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[Robotacon]

I think it looks really cool. I like the abstraction and RPG-esque approach.
I'm probably definitely a total nerd for saying this but this game actually got immersion.

[Gainsworthy]

Easily the strangest take on a demake I've seen. Brilliant idea - not that I've seen all the odd little cult classics over the years, but I've never seen it done before. I mean sure, you've got the tetris bit - but combining it with inventory management? Nice.

The Anomalous Artifacts sound like a pretty great idea, too. I mean, I'm already impressed by the PSY effects, so, adding some weird bonuses would be more than welcome.


Keep it coming!


EDIT: I'm sure this would take time, so I guess it's a post-compo suggestion. I'd love to see a little in-world window in the game which changes with area and activity - a graphical one. So, say, it'd have a little sprite of your STACKER in the Camp, or the Wastleands, or the Checkpoint (by the by, checkpoint is awesome) - maybe even responding to items in-game. Just musing here, but it'd be sweet, I think.

[Pishtaco]

Thanks!

EDIT: I'm sure this would take time, so I guess it's a post-compo suggestion. I'd love to see a little in-world window in the game which changes with area and activity - a graphical one. So, say, it'd have a little sprite of your STACKER in the Camp, or the Wastleands, or the Checkpoint (by the by, checkpoint is awesome) - maybe even responding to items in-game. Just musing here, but it'd be sweet, I think.

My original plan was to have an overworld map. You could choose which path you wanted to follow on it, or if you wanted to, say, stop and search for stashes. This is meant to capture some of the open-world feeling of Stalker. Then your journey or your search would play out as a Tetris-style level. I don't know how much of this is going to get into the game now. Probably a map for each level (if I manage to do more than one level), and maybe a window in the main interface showing your location on the map. I'm worried that a sprite of your Stacker doing stuff would be going a bit too far, and might look like the game was apologizing for being Tetris rather than something character-actiony.

[Dayv]

  hats off.

This is a really intriguing game and I'm a real sucker AK 47s.  I think TIGSource should have a compo where the theme is just AK47s

If you look at this site you might be able to find some music you can use
http://www.pygame.org/wiki/resources

[Pishtaco]

I've put in the front end, which was a chore. No art or anything for it yet. As light relief I played around more with getting it to look like a TV screen. I've tweaked some things in level 1 and now it feels fairly playable. The other levels are still placeholders. I updated the demo and screenshot in the first post.

[Xion]

an unexpected error occurred when running the game. It said:

"An unexpected error occurred when running the game."

[Noyb]

Very fun. Tying Tetris to Diabloesque inventory systems is utterly brilliant. I love how you managed to turn such a familiar gameplay on its head by making the player think whether he wants to clear lines or save individual pieces. Can't wait to see the next version.

[Grif]

Irony: this demake requires a better graphics card than my laptop has.

[Pishtaco]

Oh dear  .

If the game starts at all, how far does it get? And what sort of graphics cards are we talking here? I would be very grateful for any help. 

Here is a version without the heinous TV-style splitting-into-three-colours-and-blurring effect. I hope it gets at least as far as the main menu:

[Pishtaco]

Did anyone try the new version, who had problems with the previous version?

[muku]

I've been holding off on playing this so far even though the concept is intriguing (or perhaps because of that and I didn't want to spoil it for me until it's done), but I just tried it, works just fine for me here.

One thing that really bugs me though is the controls. I'm a bit surprised no one seems to have brought this up so far, so maybe I'm missing something, but is there a reason you don't use the standard Tetris controls where the up arrow rotates and left/right arrows move? It seemed to me that I had to use my left hand on A/D for moving and my right hand for rotating, and I keep confusing which hand does what.

[Pishtaco]

One thing that really bugs me though is the controls. I'm a bit surprised no one seems to have brought this up so far, so maybe I'm missing something, but is there a reason you don't use the standard Tetris controls where the up arrow rotates and left/right arrows move? It seemed to me that I had to use my left hand on A/D for moving and my right hand for rotating, and I keep confusing which hand does what.

Thanks, I had been meaning to ask for feedback about the controls. I couldn't remember what the normal Tetris controls were and the things I tried all felt equally strange, initially. I think I'll move it to what you say, but maybe leave Z and X as alternative keys for rotating.

[Gainsworthy]

Well Pishtaco, how's this all going? You can't just give us an awesome demo and vanish. :D And the compo is a week out from completion.

[Pishtaco]

There will be something for the competition. I moved to a new apartment on Sunday, so things are kind of in flux right now. But I'm hoping that with the extension I will be able to do two more levels.

I got passable front end and high score screens done at the end of last week. Unfortunately, since then when I've tried to work on it I end up playing through level one again and worrying about balance. I've done this enough times that I'm a bit burned out on it and can't see the charm any more - I hope this is me rather than the game. Anyway, level two will need some new technical things so hopefully getting on to that will get me going again.

[Gainsworthy]

God Speed, Good Sir!

Uh, also, I think the current 45 line limit is a biit of a killer. Unless I'm just crap at it. I can only make it to around 30 - though that's due to another little problem, which is over responsive controls. Sometimes, the blocks just don't want to sit still. Veer left and right, like a wild bronco they do.

I'd also like to provide Moral Support (the free-est kind of support) by assuring you that the game itself has not lost any of its charms. To me. I still love it. And the promise of "new technical things" is rather exciting.

[thewreck]

tried it!

looks very awsome, however i found the controls to be the opposite of what i expected!

To me it would feel more natural to move the black around with the arrow keys and spin it with A / D

otherwise awsome.

[Gainsworthy]

Got the 45 lines!

And was instantly rebuffed by the 20,000 point minimum score. I had ~9,500. Now that's just crazy.

I was iffy about a & s controls at the start, but it grew on me fast. Makes sense now. Just need to learn. Still bothered by the fact that sometimes items just slide around.

[Pishtaco]

I've changed the controls to use up to rotate, and left and right to move, as suggested above. This feels better (now that I'm used to it), and with return to flip the inventory as well it means you can do everything with one hand.

I think I've fixed the thing with the slippery control. Then I was worried that it was feeling oddly sluggish, but I worked out that this only happens when I am running Firefox as well. Hopefully switching GameMaker to run on highest priority will fix this (and not have any weird side-effects).

In the current version it's easier to not die, but I've actually upped the number of lines to 50, as a nice round number. But reading the replies here, maybe this is a mistake and I'm guilty of padding. The scoring has changed, but I want to leave it a bit hard so that the player has to think about trying to complete multiple lines at once as well as just survival.

Thanks for the support . Level 2 is progressing, but more slowly than I hoped. I forgot to factor my bone-idleness and inability to concentrate into my timing plans. If level 3 makes it in, it will be rushed, incoherent, and focus on unimaginative combat... but wait!

I'm torn on whether to keep my TV effect or try to work out what I need to do to make it run for everyone. Any more feedback from the people who were having problems would be very helpful.

If I make it home sober tonight I will clean up the current version and post it here.

[Stargoat]

I love the old-tv-effect .

If you do take it out, can you keep a version with it still intact?

[Pishtaco]

First post is updated with the current, still-old-TV-ish, version. Probably I will fiddle with the colours and the font on the front-end screens. Everywhere it says "space", "enter" will also work.