I feel dirty :(

Anyway, that meant I could try the new version of tricone. :)

I liked seeing some new mechanics. Here are some thoughts I wrote down.

It's nice to have sound effects in the game. Popping a bubble is a lot more satisfying. I had imagined more plopping and splashing, but I guess the game is more abstract than it is in my imagination.

Without any music playing the sound effects are very "sharp", but I suppose otherwise they would drown in the music? I definitely think playing sound effects every time you mouse over something is overkill.

Spoiler warning for the rest of this post!

The constructor. I like it, and not just for the puzzle aspect of them. The bubble walls are so iconic and it's just fun to be able to make them yourself. One annoyance though: the way the units float around and distribute themselves, means sometimes you have to draw these very long walls, through some narrow passage, round some unit and back the same narrow way and if you touch the line you are drawing, you have to start over.

The anti-catalyst is cool. I like the way it looks, it looks angry. I don't fully understand how it works though. In a situation like below, when I pop the top bubble the anti-catalyst could grab either the red or blue cone (I think it prefers cones over other resources if it has a choice). If it grabs the blue, I can't finish the level. Is that random or does it follow a priority?

(http://i.imgur.com/oeseSjb.png)

I still think there are too many pop-up windows (objectives when you start a level, maps unlocked, tutorials).

The objective - how about having it be readable all the time, on the actual map, instead of in a separate window? I would like to have all the information viewable at the same time.

On the "load level map" window, how about double click a map in the list to open it?

When you synthesize something, the catalyst and the new unit appear on top of each other making it hard to select the one you want until they float apart. But you often want to use it right away. How about if they immediately were pushed apart a bit?

I would like to see less dragging and more clicking. If you have a unit selected, like a breaker. how about being able to click the destination wall instead of dragging it all the way there? Or if you have to drag it, what purpose does the selection serve?

A misclick situation that occurs sometimes is if you have a breaker attached to a wall. If you drag it to the wrong side of the wall, there is no way to avoid making the wrong move (except making the move and then undo, but having to use undo is like cheating). How about right-click to cancel a move? Or, recalculate the move if I move the cursor to the other side of the wall?

Hey Rusk,

Thanks for trying this. I totally missed your post, the forum has stopped emailing me about replies to this thread for some reason.

Thanks for trying on Linux. The game does rely on GLSL 2.0 so if you're not getting graphics hardware acceleration on Linux it's going to fail or run too slowly.

The sound effects are a first attempt to be honest and they could do with softening out a bit. I might add background music, if it doesn't prevent the sound effects giving feedback, we'll have to see what happens.

I may be able to do something about some of the minor annoyances you found. I'll put them on the list. Some things like having the catalyst produce something a bit further away, are easy. Other things, like changing how breaker moves work, are hard.

SPOILER NOW FOLLOWS




[spoiler]The anti-catalysts grab things in a predictable order. Once you learn this order you can use that knowledge to solve the puzzles.[/spoiler]

version 0.003.3-alpha

-- game is now downloadable as a zip, in addition to the JNLP-based install.

See here for instructions

http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/download/install-windows/
http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/download/install-linux/
http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/download/install-macosx/

OK, so I have thought about allowing the dragging of resource lines from resource to catalyst (as opposed to from catalyst to resource), which a few people have mentioned. Logically it does seem the same, and some players mentioned that they wanted to do this because it was like adding ingredients into a recipe.

The reason for disallowing resource lines in this direction is anti-catalysts. If the game allowed players to drag resource lines in this direction, it could be used as a timing / skill trick to prevent anti-catalysts from grabbing the resource. Anti-catalysts can only grab free-floating resources, so if a resource had a line coming out of it, then the anti-catalyst could not grab it.

Somebody also spotted this at an IGDA event recently where I was demo-ing the game.
The thing is that you do generally want nodes to slow down as your pointer gets near them and stop when you hover over them. So, as you may have noticed, that's already there. However in the synthesis case you don't want this as they are on top of each other, you want them to move apart so you can select which one to work with next.

I've fixed it for the next release. Synthesis immediately results in the catalyst and product pushing each other apart -- the slowness-near-mouse thing then doesn't apply to either node for 25 game timeticks (just over half a second) afterwards. It actually does improve the ergonomics quite a bit.

Also fixed for the next version!

version 0.04-alpha is available!

highlights are: more levels (47 in total), more music and sfx, and a stats system which keeps track of level difficulty.

Here's the full changelog.

• If a map is completed but no other maps are unlocked, map chooser pops up
• Fixed "unsaved changes" bug reported by Neil.
• Double click and enter work on map chooser dialog
• Map chooser autoselects first incomplete map if there is one.
• Synthesis: new node moves away quickly from catalyst: helps avoid user node selection confusion
• Added 5 new puzzles in map M9
• Game records stats for number of installs, how many people have solved each level and how hard each level was. Stats available on the website or from inside the game.
• "reset" action on maps pops up yes/no instead of ok/cancel. In the no case, the solved micro levels are retained.
• Default setting changes: Record Input is false and antialiasing samples is 4
• During start of game, a constantly changing cell structure is displayed in the background
• Music on the start screen, by Iain Foxwell
• Music on the map screens, by Iain Foxwell
• Music to indicate a level has been solved, by Iain Foxwell
• Asset loading at the start of the game is handled better.
• Bunch of new sound effects including on the map screens
• Added Iain Foxwell and metamorphmuses to credits

version v0.05-alpha released

some security related changes

• Update Permissions attribute in jar
• Removed dependency on scripting library bsh
• Jar signing certificate is no longer expired (but still self-signed, next release will have a certificate signed by a Trusted CA)

Other....

• Updated wording of some pop-ups

Website now contains some extra info about me and the dev history.

Couple of minor news items

-- tricone lab is on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TriconeLab (https://www.facebook.com/TriconeLab)

-- some new videos uploaded:
http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/gallery/video/ (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/gallery/video/)

B)

Today I wrote a script to autogenerate a big table of all the puzzle levels of tricone lab.

Here are the results:

http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/gallery/screenshots/

Tricone lab 0.05.2-alpha is out.

• Fixed a memory issue relating to music streaming, which caused a crash on Mac OSX
• Game is now code-signed as originating from Partickhill Games Limited, a limited company in Scotland, which I have set up for this project. Digicert, a certificate authority, verified my identity before issuing this code-signing certificate. Users who install via JNLP can therefore trust that the game has not been maliciously modified in between me and them.

tricone lab v 0.06-alpha is out.

highlights: smoother animation, more music, pretty backgrounds

Full changelog:

• Updated stats page to be neater and more clickable
• JVM has minimum / initial heap size of 1024M
• Full GC in between level changes. Together with the above change this means the interval between full GC's is very long, making the game run quite a bit more smoothly on most machines
• Fixed non-looping of title screen and map screen music
• Topology layout now only updates 50% of the vertices every frame. The 50% is chosen randomly on even-numbered frames and the other 50% of vertices are updated on odd-numbered frames. This gives a smooth frame rate of 40 fps on all levels, assuming the machine has the minimum spec
• Opening screen random cell structure is smoothed out repeatedly before first display, which looks much better. This was achieved by using a second thread to precompute the next structure while the current one is decomposing.
• New backgrounds: I used a Voronoi diagram technique to generate static cell structures for the backgrounds on different screens.
• New music riff plays when starting a new level, thanks to my music collaborator Iain.

Finally got around to playing this! I like the simplicity of the design.

I initially didn't recognize that the dots mapped to breaker usage count, but the progression of new concepts generally worked. I feel like there's a fair amount of hidden information that is not directly communicated and the player has to infer from use (can only make certain combinations, can only start with catalyst). Maybe that's part of the puzzle, or maybe some visual cues would help?

What about highlighting or somehow indicating valid targets when a catalyst is selected? Or maybe in place of 'Describe', showing example recipes on the side for whatever is selected. I haven't gotten through it all, so those are just some initial thoughts.

Hi gears,

Thanks for taking the time to play through some of it. It is intended that the player works out the mechanics of each element, but I really like the idea of highlighting valid catalyst targets, perhaps in the HUD, and I had not thought of that before. Also I do mean to graphically represent the various combination recipes, that will come in a later update.

josh

Tricone lab is on steam greenlight:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=223171323 (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=223171323)

josh

Voted.    :) :toastR:

Thanks oyog, really appreciate you coming back after all that time. Did you play the game any further? I've added a few levels since your early feedback.

If you're interested, I can make the level editor available. It's a bit rough around the edges, but it's usable (I'm using it myself anyway). PM me if you want to take that further.

josh

I've been playing steadily on and off. At the moment I'm stuck on balMix. I've been working a lot and haven't spent much time playing games. I like the new sound and music. The new background works for the game though I feel like it's being static is kind of in contrast with the organic feel of the game itself.

Cool, thanks for playing! You can see on what levels other people got stuck here:

http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/stats/

When I put the backgrounds in, I first of all had them wibbling and wobbling just slightly, as you say to fit in with what's going on in the foreground. Each background vertex jumped around within an area about 2 pixels around its anchor point. However, me and my lead game tester (my gf) both thought that it distracted too much from the foreground, so I took that movement out again.

BTW, I'm using your line "think outside the cell" in some of my marketing. Hope you don't mind!

josh

Oh yeah, I can see how that could be distracting, especially with the primarily monochrome color scheme.


Cool!


This is super cool! Would it be possible to access it in the game? Maybe just a link to the stats page. Personally I'd like to see the lowest times and clicks as well as the averages. I know the game isn't really competitive but I think it'd be particularly interesting to see what the most efficient plays have been, especially for the later levels.

You can already access some of the stats from within the game -- just click on the "stats" button while on a specific level. The main point of the stats page was for me to get a good evidence-based handle on level difficulty. It doesn't show lowest times / moves just yet but I might add that. In the final version I might pop up a histogram, as is done for example in the game SpaceChem.

josh

Oh, ha. I was so engrossed with the puzzles I hadn't even noticed the stats button in the game. That happens all together too often with me.

Also, that reminds me, I still haven't bought SpaceChem (along with 20+ other indie titles I'd like to own.)

So, I've been experimenting with region shading in tricone lab. For the title and map screens, I've gone for a highlighted bubble look. I use a Delaunay triangulation, which seems to give good enough results if the polygons are mostly convex-ish and the texture contrast is not too high. I also need to figure out where the boundary points map to on the texture circle boundary. I do this by mapping each point to an angle. I find the topmost point, adjusting the start angle slightly by comparing its x value with the polygon centre. Then I walk round the boundary, making the angle of each point proportional to the length walked.

Title screen:
(http://www.triconelab.com/region_shading/v7RS1.png)
Map screen:
(http://www.triconelab.com/region_shading/v7RS2.png)

For the puzzle levels themselves, the bubble look didn't seem right because the player is constantly interacting with things inside each region. So I went for a pillow shading look, the shade is simply proportional to the pixel's distance from the region boundary. In this case the challenge was to get a good triangulation. In the end I had to figure out a custom algorithm: what I did was calculate a polygon inside the region whose boundary is at a constant distance from the region's boundary. I then triangulate the space in between the inner and outer polygons, only drawing lines between the inner and outer. This gives a good triangulation for the pillow shading look.

Puzzle level doubleAnti:
(http://www.triconelab.com/region_shading/v7RS3.png)

Tricone lab v0.07 is available.

Highlight: region shading!

full changelog:

• Opening title screen and map regions shaded with a bubble effect
• Level regions shaded with a pillow shading effect
• Region shading can be switched off as a user setting in the settings dialog
• Map regions contain one large completion indicator instead of several
• Fixed a bug where some aspects of level state were not being reset
• When restart is advised, confirm dialog no longer appears
• Map screen music keeps playing without interruptions between map levels
• Cell backgrounds are a bit darker to aid visibility of catalysts and resources
• Fixed a bug where random number generator was being passed a negative number, this occurred sometimes when using constructor nodes
• Small beepy sound plays when an action is being advised

Tricone lab v0.07.1-alpha is available.

This version introduces a color blind mode, enabled by a checkbox in the startup dialog.

In color blind mode the three cones of tricone are white, gray and black instead of red, green and blue.

tricone lab v0.08.1-alpha is available.

This fixes (hopefully) an intermittent bug which results in either an exceptionleess crash or an exception with message "framebuffer has erroneous attachment".

Hrm. I usually like puzzle games, but this one left me cold for some reason. I think a lot of it was that the whole interface seems designed to slow things down for no particular reason other than to look good:

• Activating new levels is agonizing. I want them to be active immediately. If you want to then play an "mmm...pop!" animation, that's fine, but don't make me sit there cursing your name for two or three seconds between *every* *two* *levels*.
• Oh, also one of the bubbles *broke* at one point, leaving it limp with the question mark floating in free space. So I had to restart to get to the next level. I assume that's a bug. But it didn't happen with the same level the next time through...
• I like that you can tell a catalyst to synthesize before it has sucked the components in close, and it does it immediately. But why can't you do that with everything? When I move a breaker to a cell wall, I want to hit F1 and have it short-cut the animation there too. And while I'm at it, I love that you have highly visible keyboard shortcuts for everything. Very nice.
• I really wanted to be able to drag connections from components to catalysts as well as vice versa.
• And maybe tentacles should be able to pass through the body and tentacles that they're connected to? It's really annoying when you miss and the tentacle starts on the wrong side and you have to go around or start over.
• The snap region where a connection attaches to a component is kinda small for speed. It would be nice if it didn't let go so easily. It's frustrating to have woven a connection through a whole bunch of stuff, and then let go and find out that you pulled it loose by accident.
• And...I'm a little annoyed that you have to route them by hand at all. It's fun at the beginning, but after the first few hundred times it gets really old: I just want this component connected to that catalyst! And when I got to the anti-catalysts, I was totally ticked: "You mean he has code to auto-route connections and he has been forcing me to waste all this time doing it by hand? What a jerk!"
• Since all your level goals are "Synthesize N tricones", you could indicate that with an icon and a number. The dialog box at every level is a waste of my time. Sure, do it for the first few levels, and have it "zoom" to the icon when you close it, but after that...
• Similarly, I think there's a little more delay than I'd like at the end of the levels. I don't want to sit there and gloat, I just want to move on.

Edit: Gah, I knew I wasn't going to remember all of these. I should have written them down while I was playing.

• Waiting for things to stop jittering when you balance positive/negative
• When transporting a mobility component, I had trouble remembering which order to grab things in to get the proper one to be the payload. This seems like a tough one, interface-wise, as you don't want to restrict the order in any other case...maybe separate drag handles on the outside edge of the catalyst? If you allow dragging the components to the catalyst, you could activate drag separate *targets* only if you're dragging a mobility component and don't already have a payload...

*sigh* I probably should have just put it down halfway through and not pestered you with my ranting. But I really wanted to like it: it's such a clever concept...

Hi jgrams, thanks for trying my game, agonizing as it was. I hope you've recovered! B) I haven't made it deliberately annoying but it sounds like there are still some annoyances to get rid of. With constructive feedback such as you have given, I think I will get there.

OK. I think I will make it so you can click on the next level as soon as you've solved the prerequisite levels, and doing so will zip the animation to the end and start the new level.

Yeah that's a bug, and a particularly tricky one to reproduce and fix unfortunately. The workaround is to do 'reset' then when it asks if you want to set all levels to unsolved, click 'no'.

That partly works with breakers, i.e. if a breaker is attached to a border line and is moving towards the attachment point, then assuming the breaker is selected, hitting F1 will 'queue' an action to break the line once the breaker gets there. I think what you're saying is to immediately skip the movement and break the line at the point of hitting F1. Is that right?

Thanks. I got something right at least!

Another poster asked that. I'm ruling it out at the moment because of complications it causes with anticatalysts.

Yes a number of people have hit that problem but there's no easy way to fix it technically. I'll have a think.

Agree, should be able to improve this.

Heh. You're the first person to spot that opportunity. I'm not a jerk, honest! Sounds like this would be a good feature to add for 'power users'. I'm thinking that you would maybe select a catalyst, then hold down SHIFT, and left click on a resource. It would then auto-route a connection to that resource. What do you think?

I've implemented that already for the next release. Got rid of the dialog completely.

Fair enough. I'll speed that up.

Not strictly necessary. As soon as you've unified the positive and negative regions by breaking the border you can use the catalysts etc. The smooth tapering off of the jittering effect is more of a visual cue to indicate the effects of neutralization.

I've got something planned for that in the next release. It's been discussed elsewhere on this devlog.

Thanks. I will turn you into a fan eventually! Please keep in touch.

Yes, nicely, thanks. :) Sorry about that. Computers making me wait for little things is one of my hot buttons. I do think it's a good game: as I said I really like the concept. And your level design seems pretty darn good. It mostly felt like a very nice progression. At times I felt like the levels in the first three (four?) maps were a little too straightforward, but I think almost all of them had some twist that caused me to undo a few moves, so actually they are probably about right.

I felt like there was a big jump in difficulty at one point(somewhere in map 5, maybe?). In the earlier levels it was mostly fairly obvious (to me, anyway) roughly how to go about things, and it was a matter of working out exactly which elements when where. And then all of a sudden there was this level with bits and pieces scattered over several different cells, and lots of free mobility components. All of a sudden the chains of consequences seemed much too complex for me to work in my head, so I wound up just tinkering until I figured out the order.

But IIRC that was pretty obvious from the stats, so I imagine you're aware of that. I wonder if you might be able to come up with a level or two with similar breadth (pieces in different cells, several different mechanics at once) but fewer pieces? Or maybe it's just a tipping point for me, and it feels like a bigger jump than it actually is, I dunno.


Ah, that's much better than restarting the game, thanks.



Yeah, I'd like that. I did notice that hitting F1 would queue the break action and allow you to go on, which is nice, but there were a couple of times where the breaker was particularly far away and the next thing I wanted to do was attach a component and a catalyst which were right across the wall from each other.


Oh, OK. It seemed like you immediately marked the components which the anti-catalysts were targeting, so I figured it wouldn't be a huge deal from that perspective. I did manage to get to a component a couple times before the anti-catalyst did and it seemed like it wouldn't let me connect to it...


That would be awesome. That or right click. Except that right-click doesn't work for Mac users. I have a vague recollection of there being a "usual" thing that Macs do where other OSes use right-click: option-click maybe?


Ah, very cool. But the other charge mechanics are somewhat time/proximity based, yes? I know I've flooded a cell negative and then balanced it before the negative charges reached and broke things. And I got some of the tougher molecules stuck in a permanent jittering state when I balanced the charge before they had completely broken. So I didn't even think to try whether you could use the catalysts right away.


You're well on your way...

--Josh

Thanks for the colourblind mode!

You're welcome. Feel free to post any feedback. B)

tricone lab v0.09-alpha available.

Highlight: improved HUD!

Full changelog:

• At start of a puzzle level the 'objective' dialog is no longer shown.
• The target and current number of tricone units is shown constantly in the bottom right corner
• The puzzle level name is no longer displayed constantly, it's displayed once at the beginning of each level
• After a level has been completed, the time to click through has been shortened.
• On the map screen, the user can click once on any level which is about to unlock. This expedites the animation and immediately opens that level.
• While a catalyst node is selected, the HUD displays all potential resource nodes for that catalyst
• Potential carried resources for transporters are displayed using a hexagonal HUD element, both before and after linking them to the transporter catalyst. This helps distinguish for example whether a mobility resource will be carried or whether it will determine the mobility points of the transporter.
• Anticatalyst / catalyst / resource code hardened to prevent an exploit where you could race the anti catalyst.
• Added a custom mouse cursor, plus a setting to disable it.
• Added separate volume / enablement settings for music as opposed to SFX
• Removed 'renderer' and 'record input' settings
• Increased the snap distance for selecting various nodes, particularly resources
• Fixed a bug where volume jumped to 100% between levels

Yes, the point of collecting the stats is to get some good data on level difficulty. Based on these stats I'll be doing a thorough revision of the level progression which will include:

• Reordering levels
• Making some levels optional
• Introducing 'bridging' levels as necessary.

They weren't marked but I changed that in v0.09-alpha after one extremely hardcore player  (@KyleDAudio that's you!) has actually been solving anti-catalyst levels by 'racing' against the anti catalyst! See my Twitter feed for details! One of the principles of the game is that it is not supposed to require timing / coordination skills so this exploit should not be possible. It's intended to be a pure logic game.

I will reconsider resource -> catalyst linking as quite a lot of people have mentioned it. However it may be less necessary with the new resource-highlighting HUD feature in v0.09-alpha. Plus if I add the auto-connect feature in a future release this may make players less likely to try / require resource -> catalyst linking.


Believe it or not, the charge mechanics are not time / proximity based at all, as according to the 'Pure Logic Game' principle mentioned above. The negative charges are just a visual indicator of a cell which has already gone negative. A negative cell immediately affects any contained nodes. However as you noticed there is a time delay between the point in time when a compound node such as a breaker is enclosed in a negative cell and the point in time when it actually decomposes. Neutralizing the cell before decomposition will leave it in a jittering state, from which it will never recover, which was intentional. Your post made me realize that this could introduce potential exploits in levels which combine anti-catalyst and a negative charge, so I'll need to fix this in a future release. I'll probably make jittering compound nodes decompose eventually and have them decompose immediately should they end up sharing a cell with an anti-catalyst.

Tricone Lab v0.10-alpha is available.

Highlight: preview feature on map screens.

Full changelog:

• Game saves thumbnail when you enter a level, this is used as a preview on the map screens (if you have visited the level before)
• Each level has been given a difficulty from 1 to 5. This shows up in the level info and in the map preview.
• Preview also states whether the level is locked, unlocked or complete.
• Bugfix: threads shut down properly when game is force-closed
• Bugfix: zip install classpath manifest is fixed.
• When dragging a line from a node, increased transition distance from start to mid state from 0.5 x edge length to 1.2 x to avoid mis-linking.

version 0.10.1-alpha

• Fix to bug where previews would not get shown after a restart.

version 0.10.2-alpha

• Bugfix: timezone string removed from the end of the runrecord directory name. In some locales the timezone contains a colon and therefore makes an invalid directory name on Windows!

I suppose it symbolizes the end of time.

Ha!  :gentleman:

v0.10.3-alpha released

• Some twiddling around with server protocol version negotiations. In future people will be able to continue running old versions of the game until the server protocol changes. This will become important as new online features are added.

If you are running the zip install of 0.10.2-alpha you may see "null" and the game stopping when you try to connect online. This can be fixed by upgrading again to 0.10.3. You won't lose your saved progress.

If you are running any other older version you will get a message about the availability of the new version, and you can continue playing (offline).

(http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/29/28779/thumb_620x2000/v011-editor.png)

Tricone Lab is getting a level creator / editor. This is an in-game feature which allows anyone to create any possible puzzle in the game, with no coding, just point / click etc. Basically if you can play the game then you can make a new puzzle. You can then link your puzzles together in maps, just the same as the standard puzzle set which comes with the game.

So at the moment the editor code is finished and pretty well polished, I'm happy with that side of things. However although you can save your creations to a file locally, there's not yet any automated way of sharing puzzles between players, although you could do it manually by copying the files around. What I'm planning is to extend the current server / database to allow automated puzzle-sharing but I'm not sure whether to do a release of the editor before the puzzle-sharing feature is ready.

I've also added two major new mechanics -- exploders and replicators.

Finally a new alpha version: v0.11-alpha released

It is DRM'd now, but the license keys aren't yet for sale, I'll be giving keys out to any interested gamers, you just need to email me.

Highlights:

• Full graphical editor: create your own puzzles with just point and click
• Tricone Lab Online (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/online/): A database where you can upload/download puzzles, and track each puzzle's play statistics
• Exploders, which can be moved into a cell and then exploded to make it positive or negative
• Replicators, which can replicate resource nodes
• Standard set of puzzles (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/screenshots/) increased from 47 to 71

Other changes:

• Lightweight DRM: demo version allows play of 20 levels, full version allows all 71 levels plus editor and online service. Please just email me if you want a key!
• Tricone Lab Online account management use cases: create user, email verification, change password, forgot user id, forgot password etc.
• Player settings for user ID, "remember password" and custom maps directory.
  
• Upload map, search for maps based on user id, map name, approval status, download map.
• Map approval system (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/online/).
• Full graphical editor with edit mode for editing properties, draw mode for drawing levels, playtest button, pause button.
• New spot types to support exploder and replicator mechanics.
• Transporter catalyst is now renamed Carrier catalyst, because it can make both kinds of carrier: transporter and replicator. Similarly, transporter template is renamed carrier template.
• Progress keys are now gained via new map "key" nodes, which have a little star in them.
• On maps, single input or double input "gate" nodes can define level completion order logic.
• Button to show current set of progress keys.
• All maps and levels renamed to a consistent style with an appropriate amount of hinting in each level name.
• Rejigged the order and levels of several maps.
• Most standard maps have a "suggested next" map which is the default map to load when a map is complete.

The approval system and TCL Online in general sounds pretty awesome.

Have you experimented any with autonomic entities? I feel like it might make for interesting puzzles if the goal is to create a stable feedback loop or to set up a chain reaction for one purpose or another. I haven't really thought about the details but very once in a while I think about this while I'm doing something else (usually showering) and tell myself I'll go post and by the time I've started my computer I've forgotten completely.

The only autonomic entities at the moment are anti-catalysts which are pretty simple.

I've thought about other more complicated mini-organisms that you have to interact with, but I haven't tried implementing any yet. For example, something which grabs certain resources if they are available, and this causes it to grow or cell-divide, which means it then has other behavior which you then need to exploit.

I think at the moment I need to just focus on getting people used to the current set of mechanics, and hopefully creating some some puzzles with that set.

That makes a lot of sense. There's always the possibility for adding things in later on.

So, in October I took Tricone Lab to the biggest videogames festival in the UK, which is GameCity (http://gamecity.org/ (http://gamecity.org/)). I demo'd the game on 6 days, had wee kids as young as 4 playing it, students, other devs, some bloggers, youtubers, journalists. Lots of fun. Got some very useful feedback from a lot of other gamedevs including:

Ben Parbury (Polyology)
Alan Hazelden (Sokobond)
Martin Hollis (GoldenEye N64)
Alan Zucconi (0rbitalis)
Henry Smith (Spaceteam)

Here are some of the pics from the festival:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B05GBDQIEAAjOPV.jpg)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1W9vVpCMAEKF4R.jpg)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1IkAPzIYAA7eXn.jpg)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1CX-nRIQAAgOYH.jpg)

While at GameCity I met the organizers of an event in Paris called #igam4r2014 (http://igam4er.org/)... they invited me to bring Tricone Lab along. It's a "Games for Science / Education" thing -- I wasn't sure that Tricone Lab was 100% relevant but they insisted that it was.

In the competition Tricone Lab won the Best Game Design award. So now I can legitimately say it's "award winning".

Here are some pictures from the event:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B4wQFBqIQAAJna6.jpg)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B4wQ-TaCUAAve-N.jpg)

New release v0.12-alpha.

This release doesn't have any new levels. What I've done here is tried as hard as possible to make the user experience more enjoyable. I've done this by tweaking a lot of small things which I noticed were annoying people or confusing them when they were playing the game at GameCity and #igam4er2014.

Here's the full changelog:

• Tutorial HUD says "double click" where necessary
• Removed some pointless resource-connecting steps on some levels
• Better ordering / defaulting on the load-map dialog
• An action on the title screen to reset all progress (v. useful when demoing)
• Game aspect ratio is now fixed at 16:9 which matches most laptops / screens.
• Resolution range includes 720p Standard Def and 1080p Full HD
• Option to remove window decorations, giving pseudo full-screen mode
• Added update rate setting, allows the game to run faster on some machines
• Larger collide radius when linking to resources
• "Key Gained" no longer appears as a dialog, but a HUD element
• After completing a map, there's a single dialog, then the next map loads
• Level ordering change: BreakerBaffle now comes before Balance
• Play button on title screen immediately loads first map.
• Catalysts can only draw resource lines if they need more resources
• Icon flash duration shortened from 50 to 30 timesteps
• Clicking restart restarts immediately, no dialog
• Catalysts have small orbiting nodules indicating that resource lines can be drawn (except anti-catalyst)
• If a breaker is in motion, and its break action is fired, the results are immediate. This is necessary in order to prevent exploits
• Resource to catalyst linking is now allowed as well as catalyst to resource linking
• Anticatalyst search path no longer has jumps at the end
• Removed red herring negative cell from BreakerSurvival level
• Added a guide HUD on MakeBreak level
• Level name not displayed after restart
• During start of level, level name disappears automatically after about 4 seconds

As usual, can be downloaded here:

http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/download/ (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/download/)

It still lives! :D

A bit slow, I know!

Next task is a promo video, which I'm working on today.

After that I've got to go back and do a lot of work on the content (level design).

I haven't really been following this, but that feels so much more responsive than when I tried it back in March. Lovely.

Yeah, I've done a few things you mentioned: fewer dialogs / clicking, easier hit detection and you can now also drag from resource to catalyst as well as vice versa.

josh

I've created a promo video for Tricone Lab!

Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dWwSp7NC60 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dWwSp7NC60)

One of the other gamedevs at GameCity mentioned that Tricone Lab introduces new mechanics before exploring enough the puzzle opportunities of existing mechanics. So... in response, today I created 3 (fairly easy) puzzles which use only breakers. Screenshots below.

Over the next few weeks I'm planning to extend this process, basically stretching the existing mechanics to see how many genuinely good puzzles I can get out of them.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B83TOiRIMAE-Vei.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B83TOnuIMAECSc5.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B83TOrjIEAAmDny.png)

Another breakers-only puzzle, this one is a bit harder.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B86TVP4CMAIzwGo.png)

Just tried it again, it's a lot more engaging than before even though it doesn't feel like much changed!

Good, the mechanics and early puzzles haven't changed much, but I've done quite a lot of work on streamlining the user experience, so I'm guessing that's where the engagement comes from.

PM me if you would like a free license key for the full alpha (including 71 levels, level editor etc.)

a fairly easy new level using breaker catalysts and, like the other recent level, "cone ambiguity" -- which cones are used by which tricone catalyst.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9PwARVIUAA6bey.png)

Thanks for the offer, but I barely play any games - I just like to follow the development of them :)

Tricone Lab has been Greenlit!

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9o0ra-IgAE_2mM.png)

Thanks everyone for voting and leaving positive comments.

Next steps will be writing more levels and then packaging up for Early Access.

 :coffee:

Today I wrote some new levels which just use anti-catalysts and breakers. The first two are easy.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B953emMIYAAMG3m.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B953etGIcAEa9OS.png)

A couple more anti-catalyst/breaker levels. I'm estimating that these are medium complexity, but I'd need to watch a few people playing them to properly establish the difficulty level.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9_YVxZIcAAO0F4.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9_YVoNIMAAhZHA.png)

New level with anti-catalyst, constructor and +/- charge. I think it has two equivalent solutions that look different but are the same topologically.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-KXvsLIcAAi-6o.png)

new level: involves +/- charge, constructors, breakers and anti-catalysts

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CANWPLFWcAEr8Xc.png)

Congrats!

Do you plan on using the Steam Workshop for distributing player made levels or will you keep that entirely in game?

I've implemented Tricone Lab Online, which you can use right now if you have the full version key. It works like this:

• Players create an account through the game
• They get a link via email to validate the account
• Once you have an account you can upload / download levels from within the game, based on the database on the game's server
• There is also an approval system for levels -- basic quality control

The nice things about this database is that I collect stats on who has played what levels, how hard they are etc, and I plan to publish this stuff, along with an image of each level, on the game website.

In terms of Steam integration, I have not really planned for this.

What would be nice is at a minimum to have players Steam accounts automatically give them accounts on Tricone Lab Online. I'd also like to have basic achievements and things like "oyog is playing XXX level of Tricone Lab" notifications, which I think should be fairly straightforward to implement. I'm not sure what benefits would come from Steam Workshop. I guess I wouldn't have to run the server at all. Steam Workshop would maybe add a player rating system for levels, which Tricone Lab Online doesn't have.

Any thoughts on this would be useful!

I logged in before I posted 'cause I couldn't remember how much you'd implemented. There are a couple of benefits of Steam Workshop I can think of that I imagine could be added to the Tricone Lab Online, either in game or on the website.

Off the top of my head those are:
- Player comments.
- As you mentioned, a rating system.
- The one that really sticks out for me is a browseable list of levels.

If you're publishing level information on the website I expect you could simply add these features there. That would also allow for a more controlled community than Steam. I suppose rating systems and comments can end up potentially being abused depending on the maturity of your user base.

Not sure how helpful this will be since I don't know how much work implementing any of this is.


As an aside, I think I've already said it but I really enjoy the music. I've had Tricone Lab open in the background writing this and the menu music is super chill.

Glad you like it! The music is by Iain Foxwell, aka holobeams, he wrote it especially for the game.

You can find more here:

https://soundcloud.com/holobeams (https://soundcloud.com/holobeams)

josh

Thanks! I'll definitely be following him. His stuff is excellent.

Some new levels I made over the weekend, using exploders, replicators, +/- charge, anti-catalysts and constructors:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBal3j0UUAAQH4x.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBal3yiUsAANtb8.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBal3kJVEAE19H_.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBal32hUMAA2-fj.png)

A couple of new levels, focusing on the transporter mechanic.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCdVqlKWEAAbnyi.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCdVqlIW4AAejce.png)

Today I released Tricone Lab v0.13-alpha, which is mostly a content update:

• Number of standard levels increased from 71 to 92
• See all the levels here: http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/screenshots/ (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/screenshots/)
• Total number of maps is now 21
• Maps have been rearranged quite a lot so I decided to reset all the playing stats

I think the next 2 things I will concentrate on will be (a) tidying up the editor and puzzle sharing features and (b) packaging the game for a Steam early access release.

As always, if you are reading this and Tricone Lab seems interesting to you please contact me and I will send a key to unlock the full version.

I love how this is unlike anything else!

Thanks, a few people have mentioned that. It's both a blessing and a curse!

I've been working on the cell border drawing code, trying to remove various artifacts and make it look generally smoother. I had to change the whole approach in order to achieve this, but I'm happy with the results. Here are before and after screenshots.

Before:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGWiq9_WoAA49Ej.png)

After:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGWiq9qWoAExO-Z.png)

I've just finished a major overhaul of how keys (formerly "Progress Keys") work.

Keys are mini-achievements that the player is rewarded with, by completing certain combinations of levels on certain maps. A key appears on a map like this:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CH8TWnxW8AE3sbK.png)

There are now just 8 keys in the game, each key relates to a particular area of the game mechanics. The key's symbol and name relates to the mechanic. You earn the key when you've learned, to a certain minimum level, how the mechanic works.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CH8TWd9WoAAikQD.png)

Each map (standard or custom) requires certain keys before it is unlocked. This is shown clearly when you download the map from Tricone Lab Online or load the map to play it:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CH8TWt7WIAAiKVf.png)

For custom (user-authored) maps, the required key set is calculated automatically by the server based on what elements are in each map. So if a custom map author uploads a map containing levels which use the Constructor mechanic for example, then this custom map will require the Constructor key, which means it will unlock only for players who've learned the basics of how Constructors work.

New level, probably quite a hard one.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CIIXcqdWUAAbBb-.png)

4 new levels I made during the holidays, which use the exploder mechanic:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CL9eiTOWcAAnix2.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CL9eiRhWEAAw6b_.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CL9eiGEWUAALbFY.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CL9eiMjWIAAipei.png)

.... and another 4 levels I made, which use the constructor mechanic:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CL9ezjSW8AA8EGg.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CL9e0NUWUAALWgX.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CL9e0KPW8AAdLvr.png)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CL9ez-uWIAESnf7.png)

I've reached 100 levels!

http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/screenshots/ (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/screenshots/)

Now working on Steam integration.

triconelab v0.14-alpha is done. From now on all builds will be on Steam, and I have taken down the direct downloads from the triconelab website.

Currently my Steam integration is Windows only, but I will be adding a Mac Steam version soon, and possibly a Linux Steam version if there is demand. If you would like a Steam key for testing please contact me.

v0.14-alpha changelog:

• Major rewriting of line drawing, now much smoother
• Some tweaks to existing levels
• 8 new levels on 2 new maps, including some quite hard ones
• Keys system simplified, clarified and reorganized.
• When loading / downloading a map, the required keys are clear
• Company branding at the start
• Steam integration: download and launch from Steam
• Steam integration: auto-cloud saving of progress and custom maps (whether you downloaded them or created them in the editor)
• Steam integration: Gaining a tricone lab key gains the corresponding achievement in Steam.

The v0.14 test build, as seen in my Steam library:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMeWequW8AA-TrJ.png)

Super cool! Following on Greenlight so I can buy it when it's released!  :handmoneyL: ;D :handmoneyR:

If anyone would like to do some beta testing, pm me your steam ID.

cheers,

josh

Updated trailer.

I'll be using this on the steam store page:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJu7_MKcrOg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJu7_MKcrOg)

Death by beta have done an in-depth write up of the game:

http://www.deathbybeta.com/2015/09/22/tricone-lab-alpha-hands-on/ (http://www.deathbybeta.com/2015/09/22/tricone-lab-alpha-hands-on/)

I'll be distributing some Steam beta keys via DBB in a couple of weeks.

In other news, I have completed the Steam integration for Tricone Lab on Mac. What a pain in the neck that was! But anyway, if you run Mac OSX and you would like a Steam key for testing, please do contact me!

Tricone Lab has now moved to Beta status!

version 0.15-beta:

Changelog

• A couple of new, larger screen resolutions. Default changed to 1366 x 768, based on Steam stats
• More fine grained settings available for update rate. Default changed to 50 fps
• Steam Mac support
• Other fixes and tweaks for Mac
• Fixed some graphical artifacts when border lines are selected
• Changed Breakers map so that BreakSlice has to be solved before BreakLock

As well as previewing tricone lab, DeathByBeta have kindly agreed to distribute 50 Steam beta test keys, for Windows and Mac OSX.

They will be available from around 11am PDT (== 7pm UK time) on Monday 5th October.

Grab one!

For a bit of extra publicity, I've created a Tricone Lab kickstarter page.

Go have a look!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1272098334/tricone-lab-a-unique-lateral-thinking-puzzle-video (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1272098334/tricone-lab-a-unique-lateral-thinking-puzzle-video)

v 0.16-beta uploaded

-- some small fixes to the Steam integration.

Very nice let's play / beta review by SebastianSB aka Keith Ballard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AzwIV_Rqw4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AzwIV_Rqw4)

Watching the video, this looks really neat, it looks great in motion. Can I ask why you chose grey as the predominant colour? The screenshots, in comparison to the video, look a bit dull, and I would have thought an abstract puzzle game like this would have been perfect to apply some nice colour schemes to different levels. Is that something you've considered? A mostly grey game might be a bit of a hard sell to customers otherwise. I had to design my abstract puzzler around cats to get interest.

Hello fellow abstract puzzle game maker! I had a quick look at The Cat Machine and it looks great. I would like to give it a try! I'm always interested to find out about other abstract puzzlers out there, it seems like a fairly obscure genre these days, on PC anyway, which, if true, would be rather a shame.

I have received a bit of negative feedback about the greyness. But actually this was only in a couple of comments on the Greenlight page and one person at GameCity. In its very early stages, before this devlog started and before the "tricone" objective became central, the game had different coloured cells in. Not sure if I still have any screenshots from that era. But I just was not happy with the aesthetic, and after I tried the grey look I really liked it. I think it looks quite science-y and textbook-y. There's no accounting for taste I suppose. Perhaps I also thought the maths-y academic-y look emphasises the central point of the project which is that it is not a casual game, it is about some pretty hardcore topological reasoning. I also have a principle, which the game adheres to (99% anyway): you can see something in the game if and only if it has a gameplay consequence. So, adding different colours may dilute that principle a little.

I also found that lining up large numbers of different monochrome node types from the game has a rather pleasing effect (to me anyway):

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CR6bykeWUAA17TJ.png)

I'm an avid board gamer, of course I play colourful board games which have back-stories and characters etc, but I think I may have been influenced by venerable board-game purist Kris Burm (http://www.gipf.com/). He makes monochrome abstract 2-player strategy games, with no narratives, colours or characters and small, focused rule sets. This was quite a mainstream approach in the 1970s but then fell badly out of favour in the mid-late 80s and later. So I am following this design aesthetic both in gameplay and presentation terms I guess -- I am putting the abstractness front and centre. Maybe in a marketplace full of colours and cute characters, an aesthetic of hardcore monochrome abstractness can find a small niche?

I have had a review!

4/5 stars from FictiveTruism at IndieGameReviewer.com

http://indiegamereviewer.com/review-tricone-lab/ (http://indiegamereviewer.com/review-tricone-lab/)

"a fantastic, well-balanced puzzle game thanks to its great level design and fun mechanics"

Very happy with this. They didn't like the monochromaticity either but you can't please everyone.

Now available to buy on Steam Early Access!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/392610/ (http://store.steampowered.com/app/392610/)

v0.18-beta released on Steam.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/triconelab/announcements/detail/807635219745590158 (http://steamcommunity.com/games/triconelab/announcements/detail/807635219745590158)

Have you considered letting people set their own pallet for the levels they make? Or some kind of pallet unlocking like in Luftrausers?

I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with your art direction but if it's something your players are looking for it might be worth considering.

Yes good idea -- if I go down the multicoloured path I would probably make this configurable in the editor.

Generally, I need to think of ways to encourage more community authoring of levels. The standard maps are taking people 15-30 hours to complete but I think the custom map functionality is one of the major selling points of the game.

Something I've just added is that screenshots and play statistics of approved custom maps get published on the web:
http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/online/custom-level-stats/ (http://www.triconelab.com/index.php/online/custom-level-stats/)

As you can see there are only 2 custom maps at present, and hardly anyone is downloading / playing them. Shame because Cyclical in particular has some excellent puzzles.

Other ideas I am thinking about to encourage more custom maps:

• YouTube tutorial video explaining how to design custom maps, upload them, and submit them for approval.
• Allow players to download custom maps without logging in (currently you have to create a Tricone Lab Online account before you can download)
• When the game starts, a message box pops up which gives you a summary of how many custom maps you could download and play
• Running one or more custom map design competitions
• Give some free copies of the game to universities who run gamedev courses, so the students can try designing custom maps

Any other ideas?

josh

YouTube tutorials certainly wouldn't hurt if you have the time to make them, especially if you make them accessible from in game alongside the map creation tools or something.

Map design competitions seem like a great idea, particularly if you have a designated place for the players to develop a community (Facebook, Reddit, A dedicated forum.)

I expect allowing downloading maps without the TLO account would generally be a good idea. It may just be that people don't feel like creating one more account for something if it only has a minor (perceived) benefit.

I'd avoid any thing you have to click through when the game immediately starts. At this point I tend to associate in game pop-ups with micro-transactions and paid dlc, regardless of actual content. You could maybe show a count of user made maps in an unobtrusive spot on the main menu screen. Or a brief list of stats.

Maybe something like:
# of custom maps
# of players playing custom maps
# of unsolved custom maps
Maybe a featured map if map competitions become a thing.

Tricone Lab final release date on Steam July 27th 2017!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/392610/Tricone_Lab/ (http://store.steampowered.com/app/392610/Tricone_Lab/)

http://www.triconelab.com (http://www.triconelab.com)

(https://media.giphy.com/media/3ohzgJ5LP8TahUWlFK/giphy.gif)

(https://media.giphy.com/media/xUPGGCm6exqAp8m1lS/giphy.gif)

Tricone Lab has a built-in puzzle editor. Not only that but you can share your custom puzzles using a dedicated online service, and of course download and play puzzles made by other players.
The puzzle editor is super easy to use but just to make the process as straightforward as possible I've created this series of 3 tutorial videos demonstrating from start to finish how to create and share puzzles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKk8wWeKIes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymj-W_hyBL0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSmVgwBqGKU

So, hope you enjoy these and I would love to see some new custom puzzles created soon!

Josh S.