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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperPlaytestingFeedback needed regarding Tokyo Flower (Scirra Arcade)
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Author Topic: Feedback needed regarding Tokyo Flower (Scirra Arcade)  (Read 767 times)
Varr
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« on: March 13, 2018, 01:42:17 PM »

Heya all!

It's been almost 8 years since I have posted on these forums and I hope to get back to regular posting. I just put some finishing touches on the beta of a game I developed a while ago and uploaded it to the Scirra Arcade here:

https://www.scirra.com/arcade/puzzle-games/tokyo-flower-27649 (2.0.0.0)

Unfortunately the game will crash on iOS if I preload the audio automatically so I had to make a splash screen that gives the player and option to preload audio.

Some of the main feedback I'd like (aside from your thoughts on the game) is how it runs on your mobile devices. If you do play Tokyo Flower on mobile, can you please let me know what device you are using?

Instructions:

Click on a flower or enemy to attempt a match (the pointing hands will indicate the current match). Click again on the center of your current selection to cast a spell. Your match must contain 2 flowers to have any effect. If an enemy is part of a selection it will take damage when the spell is cast. The bigger the match, the higher the score and damage dealt becomes. You can cast 2 spells before the enemies take their turn. If an enemy attacks a health bar at the bottom of a column 3 times it will be game over!

________________________________________

Version 2.0.0.0 is available to test now here:

https://www.scirra.com/arcade/puzzle-games/tokyo-flower-27649

Changelog:

- Updated tutorial so you can now try moves over and over again without having to restart.
- Changed the special flowers into potions to make them visually distinct.
- Bamboo Snake heads no longer die in one hit but now have 5 health.
- Instead of the first wave of Flower Bulb enemies proceeding into infinite Bamboo Snakes I added a series of enemy waves to face. You will only face a maximum 5 of the Bamboo Snakes at a time before different enemies spawn instead.
- Added a new enemy: Samurai Stag Beetle. He has 3 health and moves two column spaces at a time. When any damage is taken he only moves 1 space like the other enemies.
- Updated visuals to make things easier to see. The main stage background is now dark and the 'Your Go' and 'Enemy Go' messages are more prominent.

« Last Edit: March 28, 2018, 01:56:38 PM by Varr » Logged

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Le Slo
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« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2018, 08:34:17 AM »

Hi, I've played quite a few times (I'm the guest in the second place after you achieved that amazing score!) and I have some commentaries (I have played in a computer so I guess I won't be satisfying the purpose of your post):

-The first time I played, I didn't read the tutorial, I was really lost, colors were confusing, it was difficult to spot that there were enemies in the grid, I wasn't sure about when I could or couldn't make a move. Of course, this is my fault, but you could use some design changes to make your game clearer, after reading the tutorial I managed to play kind of normally but the game was still a bit confusing. In general, special flowers and enemies should be a bit more attractive to the eye. Maybe also the background is a bit distracting, I'm not sure.
-It would be nice if I could restart the "levels" on the tutorial, I didn't always choose to do what the tutorial was talking about and I had to finish the tutorial and reopen again to experiment more.
-The game is unforgiving, seems a bit unfairly difficult. I've tried different approaches but after 20000 points you already have the screen invaded with snake bodies (now I try killing snake heads when they are almost at the bottom to have time to "clean" the screen). Maybe giving one extra turn sometimes, or giving some space to spawn a new snake head could make the player feel like he isn't constantly losing.
-There are design choices that I don't really understand. There is the mechanic of dealing more damage when more flowers are in the selection. Ok, that's a cool approach for the first five enemies, BUT after those, only snakes appear, and they die with only a selection of two flowers, the minimum to make a match! So maybe alternate pineapples and snakes or remove the mechanic as it is almost always better to clear the minimum possible amount of flowers in order to prevent enemies's descent.
-I've lost a couple or turns during these games (matches? I don't know how to say it in english) because I accidentally double clicked a position where there was no match to make. That destroys the whole game (match?). At least a restart or finish game.

In general I think the game is quite original and fun, even feeling the mechanics are a bit too harsh there is room to improve and find new strategies, and I enjoyed trying to reach the first position on the highscores. Congratulations.
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Varr
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« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2018, 12:22:58 PM »

Hi, I've played quite a few times (I'm the guest in the second place after you achieved that amazing score!) and I have some commentaries (I have played in a computer so I guess I won't be satisfying the purpose of your post):

-The first time I played, I didn't read the tutorial, I was really lost, colors were confusing, it was difficult to spot that there were enemies in the grid, I wasn't sure about when I could or couldn't make a move. Of course, this is my fault, but you could use some design changes to make your game clearer, after reading the tutorial I managed to play kind of normally but the game was still a bit confusing. In general, special flowers and enemies should be a bit more attractive to the eye. Maybe also the background is a bit distracting, I'm not sure.
-It would be nice if I could restart the "levels" on the tutorial, I didn't always choose to do what the tutorial was talking about and I had to finish the tutorial and reopen again to experiment more.
-The game is unforgiving, seems a bit unfairly difficult. I've tried different approaches but after 20000 points you already have the screen invaded with snake bodies (now I try killing snake heads when they are almost at the bottom to have time to "clean" the screen). Maybe giving one extra turn sometimes, or giving some space to spawn a new snake head could make the player feel like he isn't constantly losing.
-There are design choices that I don't really understand. There is the mechanic of dealing more damage when more flowers are in the selection. Ok, that's a cool approach for the first five enemies, BUT after those, only snakes appear, and they die with only a selection of two flowers, the minimum to make a match! So maybe alternate pineapples and snakes or remove the mechanic as it is almost always better to clear the minimum possible amount of flowers in order to prevent enemies's descent.
-I've lost a couple or turns during these games (matches? I don't know how to say it in english) because I accidentally double clicked a position where there was no match to make. That destroys the whole game (match?). At least a restart or finish game.

In general I think the game is quite original and fun, even feeling the mechanics are a bit too harsh there is room to improve and find new strategies, and I enjoyed trying to reach the first position on the highscores. Congratulations.

This is all awesome feedback!

1. This will be changed in the future as pointing this out helped me see that without a lot of experience playing the game it is tough to tell what to do or what moves you can not can't make.

Any idea on how to make enemies more readable? Faster, flashier animations or a different color palette? For the special flowers I was and am now (even more) considering making them not flower-looking. Perhaps the fire-flower is a bag of fertilizer. Or all the special flowers are all the same looking object (like a crate for example) but have symbols on them displaying what they do.

A non-animated background of dark colors will probably help.

2. This is something I will add to the game for sure, thanks for bringing it up.

3. Perhaps the game is too harsh in this regard, but I like the fact that you are constantly losing slowly over time. In a random tile spawning and purely score based game I wanted an inevitable loss/end. This may change though to a goal that you work toward that includes victory.

4. This is a carry over from a time when the game had progressively harder waves of enemies spawn with more health. I may do something like the snake heads have more health and the snake body segments die in one hit. The game will have to be very much adjusted for that if it happens.

5. I had a version that made it so you couldn't place spell books in a location where a match could not be made. A problem came with this that came up if the screen was so full of snake bodies that you couldn't make a match. Without using a spell, the enemies will not take their turn. I am not a great programmer so I haven't found a good workaround for this. I will continue to try to fix this though.

Thank you for taking the time to give your feedback! I am glad you enjoyed the game so far despite its flaws.
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Varr
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« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2018, 01:53:29 PM »

Version 2.0.0.0 is available to test now here:

https://www.scirra.com/arcade/puzzle-games/tokyo-flower-27649

Changelog:

- Updated tutorial so you can now try moves over and over again without having to restart.
- Changed the special flowers into potions to make them visually distinct.
- Bamboo Snake heads no longer die in one hit but now have 5 health.
- Instead of the first wave of Flower Bulb enemies proceeding into infinite Bamboo Snakes I added a series of enemy waves to face. You will only face a maximum 5 of the Bamboo Snakes at a time before different enemies spawn instead.
- Added a new enemy: Samurai Stag Beetle. He has 3 health and moves two column spaces at a time. When any damage is taken he only moves 1 space like the other enemies.
- Updated visuals to make things easier to see. The main stage background is now dark and the 'Your Go' and 'Enemy Go' messages are more prominent.

New enemy:


An example of how the updated tutorial works:


Let me know what you think!
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Le Slo
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« Reply #4 on: March 30, 2018, 04:09:46 AM »

Wow! Great work, now the game it's much clearer. I really like the new enemies sprite, maybe the pineapples (the first enemies) looks too friendly in comparison.

The appearance of the new enemy is also a very good call, now the game looks less punishing, even being a bit more difficult (I'm having troubles to reach my highscore). The problem to me was the abundance of snake bodies, leaving you very soon with very little possible moves, and normally not interesting ones.

I'm not very much into music, the main menu one is very cool, and the start of the in-game theme is also great, but at some point it looks like there are two different songs playing at the same time? I usually turn down the volume in order to play more relaxed.

The tutorial is now great, leaving the opportunity to explore freely in a save space. I still miss some restart game or end game button when I'm playing, in case you can see that you are already screwed in an early stage of the game.

Congratulations!
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« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2018, 06:55:29 AM »

Hi.
I like music and warm pixel graphics. It makes me feel nostalgic.
The gameplay runs smoothly, i can say i enjoyed it very much.

Small notes:
- Maybe a quick info on enemies by clicking on them? That will make the rules more clear. (For example, i haven't noticed a samurai was moving by 2 cells unless i have read your post)

- Write a few words about the condition of losing the game.

- Maybe highlight the enemies by slightly different background color? It's really hard to distinguish them(especially some potato/onion guy) from the flowers for the first-time player.

- The value of red potion is great, but the rest two(blue and green) are less useful(imo). May be enhance them a little?
   
- A few times i wanted to see how much hp the enemy unit had.
   
- maybe add some extra spell that can save player in critical moment(but wastes all his coins, for example)? It may compensate negative cases of random mechanics(even if player is experienced, the game might just throw at him useless combinations of flowers for a while)
   
- maybe give additional turn to a player if he hits a great combo(as a reward)?

Great work!
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Varr
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« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2018, 09:18:21 AM »

Wow! Great work, now the game it's much clearer. I really like the new enemies sprite, maybe the pineapples (the first enemies) looks too friendly in comparison.

The appearance of the new enemy is also a very good call, now the game looks less punishing, even being a bit more difficult (I'm having troubles to reach my highscore). The problem to me was the abundance of snake bodies, leaving you very soon with very little possible moves, and normally not interesting ones.

I'm not very much into music, the main menu one is very cool, and the start of the in-game theme is also great, but at some point it looks like there are two different songs playing at the same time? I usually turn down the volume in order to play more relaxed.

The tutorial is now great, leaving the opportunity to explore freely in a save space. I still miss some restart game or end game button when I'm playing, in case you can see that you are already screwed in an early stage of the game.

Congratulations!

I'm glad my changes are in the right direction, I can thank your initial feedback for that!

Did you notice the potential double playing of in-game music with the older version you tested? I will most likely be hunting for a musician to hire for 1 track. I really would like some more upbeat, perhaps Kirby-ish style music.


Hi.
I like music and warm pixel graphics. It makes me feel nostalgic.
The gameplay runs smoothly, i can say i enjoyed it very much.

Small notes:
- Maybe a quick info on enemies by clicking on them? That will make the rules more clear. (For example, i haven't noticed a samurai was moving by 2 cells unless i have read your post)

- Write a few words about the condition of losing the game.

- Maybe highlight the enemies by slightly different background color? It's really hard to distinguish them(especially some potato/onion guy) from the flowers for the first-time player.

- The value of red potion is great, but the rest two(blue and green) are less useful(imo). May be enhance them a little?
   
- A few times i wanted to see how much hp the enemy unit had.
   
- maybe add some extra spell that can save player in critical moment(but wastes all his coins, for example)? It may compensate negative cases of random mechanics(even if player is experienced, the game might just throw at him useless combinations of flowers for a while)
   
- maybe give additional turn to a player if he hits a great combo(as a reward)?

Great work!

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Very happy to hear that it evokes some nostalgia!

1. I could do something like this: If the cross-hair is overlapping an enemy it shows a transparent projection of how many spaces they will move down on their turn. I could also implement a health bar that only appears when the cross-hair is overlapping an enemy. This will be hard to make sure it does not interfere too much with visibility but would prove useful.

2. I will make sure to include this in the future tutorial.

3. I'm still thinking about how to do this. I will continue testing to see what looks best.

4. The potions may be changed up. I still find the blue-ice ones great because locking an enemy for 2 turns is potentially better than just outright killing them. The poison potion is only really great at poisoning snakes at this point. With an introduction of a visible enemy health bar the poison potion would become better.

There is potential for some neat extra powerful spells, which I can now explore with the game being more balanced than before. Thank you for testing and all of the improvement suggestions! I really appreciate all the feedback I can get.
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Varr
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« Reply #7 on: April 01, 2018, 05:51:17 PM »

Here is an example of how a new indicator showing what distance enemies will move on their turn looks like:



This demonstrates showing the beetle move 2 spaces before being damaged and one space after.

let me know if this looks too confusing. You have to click directly on an enemy to show the indicator.
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