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Mindblock
A puzzle game about floating blocks and shiny balls. In space.

Greenlight

Latest version
0.2

Download links (0.2 : Feb 26)
Windows / Linux (32/64 bits) (~20MB)

Important detail : Intel integrated GPUs will not render the game correctly.

Latest Updates : Feb 26 : Demo 0.2 and Greenlight
Feb 16 : Website and Trailer
Feb 6 : Bloom and light blocks
Jan 27 : Version 0.16
Jan 19 : Alpha 0.15 (pre-demo)
Jan 7 : Blocking blocks
Dec 18 : Spacebox
Dec 16 : Teleporters
Dec 11 : Temperature, Ice and Fire
Dec 8 : Finally, a name! Also, screenshots.


Default controls (remappable)
Arrow keys to move
Space to grab blocks
Enter to toggle time slowdown
ESDF to control the camera

Gameplay


. This video is pretty old, the gameplay is similar but a lot of things have changed since.
You control a ball and you have to reach the exit, marked by a yellow and red block.

You are able to push and pull blocks to create a path, and the blocks are able to float as long as there is a block on the level below that has an edge connecting them both.
You also have the possibility to stick to a block, if after pulling a block you find yourself over an empty space. When sticking to a block you can rotate around it or drop down.

Original post below :

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Hello everyone!
It's been a while since I told myself that I should post here, but procrastination often wins with me.
But not this time!

I'm working on a puzzle game. It used to be an fps, but then I realized it would take far too long to complete it, so I kept the engine and changed everything about the gameplay.

It's a game where you move blocks and try not to fall. The blocks have different properties and fall down only if they do not share an edge with a block below.
This last bit might remind you of a PS3/Xbox360 game, and that's exactly where it's from.

I'm pretty far in the programming, the engine pretty much does what I need it to do, some of the features are missing (more block types) and most of the content (levels and multiple block themes) isn't there yet.


And now, time for screenshots and videos :

Video showing the basics of the game. It's kinda old and been brightened a lot, but the basics didn't really change.

Making some levels :




The day I added light settings in the editor :


Working on the level select icons :


There's more screenshots here, also with screens of the previous project.

Some technical details about the project :
It's written in C++, and I'm using OpenGL for the graphics, GLFW for input/window management, OpenAL for sound, SOIL for importing textures.

I'm still not on greenlight, mainly for two reasons :

• I still don't have a name, although I'm tempted to call it "Test Game Please Ignore"
• The people on Greenlight are scary

So yeah, if you have any good ideas for a name I'd love to hear them. "Edge" (internal name) is already taken by another game, and "Test Game Please Ignore"... is not really descriptive. It would get some attention though, people never ignore stuff they're told to ignore.

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And now Greenlight added an entry fee. Brilliant. Not that I'm against it.

I've just added a time slowing feature, for those moments when you're about to lose but still need a few seconds to figure out your plan.

Visually it's desaturation, just a slight change in my shader code. The sound is me making weird noises in a microphone.

And the result is this :




I still need to make a lot of levels to have at least one full chapter for the alpha version :

(the lighting is temporary here, white only doesn't look very good I think)

That's it for now! If you have any comments or suggestions please post them here, or on youtube, or send me a message.

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I didn't really have the opportunity to update more, since most the things i did in the last month were classified under bug fixing and hair pulling. For a while it only worked on ATI cards and crashed with Nvidia cards, but that's been fixed. It still won't work on older Intel graphics cards.
But now the game is playable and (I hope) free of game-breaking bugs, so I can release it to the public.

The first post contains information on how to play.





Download Alpha 0.12 :
Windows (9.1MB)- needs OpenAL installed
Linux (32 bits, 8.8MB) - needs OpenAL and ALUT (let me know if it works, I only tested it on my virtual machine).

The difficulty curve is a bit broken, so if you're having trouble with the last tutorial level, try to skip to the beginning of the first chapter, I think it's actually easier.
Also, the menus are ugly, I'm aware of that, but I'm apparently terrible at making them.

Feel free to post feedback and bug reports, and also name suggestions.

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Today I added an option for people who get low framerates : render the lights at half resolution (I'm using deferred lighting). It makes the lighting and edges a bit blurrier, but has a major impact on performance.

Full resolution :


Half resolution :

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Until now the tutorial levels were pretty obscure, there were no indication on how to finish it, except the level title.
But now I have added Text Blocks, so that when the player steps on them, a text box appears. It can be used for tutorials, or more generally to give information to the player. The block texture isn't done yet, but it works!



Next step, making the text editable in the map editor, and making a texture to distinguish it. I may add support for reading bound keys, so that %UP is replaced by the key used to go up for example.

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Alpha 0.13!

Download links :
Windows (needs OpenAL)
Linux (needs OpenAL and ALUT)
Linux 64 bits (same)


Changelog :

• Fixed again the falling when you shouldn’t/not falling when you should bug
• Added an option to render lighting at half resolution for those who get low framerates (needs game restart to be applied)
• Added Text Blocks in the tutorial levels that explain more clearly the game
• Removed the slowdown power from puzzle levels (it was almost completely useless there)
• Changed the default keybindings for the camera control, from the numpad to ESDF, that way you don’t have to move your hand.

Please report bugs, or post suggestions (I still need a name, seriously, it's ridiculous and I don't really have ideas)

[Udderdude]

The gameplay in this seems really similar to that Catherine game that was released recently.  What's the big differences between your game?

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The gameplay is pretty close due to the block physics (to be clear, the block physics are from Catherine). But you have way less freedom in your movements since you can't spider around blocks, you can just stick to a single block. You also have fewer ways of killing yourself : you can't jump off the edge into the void by moving towards it for example, it will check if there is something below.

I'm emphasizing more of the puzzle aspect, with shorter levels but more of them, with different elements (only the basic blocks are there now, I plan to add more). The level editor will be accessible to the players too even in the final release.

It also doesn't have randomness in it, which apparently is a real pain in later levels of Catherine. Oh, and there's no plot. I guess if you only like the puzzles that's a plus.

As I add more features I hope they will drift apart and it will get a more unique playstyle.

[Udderdude]

Sounds good, hopefully you can improve on the gameplay that was in Catherine.  Shouldn't be hard, seeing as the game was one of the most overhyped examples of style over substance I've seen in years.  And I didn't even know about the randomness - yuck.

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Alpha 0.14

Download :
Windows
Linux

Changelog

Mostly bugfixes and compatibility for Linux, but I replaced the final tutorial level by an easier one (the older one is now in the other chapter).

The last tutorial level is here to introduce the falling mechanic, instead of providing a challenge too hard for a new player.

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I went on a sort of break for a month, so yeah, no updates. I'm back!

I'm mostly done with the programming, so it's mostly art and puzzle design that's left.
Oh, and the name. I went with Mindblock, since this is what happened to me, and it's somewhat fitting for the game (you use your mind, and you move blocks).
I've changed the main character, now you will be able to choose between several (including the skull), unlocking them as you progress in the main game. They're going to be balls, as in the PSX game Kula World (though not necessarily beach balls).

Here are examples :



Also, I've reintroduced specular lighting, which wasn't used since the great engine rewrite of July, and emissive textures, which I plan on using for some blocks. You can see the specular lighting very well in the previous images by the way. I've added some other features, like a skylight and par times/moves for levels.

I've made some new models/textures for some blocks, and I'm planning to replace most of the old art with it : here are 2 new blocks, wood based :


I've added other blocks too, but haven't finished their texturing yet (fire/ice/teleporter block).

And finally, I've been working on the interface, trying to make it less ugly and usable with a keyboard :



If you want to try it, the alpha 0.14 (post above) still has roughly the same gameplay.

As for the puzzles themselves, I've decided to depart from the "timed" levels where the floor is falling, and only keep them as bonus levels. It's a puzzle game, not a racing game.
I think I'm going to divide the levels in chapters of 10 levels + 1 bonus timed level, you only need to finish 7 to go to the next chapter, but need to get Par on all 10 to get to the bonus level. Or something like that.

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I've now added two other blocks : fire and ice.

When the player rolls on it, a temperature indicator appears at the top of the screen and the temperature changes.

The bar goes from -5 to 5, and stepping on a fire/ice block changes it by 3/-3. Stepping on any other block makes it go one step towards 0, reaching -5 or 5 makes you lose.
The bar disappears when your temperature is at 0 for at least 2 seconds.
Here's how they look like, I might add particle effects to them because I'm not entirely satisfied with them :/



The ice texture is slightly buggy, because I set it to GL_REPEAT instead of GL_CLAMP, so the ice is bleeding into the wood.

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Teleporters!

They're blocks that teleport you when you step on them :



But if you move them, their destination also moves. So puzzles can use them for something else than separating parts of a level.

You can also check the destination by holding the grab key next to a teleporter, like this :



Showing all teleporters in the levels would get too crowded with some levels, so it only shows the closer ones.

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I was looking for something to make space skyboxes and found Spacescape. It has a cool editor, some examples to help you learn and it can export to 6 files with the correct cubemap projection.

So I'm making spaceboxes now.


The goal is beta version before the end of the year!

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Making progress during the holidays proved to be too difficult for me, but I'm back!

One issue I was having was with blocks blocking the camera, so I made it so that blocks shrink to let the player view the ball even if it's behind a wall.

So here is the normal view :


And here is a view from behind the left wall (click the image to get it full size, the blocks are quite small) :


Transparency wasn't working very well but I still wanted an indicator that there's a block there so I chose to shrink them. Still not sure about that.

[DustyDrake]

If there's an animation for them shrinking, it should be fine.
I think it works quite nicely

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There was an animation but it was a bit weird (sometimes you ended up with a block at half-size), so I reworked it. The result is the same, but the transition is smoother :

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A fun consequence of this : since shadows are entirely dynamic, when a block shrinks, its shadow also updates.
I might play with the conditions for shrinking a bit more later.

[DustyDrake]

Hm... I think you should work off a rounded camera angle if you can, because some of those farther away blocks seemed to randomly grow and shrink

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Yeah, I changed it again; there was no buffer zone before. Now there is a zone where a block doesn't change its state between the "small" and "big", that way there's no blocks changing quickly between the two (as least not as quickly).

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Alpha 0.15 - Pre-Demo

Windows / Linux (32/64 bits) (~20MB)

Changelog :
So many things. Even the name. Only the gameplay remains mostly unchanged.

Same as the version before, it doesn't seem to render properly on Intel Integrated GPUs.

This version is the one just before the demo version that I'll try to publish more widely. It has the tutorial and the first chapter; I'll add a second one for the demo version, which should be next weekend.
I'm going to update the gameplay video during next week.

Please post any feedback you have!