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[ermrk]

Download

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19747618/Zeroes/Zeroes.apk

Hi, I am Petr Marek. I am developer from Czech republic and I create logic game Zeroes for Android.

Game's goal is to place mathematical operator like plus, minus or multiplication on dots with numbers and make on every dot zero.

It is not my first game, but my first mobile game. I did not ask for feedback when I was developing my previous games and than I received pretty bad criticism. I would like to change it this time, and listen to you guys (to good ideas ). I would appreciate your help.

I have some questions.

• What do you thing about name "Zeroes"? I am asking, because one of that criticism was "Change name, it is awful and also not grammatically correct!" My opinion is, that it expresses goal of game. But there may be better one.
  
• What do you thing about graphic, especially about colours and their combinations? Are they fine or not? I am mostly programmer, so I tried to make graphic as simple as possible.
  
• What do you thing about tutorial? Did you catch goal of game from it? I am not fully satisfied with it, because it may overwhelm player with informations, and he can miss his goal. I am also not sure how to express, that goal is to make zeroes everywhere without words. Do you have any advice?
  
  
  
  Current tutorial
• What about difficulty? Is it rising correctly? Were you frustrated?
  

There are some things, that are not finished yet.

• I have to create some indicator for already completed levels, now it has same colour as background and which is not good.
• Create sounds and music. I am not sure, if music is good idea, but some quiet ambient can be good. I will have to try.
• Somehow highlight operators, with which can player move, because previously added operators are blocked by newly added ones. 10+(2*3) is not the same as (10+2)*3, and if player will remove *3 and return it back like this 10+(2*3)->(10+2)*3, it will screw up calculations. I know it is really pour description, so I just have to highlight operators on top.
• Add some kind of help, which will place one operator on right place. But it is maybe not necessary.
• Improve some levels.

Game will be probably free. I consider adds, but I don't know, if it pays off. Does anyone have any experiences with it?

I would appreciate answers to my questions, but also any another kind of feedback. I hope you understand my English. My English teacher wanted to kill me sometimes .

[ermrk]

I have made several icons. Which looks best?

[valrus]

I like it; I don't have a device to test it, but here's some thoughts based on the presentation here.

Graphics-wise, you're off to a decent start.  I'd suggest larger circles, rather than shrinking the font size when the numbers don't fit.  They end up a bit off-center.  And maybe have a secondary indication that a circle is zeroed out, like having it light up a bit more, or inverting it, making it a black circle with a white zero.  (That helps as a tutorial; it's natural to think "Oh, I've gotta light all of these up."

For colors, you might want to think about choosing more similar shades but with different intensities, rather than four different shades of about the same intensity.  If you look at the game in monochrome, you can see that your four colors are around the same saturation.  It's a bit more tiring for the eyes and brain to process.



I'm not great with color either so I don't know what colors might work for you, but if you go with different colors here's an easy trick for getting a palette that works together: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=25396.msg839374#msg839374

It might be worth considering having a bit of texture in the background, just something subtle.  (Like you don't notice the texture in the background on this site, but it still gives it a bit of a tactile feel.)

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For the tutorial, I don't think I understand what it's trying to say, like why the -1 changes to +1 but doesn't change the 1 or 2 at all.  I think it's enough if you just show them the right way, the wrong way just confuses things.

Or no tutorial at all, just (1)  (2)  (1) and then (  -1   )  (   -1   ) as the first level.  So that the only obvious thing to do (drag loops onto circles) is also the right thing to do.  And then maybe for the second level give an easy choice, like (-3)   (-2)    (1) and then (   +3   ) (   -1   ).  So there's one right answer and one wrong answer, so you either get the right answer, or if you don't there's only one other thing you can try.

Anyway, good luck!

[wizered67]

Hey, just wanted to let you know that my friend and I have been playing this whenever we have a few free minutes during class. The game is actually quite fun! We've really had to put together our problem solving skills to try to complete it. Only a small handful of levels left to go! I've found that a lot of times levels have a clear starting point to build off of, for example places where it's obvious what should go there. I like this because while still challenging I didn't feel like I was completely doing guess and check. The thing is that there are a few levels where it feels like you're just so overwhelmed that you don't know where to begin. These are definitely more challenging but I'd say not as fun as the others. Thanks for the great game and looking forward to more levels eventually!

[Quicksand-S]

I don't have an Android device, but I thought I'd comment to say that this seems like a really good idea for a puzzle game.

Since I'm here, I may as well comment some more.

I think the colors look mostly decent. I don't love all of them, but the yellow on green looks good to me. I hate the look of dark grey tiles on those colors (on the level select screen). Also, yellow buttons with white text aren't quite as legible as the other buttons.

One way to show players that they have to make everything zero would be to have a "# out of (Total)" counter. Maybe start the first level or two with zeroes already on the screen so players can make that connection between the zeroes and the count.

Another option would be to change the colors of the circles (or the text) for any zeroes on the screen, so that it's obvious that they're important.

[ermrk]

Thank you guys for feedback. It helps me a lot and encourages me to continue development. Highlighting of dots with zeroes is brilliant idea!