next »

[grayhaze]

I just cross-posted to the Playtesting forum in an effort to get a few more people playing. I'll try to keep the initial post in that thread updated with the most recent test build if anyone wants an easier way of finding it.

I also realised that I hadn't actually introduced myself properly on the forum, so I've righted that wrong.

Not much more to report at the moment, as I'm mostly optimising my spaghetti code.

[grayhaze]

It's been a long time since my last update and progress on the game has been slow. The following progress has been made since the last entry:

• Optimised the game to reduce memory overhead
• Improved the puzzle generation algorithm with more possible moves
• Implemented randomised puzzle tilemaps, allowing for a variety of puzzle shapes
• Created my own more legible font for the logo, letter, number and numeral symbols
• Added a debug option to toggle the game board zooming
• Tweaked the colours of the tiles to make them a little less luminous
• Swapped out the clue description font for a free Google font (this will likely be changed again at some point)

Here you can see an example of the random tilemap generation:



I believe I'm the first person to actually implement non-square puzzles of this type, so I'm quite excited by the possibilities this offers. I'll likely use this to build a sequence of hand-crafted level shapes in the final game, but still make the configuration of the symbols within each shape random to keep things interesting.

I still have a lot of optimisation to do on the game, as currently it's only running at a consistent 25fps on mobile devices. I  hope to get it up nearer 60fps as I approach release. A lot of the slowdown has to do with the slightly stupid way I'm building and drawing the tiles, so this is something I'll be working on shortly.

Here's a Windows download of the current debug version for everyone to have a play with: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nyix5bhdz23lvap/Deduction%20v0.3.zip?dl=0 This demo has now expired. I'll upload a new one once development resumes.

And yes, I know people still want an undo function. I still haven't forgotten.  

[grayhaze]

I'm taking another short break from gamedev for a while to brush up on my day job skills, but I haven't dropped the project. In fact, I've been working hard on rebuilding the whole engine with better performance and more polished visuals. Nothing to show yet, but I'll update again in a few weeks once I'm back to working on this at full tilt.

[a-k-]

The game doesn't seem to work on my computer, the window opens for a few seconds and then closes automatically.

[grayhaze]

The game doesn't seem to work on my computer, the window opens for a few seconds and then closes automatically.

This is because the demo versions I put out have an expiry date on them. I'll upload a new demo once development resumes.

[grayhaze]

Just a quick note to say that although I have been working on Deduction in silence for a couple of months, mostly redoing the puzzle generation code to produce much more interesting puzzles, I've decided to take a small break to work on a new puzzle arcade game called Viper Piper.

I was quickly becoming burnt out working on Deduction, as there were a number of big things I wasn't happy with which needed reworking. Hopefully this short break will give me the motivation to come back and work on this with renewed passion.