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[josh_s]

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.

[josh_s]

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.

[cragwind]

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.

[josh_s]

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

[josh_s]

Tricone lab is on steam greenlight:

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

josh

[oyog]

Voted.   

[josh_s]

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

[oyog]

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.

[josh_s]

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

[oyog]

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.

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

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

Cool!

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

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

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.

[josh_s]

You can see on what levels other people got stuck here:

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

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

[oyog]

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.

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.)

[josh_s]

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:

Map screen:


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:

[josh_s]

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

[josh_s]

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.

[josh_s]

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".

[jgrams]

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...

[josh_s]

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.

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*.

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.

• 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...

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'.

• 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.

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?

And while I'm at it, I love that you have highly visible keyboard shortcuts for everything. Very nice.

Thanks. I got something right at least!

• I really wanted to be able to drag connections from components to catalysts as well as vice versa.

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

• 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.

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

• 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.

Agree, should be able to improve this.

• 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!"

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?

• 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...

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

• 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.

Fair enough. I'll speed that up.

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

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.

• 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...

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

*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...

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

[jgrams]

I hope you've recovered! B)

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.

one of the bubbles *broke*

The workaround is to do 'reset' then when it asks if you want to set all levels to unsolved, click 'no'.

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

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?

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.

I really wanted to be able to drag connections from components to catalysts as well as vice versa.

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

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...

And...I'm a little annoyed that you have to route them by hand at all.

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?

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?

Waiting for things to stop jittering when you balance positive/negative

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.

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.

I will turn you into a fan eventually!

You're well on your way...

--Josh

[JobLeonard]

Thanks for the colourblind mode!