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[Shabadage]

Alright, well after spending FAR too long making this game, it's finally done.  CBBR is an original puzzle game, the follow up to the craptacular Combo Block Bomber (Which I spent like 8 hours or so making).  As opposed to the obtuse gameplay of the first, CBBR is more streamlined, a simple Time Attack styled game.

As you can probably guess, the goal of the game is to bomb colored blocks.  You can place up to 4 bombs on the field at a time, but only the first one explodes by itself.  The remaining 3 "Linker" bombs must be set off by the colored flames, otherwise they fizzle, only taking out the single block they are on.

That horrible gameplay description is probably the weakest part of the game, as it's not completely obvious how to play the game the first time through.  It'll undoubtable take a few rounds to "get" how to play the game.  Think bomb combos in Bomberman, and you'll probably get it a bit quicker.

The graphics will definately not blow you away or anything (pun not intended), but I hope the game is at least solid; if a bit too frantic to be considered a "casual" game.  Comments and Crits are welcomed, as they will undoubtably help me as I have just started the 3rd iteration of the game.



F1 accesses the text manual, which has a slightly better gameplay description.  I also apologize if the ectoprods server is acting up; it's quite shite.

http://www.ectoprods.com/Shab/Games/CBBRush/cbbrush.exe

[handCraftedRadio]

The link didn't work for me at first, but I was able to download it by right clicking the link and saving it. And then it crashes at launch.

[Shabadage]

Hmm, that's extremely odd..., let me try linking you to the installer version.  Also, I've added Tigs to the "allow" on my hotlink protection, I apologize for the initial oversight.  We had a bunch of Czech sites munch our bandwidth in the past.

http://www.ectoprods.com/Shab/Games/CBBRush/RushInstall.exe

I'm not sure how much help I'm going to be able to give you with the crashing problem though, as the game was made in MMF2; and you're the first person I've heard of having the problem.  If anyone else has this issue, please please let me know!

[handCraftedRadio]

Alright this version works fine. Something must have went wrong with the downloading of the other one. I'll get back to you in a little bit once I play it a little bit more.

[Shabadage]

Thank you very much!  It's appreciated!

[handCraftedRadio]

This game is pretty fun and I like the feel of it, but I'm not quite sure of all the rules concerning the combos and points. I assume exploding the same colors will give you more points, but it kind of took me a while to figure that out. Its hard to read all the information on the screen whenever you are in the middle of the game because it is so fast paced. Maybe having an indicator appear in the playing area after a successful combo has taken place instead of having it way off to the side where the player has to avert his eyes from the game and possibly costing him some time. The instructions also need to be more clear on how everything works. After reading it, all I knew was I was supposed to click on the blocks to make them blow up.

I also think that the opening screen hung way too long after clicking start, you should speed it up if possible. It would also be cool if the highscore board could be displayed in game because its a pain to find the website and then look all over the place for the score board. There should at least be a link to the highscore page either in the game or the readme. Right now, I think its hidden in a paragraph somewhere in the instructions and it wasn't too easy for me to find.

I hope this helps you out a little bit. Let us know when there's any updates.

[Guert]

Alright, I played the game and here are my impressions:

The game looks interesting and has a very simple concept, which is good. Problem is, I'm not sure exactly how to play. It took me a couple of moves to figure out how the bomb and secondary bombs worked together. Even after figuring it out, I'm not sure how to make combos. It looks fun but the fact that I dont know exactly what I'm doing turn me off.

Now, technicaly speaking, the fact that I can't move the game window around irritates me. Also, you need to put the title of the game in a clearer fashion so we know in what screen we are.  You could also add a hint box in the last section (wher ethe go button is) telling us what we are changing. Right now, you are offering us choices but we don't know the impact that they'll have on the game yet. If you add this, you cna move the go button in the bottom right corner of the window.

If the icons locate don the right of the screen, along with the numbers, are of no use to us in the menu, get rid of them. Perhaps, you could make a complete new screen that is not using the basic game screen...

Pressing the Go button should create a reaction right away. If not, the player will click it twice or more times.

At the end of a game, you should add a TIME UP message in the same fahsion as your 3 2 1 go animation to tell us the game is over. Right now it's not clear enough.

You gotta add a Return to menu button in the reuslt screen. Also, add a cursor or an highlight to show which score is being calculated. Right now, when a score is zero, only a sound is played and we don't know why until the last score is shown. Adding a cursor/highlight will make everything work fine.

Always add a confirmation upon exiting.

An highscore screen with my personal score would be fun! Where do we see the submitted score? You gotta add a link or show us the global scoring...

Well, you got an interesting game going on. Good work, keep workin on it!
Later!
Guert

[Shabadage]

The main problem you guys are having is you're making it too overcomplicated on yourselves.  Combos are simply setting off more than one bomb (Up to the max of 4).  Colors have nothing to do with it either, though that's a very good idea that I will put in the desdoc for the new version I'm working on now.

You could also add a hint box in the last section (wher ethe go button is) telling us what we are changing. Right now, you are offering us choices but we don't know the impact that they'll have on the game yet. If you add this, you cna move the go button in the bottom right corner of the window.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by this.  Do you mean the Time, Music, and Tileset?  I thought that was obvious (Changing Music, Tile Graphics, and Total Time), but I get the feeling that's not what you were referring to.

The delay between pressing GO and the game starting is a consequence of using MIDI in MMF2/TGF (The game was initally made in TGF, but ported over to MMF2 at the last minute).  I am unable to preload the music, so it loads the music when you hit go, creating that small pause.  I plan on switching to MODs in the next version, which can be streamed, so there will be no pause.

A local highscore is also on the list of things for the new version, as well as a downloadable world score.

I'd like to thank both of you for taking the time to play the game and share your thoughts and critiques; they have already proven to be extremely valuable to me in regards to the next version.  However, I do feel that I must reiterate that this version is essentially going to remain unchanged, as my main goal with this one was to gather comments for the next one.  Thanks again guys!

http://www.ectoprods.com/index.php?page=view_arcade&gid=9 - The online highscoreboard.

[teknogames]

I'm not a fan of puzzle games, but that was fun.

[Shabadage]

Ironically enough, neither am I XD.