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[LuisAnton]

Three seconds until the shell blows your hull. Six enemies on the Grid, some protected by shields, one charged with energy and about to go off.
Two seconds. An item that increases the score multiplier appears. If the Pulse reaches the charged enemy the chain reaction will clear the grid, but you won’t survive this time. Quick, think!
One second. You set your path, a bit convoluted, but it will do, and your ship leaps forward, just a few milliseconds away from death. It slides through the Grid, through your enemies, through the powerup. Your score increases and you break your record.
More entities appear, one shoots a homing missile. Three seconds until it blows your hull…

Slider is an abstract game we've been working on for some time. It begun as a final degree project and ended up being a full fledged game. The goal is simple: keep the Grid clear by drawing paths that slide your ship through enemies, destroying them and scoring higher the more enemies you destroy on a single move. Score, survive, break your record. While it's easy on early stages, it quickly becomes challenging to stay alive and increase your score. Sessions last no more than 10 minutes, if you are an expert player.

It's already available for iOS and Android, and we are quite happy with the game as is. However, at some point during development we stuck to the current version of the game in order to release it and get some feedback. We left behind are a few ideas we wanted to try!

Now that the main game is playable and released, we want to add a new game mode - we would call it Advanced or something similar. While in the original mode the Grid grows and new enemies appear as you level up, this new mode would feature the largest possible board and all enemies and modifiers, both old and new, from the beginning.

Some ideas we want to try:

- Solid obstacles (Grid). Probably holes in the Grid.
- Movement modifiers (Grid). Cells that make the player move faster, slower or faster/slower depending on movement orientation
- Teleporters (Grid). Cells a la Portal that move the player instantly between two locations
- Horizontal/Vertical/Cross Laser (Enemy). A laser that covers the whole row or column (or both), destroying both enemies and players' hull.
- Virus (Enemy). It replicates and fills the board. A virus can only be destroyed if no more than one virus is adyacent.
- Keyboard/gamepad controls. Who knows, it may be fun.
- Strategy mode: time stops while drawing the path, but there are more enemies on screen.

And that's what we want to share in this devlog! We'll add new content to an already playable and balanced game. Hopefully without tearing it apart. We are still not sure if this is wise, but we want to try.

Your feedback is priceless, so we've prepared a Unity3D webplayer version for you to try (sorry, Linux) (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2292915/online/Slider/Slider.html ). We'll update it with newer versions as soon as they are playable.

But the game is way more enjoyable on a touch screen. Watch the full trailer and get it for (free, although there's a paid version too) iOS/Android here: http://playmedusa.com/slider

Rolling up sleeves!

[Christian]

Awesome, great to hear. Been playing Slider for a few weeks
I'd asked on Twitter about a hard mode, new enemies/ power-ups, etc. so it's good to see this devlog

[Photon]

Neato. I can be a sucker for this kind of minimalistic sci-fi scenery. May give it a try this weekend. Keep it up!

[LuisAnton]

@Photo: thanks! :D

@Christian, did you find it too easy? The current version was tested among friends, mainly. Most of them enjoy it a lot, they like Slider. We wouldn't believe them, but they have been fighting for the top-10 for weeks!  (indeed, I'm one of the two programmers and game designers and I don't get more than 60.000 points!)

But then early this week we got a quite confusing review in 148Apps http://www.148apps.com/reviews/slider-review/ "Slider has all the excitement of unlocking your phone screen" sums it up. Dull and unchallenging, they say. What?

Well, the goal of the game is breaking your record. Otherwise it's certainly a dull game - no story, no context, no nothing but mechanics-based gameplay. If you don't care for improving your score, it may make no sense at all, for sure. But we still find it fun!

We would love getting more feedback about this, so we can increase difficulty in this new version if required.

[Photon]

I have found that these days, unless you are the rare "Flappy Bird"-type, score serves as a very poor motivational factor. I suppose hardcore arcade-style games just aren't the popular thing anymore, or just significantly harder to pull off (since they no longer cost a quarter these days  .) Maybe you could add a few more goals, like achievements, or perhaps some kind of puzzle mode. I haven't played the game yet so I can't speak from experience, but an iOS game that comes to mind that does this well is "Take It Easy."

[LuisAnton]

@Photon: I sincerely hope that's not the case! Many games are a matter of breaking your record, requiring mastering a certain skill and granting you extended gameplay. Super Hexagon, Cannabalt, Tiny Wings, Galaxy Wars... I tend to create games I like myself - and I don't like achievements, never cared about them!, but I enjoy these games.

We'll think about adding a puzzle mode. It could be related to cleaning a certain grid-enemy configuration before the Pulse traverses the screen. Puzzles could be created proceduraly, maybe...

So, homework for this week (to be done before weekend: Ludum Dare ahead!):

- Prepare the new game mode, with the large grid configuration and all enemies right from the beginning.
- Try the horizontal laser enemy.

That's enough, there's plenty of work too and a toddler in the family X)

[LuisAnton]

Update!

New game mode: Advanced

Still unsure about this. Advanced mode begins with a 9x5 grid that won't grow, instead of the basic 5x3 grid that grows up to 9x5. That's good, there's plenty of room for movement and placing new things in there. And it clearly stands away from the clasic mode.

Now... Enemies are thougher the higher the level. If the game starts on level 30 we get this in about two minutes:

We'll have to balance it, or this mode will be simply too difficult to play. We may reduce the rate at which enemies appear, or simply start from a lower level.

New enemy: Horizontal Ultra Beam

I managed to hack this new enemy from an existing one. Horizontal Ultra Beam fires a huge horizontal laser that destroys everything but powerups (and Cells) in its way. It's dangerous because it covers the whole Grid, side to side. But it also helps you by reducing the number of enemies. In the animation the player is hit (we should add some particles there, or shake the ship a bit, not just the camera) and a turret and its bullet are destroyed when the HUB fires. The powerup in the lower-right corner simply disappears because its timer reached zero:

So far I like this new enemy. We will redesign it - it looks like the Area of Effect enemy, rotated 45º, but its behaviour suits the game, somehow.

I won't touch Slider this weeken due to LD. Next week I'll try the Vertical Ultra Beam and the Cross Ultra Beam. This last one may feel like playing Bomberman! I may throw some solid obstacles too, or holes in the grid.

[LuisAnton]

Update!

New Enemy: Vertical Ultra Beam

The Vertical Ultra Beam is just a variation of the Horizontal one. It does not affect gameplay so much because the board is wider than taller, but it's behaviour is similar. They still look exactly the same, so telling them apart is difficult (time for some graphic redesign!)

Their blue beam is slow enough to warn the player, so she can 'change lanes', so to speak. And both help keeping the Grid clear.

New board feature: holes

Holes are a bit experimental right now. Whenever the player completes a path, holes appear and disappear, randomly (10% of cell may become holes). That was not the original plan, but it's quite fun! New holes may force you to alter the route you expected to draw, requiring you to reconsider your strategy in a blink.

All in all, not much, but gameplay is already quite different from the classic mode. Let's see what's next...

[LuisAnton]

Well, we did it. This was an itch we had to scratch. It's been almost half a year but we finally updated Slider! We just had to close this thread properly   

This update finally includes:
- Two new enemies, shown in previous posts. Horizontal and Vertical Ultra Beam. Avoiding them in the last second is quite rewarding!
- An Advanced Mode, unlocked at 25.000 points, that can be toggled on to start playing in the hardest mode. Some seasoned players asked for that in order to skip early levels. Indeed, I'm playing again thanks to this mode!

And some minor visual tweaks. We didn't include holes, though. But we are still considering a future Puzzle Mode that would use them to create assorted grid shapes.

I hope you enjoy it! Here are the free versions for iOS(https://itunes.apple.com/app/slider/id930139202?mt=8) and Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.playmedusa.slider devices.

Now we'll move on the next game :D