Atomize Released

[Buried Alive]

Buried Alive Interactive (http://www.buriedaliveinteractive.com) is pleased to announce the release of our first title, Atomize!

Atomize is a casual action/puzzler with tons of content and play modes as well as an online community/multi-player component that aims to support games with up to 100 simultaneous players.

Screenshots:

Screenshot 1 (http://www.buriedaliveinteractive.com/img/scrnsht_atomize1.jpg)
Screenshot 2 (http://www.buriedaliveinteractive.com/img/scrnsht_atomize2.jpg)
Screenshot 3 (http://www.buriedaliveinteractive.com/img/scrnsht_atomize3.jpg)
Screenshot 4 (http://www.buriedaliveinteractive.com/img/scrnsht_atomize21.jpg)
Screenshot 5 (http://www.buriedaliveinteractive.com/img/scrnsht_atomize24.jpg)


Demo:
http://www.buriedaliveinteractive.com/atomize/download


We're looking to get some feedback on overall game difficulty and how it runs on different hardware. We've also got a multi-player component that we'd love to see more than just us on to see how the server performs. :)

Thanks!

P.S. you can short-cut around the unlockable content by using the name "Ima Cheeta" when creating a player.

[svero]

Pros
- company logo with the birds and scream. That alone was worth the download.
- nifty swirling title screen backdrop and other cute effects. General level of polish and presentation

- fairly new/unique concept. You know.. thank god you're not swapping things. Thank god! (Similar mechanic found in old arcade game Quantum by Atari, [which was actually quite obscure and the result of a missle command related lawsuit], but to the best of my knowledge never used for a matching game like this. There are some other mouse drawy games like overflow and another more recent one who's name escapes me where you draw lines to deflect balls. I actually really wanted to make a game where you draw loops as well but my design was less casual and more arcadey. The loops were used to catch ghosts in my game. Now if I ever do make it I'll have to suffer all the.. oh hey this is like that atomize game comments. So err.. thanks for that. :-))

Cons
- not all that intuitive. Took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on. I think partly this is because the thing your matching is several different things together. Its easy to understand match planet with planet, but less clear to match planet and sun with planet and sun. And people dont read instructions so that's not a good thing. I expect a lot of people will simply get lost. You've gotta find a way to make it dead obvious I think.

- not exciting.. the game seems to lack any sort of pressure element or excitement to it. Im not sure where the challenge is, but if anything its just a little frustrating to draw loops around stuff thats already sitting there. It's like trying to make a nice picture in mspaint with the mouse. In some respects it suffers from the same kinds of problems as overflow did. You want to draw something.. you know what it shoudl look like.. but the mouse hinders you a tad. Well that might be ok on it's own. Maybe we want something thats kind of more zoney and medetative here. .not sure if thats what you were aiming at or now, but even for those sorts of games.. like say bejeweled 2, its nice to have stuff happening. Bejeweled has random combos and explosions and things that sort of keep you on your toes. I dont see that theres all that much going on here to reward or pressure players as they progress.

[svero]

I just tried it again and I noticed the temperature bar and some extra difficulty stuff. So maybe there is some pressure there, but I just didnt get far enough in to really feel it. Still in some games like bust a move or zuma you feel it right away.

[Buried Alive]

Thanks a lot for the comments. :)

The drawback to having a somewhat new idea is it has been really hard to describe the game, to write an elevator pitch, so to speak. Even worse is the hurdle of getting people into the gameplay.

Before a recent pre-release, we were forcing the user to go through the first five stages where gameplay ramps up. We designed these first five stages (and bludgeon the player with four different methods of tutorial text) in an attempt to ease them into the gameplay because it isn't obivous, and we had done a number of usability tests and people weren't "getting it" right away. The tutorial stages helped this somewhat, but it is still sub-optimal.

Then when we did a pre-release test, more serious (and/or impatient) gamers made very similar comments to your inital ones about not too exciting, we made the first bunch optional and tried to associate them with a 'tutorial' concept.

So far we haven't quite seemed to fully solve either problem, but we'll put more effort into it and try a few more things. Again I appreciate the feedback greatly! Glad you enjoyed the company splash screen, it always seems to get a chuckle. :)

[Buried Alive]

I always seem to have another thought just seconds after pressing 'Submit'... :)

If we put the temperature bar on-screen (but dimmed/faded) for the initial few levels, would that have given you a better impression that something would be coming up to apply pressure?

[svero]

I dont think that would have helped. What might be better is if the temperature bar had some negative effects on the playfield. Maybe as the temperature rises you can add little fires to the playscreen which get in the way of making matches. As you get close to dying there's a lot of flame. Somethign like that.

Another small nitpicky note... the backgrounds sometimes get in the way. You dont always have good contrast. I notice when i make matches part of the backgrround gets eaten away. Maybe eating a way x% of the background would be more fun as a level goal than make 4 matches or whatever.

To make the game more exciting it woudl be nice to introduce combos of some kind. Not sure how to do it exactly. I have a few ideas I guess, but its long to describe and word on the street here is that I have a few of my own games Im supposed to be working on.

[electronicStar]

Nice realization, but the game is lacking something, I don't know what exactly, maybe a general theme...
The gameplay is interesting but it becomes a bit tedious after a while. The fun factor is a bit low.
Overall quality is good.

[stanchat]

When I exited the game I got a wierd screen (http://tccons.com/atomizer_err1.png). It appears to be showing the source for some XML screen or CSS.

[Indiepath]

When I exited the game I got a wierd screen (http://tccons.com/atomizer_err1.png). It appears to be showing the source for some XML screen or CSS.
Me too, oddly enough I get this on some of our games that use software passport pro for the wrapper.

[EJSainz]

First of all, I agree with most of the stuff written above. The game is unique, but it just lacks something.

Well, maybe I've got the answer: I think the game lacks of risks, and therefore, thrill. There's nothing you must do that involves a risk of any kind. The only risky thing is doing nothing ... which is quite unusual to be seen on a player that has bought a game.

I think the gameplay would improve with some risky elements like:
-Bouncing enemies that cut your laser, making it difficult to create higher combos. You could make them move very slow, thus making possible to include them into a matching "lazo" to get extra points ... or just to get points!
-Appearing/disappearing objects: if you take too much time to decide which one to match, some element could disappear.
-Degrading combinations: right now you have to match a fixed 2-3-4-5 combination of elements. You could present always a 5 elements combination that degrades as time elapses into a 4 elements combination ... 3 elements ... 2 elements - each of them recovering much less temperature. After the 2 elements combination it could simply erase the combination and show another 5 elements combination.

Well, too many weird ideas for today. Appart from the risk thing, I think that the game just lacks a serious possibility of losing from the first moment (tutorials appart). I hope it helps.

[Buried Alive]

Thanks a LOT for all the great information guys, some fantastic feedback.

In regard to the risk-factor or lack of excitement, I personally agree, at least until around the 15th stage (or Nightmare mode/Online play in aggressive mode) where things start to get a bit more challenging, the obstacles start chasing the cursor, etc. (BTW EJSainz, in later levels there are objects that bounce around very similar to how you describe. They only hurt the cursor itself though, not the cursor trail. We had that for awhile but it was very difficult to balance fun with difficulty.)

We had chosen our audience very early on in development to be a more sedate casual gamer. To this end, we did two very specific things; one, we repeatedly kept things out that would have made it more fast-paced and tuned difficulty down because user testing showed it was too hard for casual players. Two, we focused on a wide variety of visual themes hoping for the strong draw of accessing the next stage just to see the theme and eye candy.

Consider games like Chuzzle, Jewel Thief, or Magic Match which have virtually no thrill/risk present aside from usually a timer element. We're trying to stretch out just a tad further than these but not stray too far. Granted, our problem could very well be missing BOTH audiences, making it too action-y for the real casual crowd and boring for the more intense players. :)

For those who thought the risk was minimal, how far did you get? Another problem with the 60 minute trial is just about when it gets interesting (to me as a non-casual gamer at least) is just when the trial cuts off, and that assuming I play the main game for all 60 minutes.

I'd like to dole out a few extended trial certs if anyone is willing to play deeper into the game and give us impressions of how, if at all, their perception changes. Let me know if you're interested.

About that HTML source code window that pops up... It is some kind of bug in Software Passport. We can't replicate it on our development machines, but have seen it on laptops and heard about it from testers. So far no solution has been discovered by us or the authors of Software Passport, and it is a bit disconcerting.

Thanks again for the feedback guys!

[Nexic]

Please delete, posted on wrong thread.

[Buried Alive]

Nexic, were you looking for the TropicBall thread perhaps? :)

[Nexic]

Lol yes! Damn I feel so stupid ^.^

[kimkallstrom1]

There are some other mouse drawy games like overflow and another more recent one who's name escapes me where you draw lines to deflect balls.
Probably Incredible Ink from iWin.

[Anthony Flack]

Hey, that Incredible Ink looks quite interesting. From the description, it sounded a bit like the old Firebird game Brainstorm, but looking at it now it looks more like a novel Breakout variant. I'll have to have a look at that one.

[Christian]

I played your game, the only constructive ciritisism i can give is that you have to change the white of the milk, it hurts the eyes of people, make it a little grey with yellow maybe.
Nice game, very polished, congratz.

[svero]

Consider games like Chuzzle...

Well I havent played the other 2 you mentioned enough to comment, but I disagree with you on this comment. Chuzzle is ALL excitement and action ALL THE TIME. That's what makes it great. You can't do a single thing in that game without some exciting little thing happening. It's not a question of almost dying or being challenged or pressed really hard. it's a question of presentation and how the things you do are rewarded with sound and images.

[Buried Alive]

Chuzzle is ALL excitement and action ALL THE TIME. That's what makes it great. You can't do a single thing in that game without some exciting little thing happening.

Definitely, Chuzzle is a feast for the eyes and ears and does great things for player positive/negative feedback. My reference to Chuzzle and the others was strictly to address the comments about risk as it pertains to gameplay and why we refrained from putting in more arcade-style skill elements.

Our gameplay does take a fairly long time to ramp up to 'full steam', and it is definitely one of our biggest problems we've been trying to address. A lot of the comments, including your original con about not being exciting certainly applies to the first seven or eight levels (maybe a few more for skilled non-casual players) but later, with 3 or 4 obstacles bouncing around, particle streams shooting across and polarized objects making set circling more challenging, it gets pretty intense. Yet people who fall into our target market couldn't adjust to all the activity when dumped straight into that, hence the slower progression.

Nightmare mode and online multiplayer battles (assuming there are people online to play against, another problem we're expecting until we get wide distribution rolling) are better suited for more skilled players, as is Free Play mode after about five minutes of progression. But most of these kinds of players probably won't play far enough to experience them.

Again I'd love to give you an extended trial cert and hear more of your feedback on the later stages, drop me a PM if you'd like to take me up on it. I'm especially interested in knowing if (with the increased action on higher stages) your opinions still apply regarding excitement. :)

[Buried Alive]

I played your game, the only constructive ciritisism i can give is that you have to change the white of the milk, it hurts the eyes of people, make it a little grey with yellow maybe..

Thanks for the suggestion. I always felt blinded by it too, but couldn't bring myself to muting the color because I thought it wouldn't look milk-like. :) But since others seem to feel the same way about it as I did, I just went ahead and did pretty much exactly what you suggested and it looks quite nice, without all that retina-frying intensity.

[EJSainz]

Chuzzle is ALL excitement and action ALL THE TIME.

I'm sorry to disagree, but I found Chuzzle, at least the demo, quite boring and pointless. In fact, I tried to avoid the comparation, but I found the action at chuzzle and the action here at Atomize very similar on the fun side.

Of course, that's just my opinion: I like games with deeper engagement, in which I really have to understand the undergoing complexity of the rules, whether the visual fact is rewarding or not.

That doesn't mind I'm denying the importance of the instant rewarding: I think it's just as important as a longer time reward that makes you want to play better.

[svero]

I think you guys are confusing action as in... oh my god about 50 aliens are going to eat me and im almost out of ammo! vs.. action as in .. Make a match and eyes flow into the beaker. It's the latter kind of excitement Im talking about. It has to do with the player being rewarded by neat visuals and sounds when they do small things. It's popup points, little off to the side animations, the way the board reacts, etc...

Eliminate 3 chuzzles and what happens...

- the chuzzles shake as the group approaches
- fur flies
- the group is surrounded by a starry line
- chuzzle eyes flow into a beaker with a very satisfying sound

etc... This game is missing that kind of subtle feedback that makes a title more exciting/fun to play.

[Buried Alive]

We've updated the first several stages of the game fairly dramatically to introduce all the gameplay elements in a single stage. Now by stage two things are closer to representing the remaining 28 stages (and the other game modes), albeit tamer.

This was done to address the impressions of a lack of risk or challenge that a lot of people have commented on and does not really speak to the audio/visual feedback discussion. We're looking at ways of spicing this up a bit as well, however by stage eight or nine (and certainly moreso as you progress) you are making enough matches and doing them rapidly enough that each match can't provide too much stimulation lest the user get distracted negatively.

I'm not sure how many people stuck with the game long enough, but by stage 12 there are 3-5 ions (both small and larger ones), a rapidly rising battery level, polarized items (which greatly complicate completing an atomize loop) and more rapidly firing particle streams. When those things are all happening the audio/visual stimulation is pretty high and I'd hesitate to add too much more.

We'd love it if anyone who has tried the original release would get version 1.0.1, check out the new first stage (Space) to see the new all-in-one tutorials, and play through to about stage 15 to comment on the more active and challenging environment.

We are still shooting for a relatively mellow gamer audience though, so if things are still too easy give Nightmare a try (using the unlock cheat mentioned in the original post). Nightmare provides the same progression but all the 'knobs' have been turned up. :)

If anyone's trial time has expired I'll gladly supply a few more extension serial numbers to anyone who PMs me their name and the 'Registration Key' from the trial splash screen.

[electronicStar]

I played the demo to the end and after a while it's to strenuous and tedious for the wrist, I have to stop playing because of that.
I also think you should change the name "atomize" is too bland and looks like a dozen other games names.

[Buried Alive]

We have just released version 1.0.2 of Atomize, available here:

http://www.buriedaliveinteractive.com/atomize/download

This version adds a significant amount of audio/visual feedback during gameplay, hopefully making the game experience more engaging. It should now also be more obvious when a non-multiple match was successfully Atomized.

Also several later levels were given graphic tweaks, a few bugs were fixed, and the milk in the 'cereal' level is now a not so eye piercing shade of off-white.

We're pretty pleased with how this looks and feels now, and received positive responses from others we've had test it out. As always, comments (particularly from those who had played the previous versions) are very welcome!

[svero]

Well I do think it's an improvement. I think it'd be worthwhile to spend some more time improving it in the same sort of direction you've started here. It's better than the original one but I dont know if it really goes far enough overall. It still lacks a little clarity. It's not dead obvious what you have to do. I think its important though that you dont try to mitigate that with text and hint popups though, but somehow do it naturally in the flow of the game.

One thing I really didnt care for.. and maybe its because im on level 1 trying this.. but that temperature timer thing. When it start to heat up and the siren goes off. That whole thing takes too long. I think Id make that temperature rise go up quite a bit faster. It's a little too much warning you know.

One idea I had.. and perhaps this is crazy talk.. was that when you make matches that are not the ones you're suppose to make.. rather than rewarding that with points maybe fly some fire effects into the heat bar instead. Course again im thinking level 1.. maybe that would be too crazy when you got to harder levels.

[Buried Alive]

Thanks a lot for checking it out again. Glad to see we're heading in the right direction.

I'll take a look at the speed of the energy level/overheat on those earliest stages. I'm a bit worried that newcomers to the game (especially the puzzle-oriented casual market we're aiming for) will need some time to get used to the whole lasso/control scheme.

In very early usability experiments most of our testers needed several stages before they were really smoothly making circles around items. And that was back when the energy level wasn't part of stages 1 through 3.

I do know it takes an awfully long time for the energy to actually get into the danger zone; I can start the level and walk away to get a sandwich and not be in trouble when I get back... :) But the levels are so short there, we're expecting only that the player will gain familiarity with it, not actually get into jeopardy.

The effect of atomizing items that don't make a match is intentionally not harmful because later in the game we encourage players to strategically atomize non-matching items in order to set up bigger multi-matches. Because of this I don't think we'd want to punish them for that behavior and train them that it's a bad thing. Also since you can atomize pairs of ions (and whatever happens to be underneath), and you need to atomize the remainder of a layer in order to remove it, I think it would cause a lot of conflict.

However that does sound like an interesting mechanism for an alternative gameplay mode, sort of a no-leniency ruleset. I'd probably also turn on the currently-unused feature where just clicking the mouse (e.g. starting an atomize beam) makes the energy level go up a bit. That'd be evil. :)

[Rubs]

First of all, very nice game, indeed! Good job!

Some feedback from me as well:

PROS:
- Nice graphics, many animation effects, lots of backgrounds and elements in the game (in fact, sometimes I thought they're too many :)).

- (I think this belongs to PROS) When I launched the game, it ran at 640x480 windowed mode, then I switched it to full-screen (using Alt-Enter, mmm, very nice!) and played the game for a while. It looked ugly to me. Then I found screen resolution setting in options, changed it to 1024x768 (native on my current LCD) and the game looked very pretty after that :). I wonder if it does well in higher resolutions (will check that in the evening at home). BTW, why didn't you include 1280x1024 resolution?

- Overall it is very polished and I can see the tremendous amount of work it has consumed :) Thumbs up!

- In-game help is great!

CONS:
- No proper application icon (32x32) when switching between apps (holding Alt-Tab).

- Some overall game lugging (I have Athlon XP 2500+, 1.5 gigs RAM, GeForce MX 440 running Windows XP Pro). Maybe add some control over the graphics detail to make the game run smoother on slower machines.

- Mouse cursor slow (maybe it has something to do with the previous point). I think it makes sense to add mouse speed control for this type of game. Will be really useful.

- Screen goes blank and stays blank for several seconds, when I try to open options dialog in full-screen mode.

- IMHO it needs some balancing to make it more thrilling/interesting. Maybe

- Pressing escape to remove tutorial screens is annoying. Please, add a way to get rid of it with mouse. Maybe some button/area to click, etc. But I surely don't want to reach keyboard for this.

- The same for not being able to call the menu. Maybe put it on the right-click or something. In two words the idea is to make all the controls in the game accessible by mouse.

- Some lugs/screen blanks when switching between apps and exiting the game in full-screen mode. In windowed mode seemed to work ok.

That's it!

I will try to run the game on my home PC (Athlon XP 64 3000+ and ATI X600 PRO), will write more then.

Overall the game leaves a mature and good impression. Congrats!

[svero]

I'll take a look at the speed of the energy level/overheat on those earliest stages. I'm a bit worried that newcomers to the game (especially the puzzle-oriented casual market we're aiming for) will need some time to get used to the whole lasso/control scheme.

Hmm.. THats troublesome. Im good with the mouse so it never occured to me people might have trouble drawing loops. I wonder if you coudnt help them along by smoothing it somehow or something. Control is key. If players have trouble controlling a game it probably wont sell very well.

The effect of atomizing items that don't make a match is intentionally not harmful because later in the game we encourage players to strategically atomize non-matching items in order to set up bigger multi-matches.

Ah well that makes sense. It doesnt come out so much in early levels but I can see how that would be helpful when there were more items required for a set.

[Rubs]

Tried the game at home on a more powerful PC and here's the verdict:

Game rocks! I can surely tell I'm a potential buyer :) Will dig further in your game but I already like it a lot! ;)

So....

Performance problems are gone. Everything looks and works cool. Blank screen flashing problem remained though in full screen mode. But the game and mouse cursor don't lug anymore. BTW, I've noticed a "slow computer" checkbox in options dialog - it was the last thing I've seen there. :) Will try it tomorrow at my workplace. Maybe todays troubles will be gone.

Without lugs game seemed more interesting, but I'd still add something to make it more involving.

And I definitely wouldn't mind having a way to control everything only with mouse, as mentioned in previous post.

All that aside, cool game! Like it! Will play as "Ima Cheeta" today :)

[Buried Alive]

Control is key. If players have trouble controlling a game it probably wont sell very well.

Yes, this is one of our largest risks. Our target market could very well find frustration with the control mechanism and not be compelled to play further. We did a *lot* of tuning to rectify this and it seemed to help a bunch (stuff like the 'Must close loop' reminder, and the fact that you can let go of the mouse button very close to the loop and it'll auto-close for you) and testers went from being frustrated to just needing a bit of time to get comfortable with it.

That was one of the biggest reasons we originally stretched the simple(boring) tutorial gameplay out across five stages, to give players a chance to ramp up. There's probably a sweet-spot of balance, but that spot will differ for each type of player, so we'll have to watch closely and do more testing with our targets.

[Buried Alive]

Tried the game at home on a more powerful PC and here's the verdict:

Game rocks! I can surely tell I'm a potential buyer :) Will dig further in your game but I already like it a lot! ;)


Thanks for the kind words! :)

As you've already seen, the gameplay benefits greatly from a strong 3D accelerator card. We (ab)use a lot of particles and subtle visual effects using video hardware, and the core engine isn't really tuned well for budget video chipsets, sadly. This is one of our own internal biggest problems that we're continuing to work on. The 'Slow Computer' option helps some, but honestly we don't expect most people to try that before they just give up.

No proper application icon (32x32) when switching between apps (holding Alt-Tab).

Thanks for pointing that out, I'll take a look at that today.


BTW, why didn't you include 1280x1024 resolution?
...
- Screen goes blank and stays blank for several seconds, when I try to open options dialog in full-screen mode.


The resolution list is actually generated on the fly based on what the video card reports as being available. So on your work machine it probably knows that your monitor can't support more than 1024x768. It should have given you 1280x1024 at home though, did it?

The screen-blanking is almost definitely a result of this real-time population of the resolution drop-down. I'll see about caching the list once to prevent that.

Pressing escape to remove tutorial screens is annoying. Please, add a way to get rid of it with mouse. Maybe some button/area to click, etc. But I surely don't want to reach keyboard for this.


If you atomize something the tutorials will cancel. You can also opt to turn them off completely with a check-box in the Options menu. We had right-click for menu/clear for awhile but there were too many mistaken clicks, especially later on when gameplay gets really frenzied. Because we 'lock' the cursor into the playfield, we had a lot of brainstorming early on trying to solve the lack of 'Menu' Gui button but couldn't find something that worked well. We'll re-visit this and see if there's not something else to try.


I'm glad you're enjoying it overall! So far I don't think anyone has played with the other gameplay modes (which range from silly to hardcore-difficult) or the bonus mini-game (Firework Frenzy) which a family member enjoyed better than the main game! So if you try those, let me know your thoughts. :)

I'd love to catch some people in the online tournament mode to test it with too, if anyone is willing. There seems to be a general barrier to casual-multiplayer, but we strongly believe that is a huge area for creative expansion of the market.

[Buried Alive]

We've put version 1.0.3 out (http://www.buriedaliveinteractive.com/atomize/download) with some minor fixes:

- Alt-Tab icon is now the Atomize icon and not the default application icon
- Resolution/BPP settings are now cached so they don't cause screen blanking in full-screen mode when the Options dialog is opened
- A few particle effect changes for Slow Computer mode (re-enabled some of the new gameplay-oriented feedback stuff)
- No longer overwrites existing user profiles if you install over an existing copy


Nothing really big here, just wanted to let you guys know those problems had been fixed, thanks for bringing them to our attention. :)

[Rubs]

As you've already seen, the gameplay benefits greatly from a strong 3D accelerator card. We (ab)use a lot of particles and subtle visual effects using video hardware, and the core engine isn't really tuned well for budget video chipsets, sadly. This is one of our own internal biggest problems that we're continuing to work on. The 'Slow Computer' option helps some, but honestly we don't expect most people to try that before they just give up.

Maybe you can implement some kind of performance detection mechanism that will enable/disable that switch when the game is first run?

The resolution list is actually generated on the fly based on what the video card reports as being available. So on your work machine it probably knows that your monitor can't support more than 1024x768. It should have given you 1280x1024 at home though, did it?

Yup, it did :) And it looked really great in that res!


If you atomize something the tutorials will cancel. You can also opt to turn them off completely with a check-box in the Options menu. We had right-click for menu/clear for awhile but there were too many mistaken clicks, especially later on when gameplay gets really frenzied. Because we 'lock' the cursor into the playfield, we had a lot of brainstorming early on trying to solve the lack of 'Menu' Gui button but couldn't find something that worked well. We'll re-visit this and see if there's not something else to try.

Ah, ok. That wasn't too intuitive, but I guess it is ok :).

Will download and try your next version as soon as I can (probably weekend). Again, great job!