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[Rasher]

The gameplay in it's core is similar to Lemmings. You can spawn "Blockings" in any order and at any time, as long as they are available. They got special attributes depending on their color and can morph into different blocks. Each level is finished when at least one Blocking touches a goal block.

Requirements: XNA 4.0 + .NET 4.0
Download: http://www.cscms.de/BlockingsTest2.rar

Controls:

• Escape to return to the level selection
• Click on blockings to spawn/morph them
• Mouse wheel or A/D to speed up/rewind the game

I'd like to have some feedback on the general gameplay, controls and things you had trouble with. Levels are just for testing purposes.

Update: I've uploaded a new version with changed controls, a few new levels, level selection, some tutorial tips and other stuff.

[Rasher]

Added a

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[JDM]

I like this.  The fast forward/rewind system is pretty smart (though perhaps rewind could use both a .5x and 8x speed as well?). 

My biggest problem with this is the controls.  With the pop-up menus appearing around the moving character, it gets a little challenging to try to click them at any speed other than paused.  I'd recommend either automatically switching it to a temporary pause to let the player make the choice, or (and this is the option I prefer) mapping the options to hotkeys on the keyboard (so, like, "A" is a block and "S" is a spring, etc.) so I don't have to worry about too many hotkey gymanstics.  Keyboard shortcuts (in addition to the mousewheel) for speed might be welcome, too.

If these are your initial set of levels, I do hope that you consider spacing them out to introduce concepts and increase difficulty at a slightly slower place.  That second one is so tough and so picky about the exact placement of the spring blocks, I got pretty frustrated after a few tries.  Clearer instructions might be helpful, too.  But all of that is probably in an early version mostly for your own testing purposes, so yeah! 

Also, as a bug report, twice the little pop-up menu remained even when there were no Blockings out, I clicked on one of the buttons, and the game crashed. 

I think with some fleshing out this could be a pretty great title.  I think it'd be great for touchscreen phones.  I'd nail down a Windows version first to make sure you're happy with the project before you go about making a mobile version.  Finish this as Project A, and consider your porting and your level editors and whatnot optional Projects B and C and clear them in order.

Definitely keep working on it, though.  Looking forward to playing later versions of this.

[harkme]

Just finished the demo. I agree with thesycophant in that the pop-up menus appearing around the moving character makes it a little challenging to click. I'd also like to add that It seemed like the icons would change on me depending on the character's location (though I could just be imagining things) so it made it even more difficult to select the action. Also, is it just me or is it impossible to select 1x without the mousewheel?

Anyway, I think that the game would benefit a lot if the game automatically paused. So what would happen is you hold right arrow key to move time forward, hold left arrow key to move time backward. If you aren't holding either button down, then it's paused. You could still adjust time speed by mousewheel. This way I think the game would be easier to time and would rely more on puzzle solving skills rather than reflexes and mouse precision skills.

[Rasher]

Thanks for the feedback guys, you really motivated me to complete this before I start something new.

If these are your initial set of levels, I do hope that you consider spacing them out to introduce concepts and increase difficulty at a slightly slower place.

The levels were made in about 10 minutes and are mostly for testing purposes, so they will be changed for sure. I've also noticed problems with the speed controls but I'm not exactly sure how I'll change them yet.

It seemed like the icons would change on me depending on the character's location

You have different choices of blocks on glass tiles, since some wouldn't make sense in this case.

Anyway, I think that the game would benefit a lot if the game automatically paused.

That's a great idea! I'll definitely try it and see how it works out. This would also probably remove the need of a 0.5x speed option that thesycophant mentioned.

[LiquidAsh]

Fantastic concept!  A couple of notes based on my play-through: 1) the after rewinding and pausing, I couldn't get the game to play forward in normal time again (without rewinding all the way to the end)  2) in fact a restart button would be great.  3) The layout of the forward and reverse speed up abilities look like scroll controls to me.  4) Spawning new blocks seemed a little sluggish, esp on the last level where the timing is so important.  Again, I really enjoy the idea and would love to see you refine and flesh it out.

[Rasher]

I've uploaded a new version with changed controls and a few new levels.

[Rasher]

New version uploaded with level selection, some tutorial tips and other changes.

Would love to hear some feedback since I'm starting to get doubts about continuing this project.

[matwek]

I really like the concept so far but the art seems a bit bland.

How far into development are you and what are you hoping to release the game on? PC/Iphone/Android/etc...
I only ask as I work as a pixel artist and I might be willing to help improve the art if I knew for sure the game was going to be released.
http://www.facebook.com/matwekpixel

[Rasher]

This art is probably the best I've ever done, considering I'm really really bad at it. It probably took me about 3-5 hours just to get that single block sprite done.

Development is between 40% and 70%, depending on how much additional gameplay elements are going to be added. Currently there are 5 blocks to morph into and 3 different blockings. More than enough for one world with about 12 levels, but probably not enough for multiple worlds. Also, multiple world would require more art and some kind of environmental gameplay elements (enemies, traps etc) to make them unique.

The game is written in XNA, so the only possible platform is PC.

Will I finish it? I'm not really sure about that. Reason being, I'm not having fun playing it and other people that played it also didn't really like it. I'll at least try some more to make it better in terms of gameplay/art/sound, but I don't think it's worth working on a project where I can't learn new things or someone will have fun playing it.