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[aliceffekt]

The animation breakdown for the emitters.

[neon]

looking great so far.

i think the comments about it not looking very aliceffekt-ish are due to the colors.. they're so saturated and obvious in a sense.  unlike your other stuff, where the colors make up a large amount of the atmosphere.

but the colors in this game are so tied into the game mechanic that you can't change them from pure FF0000, 00FF00, and 0000FF (or R, G, and B i guess.)

i am looking forward to it progressing.  

[aliceffekt]

Here is a beta build, please let us know any feedback you have : )

OS X | Windows

[deathtotheweird]

the windows link takes me to the osx version.

[Frog]

Same here.

[aliceffekt]

Oh sorry about that, the links were backward

Fixed

[iffi]

Pretty neat, though I sometimes found it difficult to direct the deflectors in the direction I wanted them to face without having to rotate the camera around. Perhaps keyboard controls corresponding to the different directions would help, if they isn't already there and I just missed them.
Also, a fast-forward button would be nice.

[nihilocrat]

I'm not sure how the accumulator plays into the game or how they are useful. Some of the levels that expect a sequence, as well as an earlier blue level where an accumulator exists, contain accumulators that aren't necessary to solve the puzzle; I simply positioned projectors in front of each emitter and ones aligned with the goal such that they would create a stream in the correct pattern. It seems like they can only contain one color type at a time, but it's not clear why that's useful. Aat the blue/magenta level where there is only one red and one blue emitter it is clear that they can be used in some way to "multiply" an emitter.

More importantly, though, you can't tell what direction a projector goes except at the time that you place it; in more complicated levels with cubes flying everywhere it can be hard to remember which way you placed your projectors. I would suggest you put a semi-transparent arrow texture or model on the projectors (or a model inside; whatever looks best) softly indicating the direction they project to. I would also suggest you make the narrow white block that appears when placing a projector show more clearly the direction it will point.

Also, when a level is restarted it would be nice if the help text re-appeared.

Hope this helps.

[aliceffekt]

Thanks for your feedback 

Beta 2 is now available. here is a few updates.

Gameplay
- Projectors displays arrows to the output
- Pressing R empties the accumulators and print the level dialog
- Projectors faces are clickable upon creation
- Shadows are casted on the grid

UI
- Background & Bling and shit.
- Wrong energy signature breaks on the receiver

Download OS X | Windows


Let us know what you think should be enhanced for the presentation at MIGS Indies.

[aliceffekt]

New Trailer

[Hangedman]

Lookin' classy. I really like the clicking on the face mechanic, it really allows clearer control over which way the colour goes.

Keep at it 

[Maxim Schoemaker]

I really love the aesthetic of this game.

I do seem to loose my cursor an awful lot, which is quite annoying. It happens when you place a projector but want to have it's direction point towards a side you are currently not looking at, so you turn the camera to do get to that facet, but then your cursor is gone. I would either have the cursor be a clearer colour or have the direction choosing of a projector not need the cursor to hit it. Just have it choose the side the cursor is closest to.

Also, MORE LEVELS!!!   

This is awesome, keep it up! :D

[aliceffekt]

Ah okay I will fix up the cursor.

Tonight I will be creating a few of the remaining levels for playable 3. I need 27 levels by November 9th

Green Portal
Tutorial 1 - Introducing the Projector  
Tutorial 2 - Placing 2 projectors  
Tutorial 3 - Introducing the Accumulator
Tutorial 4 - Mixing 2 colours
Tutorial 5 - Mixing 3 colours
Tutorial 6 - Introducing Magenta
Tutorial 7 - Introducing Yellow
Tutorial 8 - Introducing Cyan
Tutorial 9 - Introducing 2 colours Rythm

Blue Portal
Intermediate 10 - Challenge Blue Magenta Sequence
Intermediate 11 - Challenge Green Magenta Sequence
Intermediate 12 - Challenge White Magenta Sequence
Intermediate 13 - Challenge Cyan Yellow Sequence

Red Portal
Hard 14 - Hardcore White Magenta Blue Sequence
Hard 15 - Challenge Cyan Yellow Cyan Green Sequence



And this is a Magenta/White Solver

[aliceffekt]

Updated the Builds with Playable 3 ( 15 levels in ! )

[nihilocrat]

Found a fun bug... On the intro level before tutorial 1, if you redirect green along with blue to the exit, and NOT red as well, it will transport you to Intermediate 9.

Also, I assume it's intentional since it's just a demonstration, but you can clear the level by doing nothing. If you want to redirect all three colors, you have to use the W/S controls to move the play grid, which the instructions have not mentioned. I am going to keep playing now to see for myself, but you might want to make sure that the W/S controls are explained before there is a puzzle that requires them.

]You also might want to mention the Z key (undo) early on, as soon as tutorial 2 or 3.] Oops, I see you already do that.

Intermediate 9 level title "Yello Magenta" => "Yellow Magenta"

[aliceffekt]

Updated the build with the fixed typo

The 3 portals from the beginning are actually not a glitch, it's a sort of warp zone level. If you never play, and don't touch anything. the level will solve itself, if you have reached Intermediate 9 you can bring a blue and red cell to their goals. Blue requires one new projector, and the red portal requires two.

I hope it makes sense now : ) You can see the levels and the 3 warps destination 2 posts up. ^^ Thanks for all the good feedback kenny

[Six]

Feedback time! This is going to be really long and nitty-gritty. Don't hate me!

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It took me a little while to get how it worked, but the beat-matching tempo control is brilliant.

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The function of the accumulators felt really unclear to me at first, and I'm still not sure I fully understand them. As far as I can tell, they have two potential uses:
1. They allow you to "share" a colour, by having it cross paths with a different one coming out of the accumulator. Having played the game a fair bit now, this seems to be their intended use. (Somewhat counter-intuitive to my initial wiring, the colour to be shared is the one that doesn't get fed into the accumulator.)
2. They allow you to shift the "phase" of an incoming block by one, to more easily have it overlap/meet another block or enter a goal on the right "beat" for a multicolour goal. (This use was probably unintended, but was the more immediately intuitive for me -- and it allows for alternate solutions on some levels.)

Oddly, the way accumulators are introduced in the third level -- with a single-colour emitter, near the edge of the level, sharing a row with a misdirecting projector -- gives an initial false impression that they're useless or should be avoided, since in that level it IS useless and ends up being easier to avoid. Maybe their value would be more apparent if you introduced them in a level where they were specifically needed, and suggested/hinted at their usage more strongly with an example.

Still on the topic of accumulators, their behaviour sometimes seems undefined or unapparent. Talking with nihilocrat the other day, I wrongly remembered that putting a different colour into a half-filled accumulator "shunted" the initial one out, but it actually just does nothing. Oddly, if two colours meet over an accumulator, like so:



Neither of them goes into the accumulator, even if one of them matches the colour inside.

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Switching planes with W/S doesn't seem to be mentioned at all in the game. I only found out about it after seeing level 11 (where it's totally obvious that that sort of function has to exist for the level to be winnable) and pressing some buttons at random. I went back to level 9 afterwards and realized that the actual, sane solution assumed knowledge of switching. (I originally had a totally contrived solution that I probably couldn't even pull off again if you asked!)

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The way multiple-colour goals work is also sort of unclear. Properly-coloured blocks appear to get rejected if they're input on the wrong "beat," but I'm still not quite sure if it's that, or if there's just a specific order to the colours that need to be sent to each goal (e.g. yellow first, and then green.) If it's the latter, then having the colours continuously loop in the goal box makes it a total hash as to which comes first if you missed the initial level description.

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In terms of game/difficulty flow, you could probably squish some levels together to make it a bit snappier, without losing anything. Levels 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 deal with colour merges, one-by-one (understandable, since you want to demonstrate merge results to people who might be unfamiliar with additive colour theory.) Level 6 adds the minor nuance of having to redirect a cube to prevent it from merging, and level 8 adds a different nuance of having to redirect two cubes and merge them elsewhere.

You also explain exactly what to do to solve each of these levels, which seems a bit like head-patting. Maybe you could deal with both of these issues by having some emitters already set up to merge, suggesting possibilities to the player? (For example, level 4 could have an existing blue + red = magenta emitter/projector combo off to the side, suggesting that the player could try combining another blue emitter with a green one to get cyan. Players have the satisfaction of figuring it out on their own, and learn two colours at once!)

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Okay! Bugs! I think you should be able to replicate them by matching the conditions depicted.



In this screenshot the green and blue cubes are turning cyan as they round the corner to meet in the middle. Magic!




In this screenshot the red cubes at the bottom have an identity crisis, flicker to magenta for a split-second, and then decide to become blue for the last leg of their journey to the great beyond.



Hope that helps! I, uh, I'm sorry I just wrote a novel about your game. I ain't crazy, just real serious about playtestin'.

[aliceffekt]

The accumulator's only purpose is, like you said, is to easily merge cells from adjacent positions. Mixing cells coming from emitters that are next to each other is really complex and might seem impossible. I did a few playtest before and without them, the puzzle seems impossible at first. So they are there to soften the progress curve. I removed them from the tutorials and added it the first blue/red level where you actually need it. So hopefully that will solve the accumulator issue.  

The way multiple-colour goals work is also sort of unclear.

Ideally the Receivers will look like this, similarly to the accumulator you can tell what color it needs and in what order. As you send it the right colours the translucent colored cells become opaque. When the sequence is complete, the level ends.

Switching planes with W/S doesn't seem to be mentioned at all in the game.

These controls are now introduced in Inter6.

In terms of game/difficulty flow, you could probably squish some levels together to make it a bit snappier

Fixing up the level flow a little to 5 tutorials, this is te next build's flow.

Green Portal
Home - Waiting or Warping Introducing right click
Tutorial 1 - Placing 1 Projector(Red) Introducing left click
Tutorial 2 - Placing 2 projectors (Green) Introducing "Z"
Tutorial 3 - Mixing 2 colours :(Cyan) Introducing "R"
Tutorial 4 - Mixing 3 primary colours (White) Introducing "Escape"
Tutorial 5 - Mixing 3 secondary colours (White) Introducing "Spacebar"

Blue Portal
Inter 6 - Challenge (Magenta Yellow)   Introducing "W" & "S"
Inter 7 - Challenge (Magenta Blue)
Inter 8 - Challenge (Magenta Green Green)

Red Portal
Hard 9 - Challenge (Magenta White)
Hard 10 - Hardcore (Cyan Yellow)
Hard 11 - Challenge (White Magenta Blue)
Hard 12 - Challenge (White Magenta Blue)

[aliceffekt]

Uploaded a new build Playable 4

[aliceffekt]

Difficulty chart for the games I worked on the past year.