[Feedback] Jeweltopia <- soniCron's game

[soniCron]

Well, the day has finally arrived! I've got a beta on my hard drive just waiting to get ripped to shreds! And without further ado, I introduce to you:

Jeweltopia

Aah, but before you run off ("Oh, jeeze. A friggin match three!"), I strongly urge you to check it out -- you may be surprised! :)

It's a simple game: A board full of jeweled tiles that need to be removed. And how do you remove them, you ask? Why, by matching up three or more, of course! :) But here's the kicker: Be cautious of your actions, because every move you make unleashes a wave of additional tiles...and if you don't play smart, you'll find yourself under an avalanche of jewels!

The Screenshots http://www.solaristudios.com/jeweltopia-beta/1.jpg
http://www.solaristudios.com/jeweltopia-beta/2.jpg
http://www.solaristudios.com/jeweltopia-beta/3.jpg
http://www.solaristudios.com/jeweltopia-beta/4.jpg


The Download
http://www.solaristudios.com/jeweltopia-beta/Jeweltopia Setup.exe

What I Need to Know
Does it run?
Does it run well?
What do you think of the gameplay?
Is it too easy or too hard?
Did you enjoy yourself?


What You Need to Know
You get a "Hold" bonus if you match more than 3 jewels
Every Hold gives you a free swap; ie. no jewels will come tumbling down
You've got 30 minutes of play time -- time isn't deducted on menus


Now, the gameplay is under adjustment, and I'm fully aware of its sweeping variable of difficulty. What I'm really concerned about is: Did it work? It's extremely processor intensive, so much so that I worry that it won't run on anything but the fastest computers. Please let me know how it runs on your computer and how many MHz you've got under the hood.

Known Issues
Tutorial is fragile. If it gets stuck, just quit the level and restart.
Game may get through logo by the time you can see the screen
Doesn't detect chains yet
Doesn't ask you if you want to load your saved game
Last backdrop isn't integrated
Only 2 in-game songs available right now
Tutorial doesn't mention "Hold" feature
Game is highly unbalanced -- with your help, this can be adjusted to an optimal level
Placeholder screenshots on sell screen
Inadequate win/lose screens
No app icon
Doesn't want to share Windows -- no task switching
Aliased fonts in gameplay
Generally in need of some polish
Medal legend doesn't show accurate point values (I think)


Okay, let the gut wrenching criticisms ride! :)

[Andy]

Anyone believe that Daniel has developed it by his own?
I stay in strong believe that he've just purchased the code from somebody else - he is so busy in different forums... :D

Congrats for good purchase Daniel! I'm downloading the game right now...

[svero]

>Does it run?

yeah

>Does it run well?
Some bugs.. the hint about dying came up and stayed up

>What do you think of the gameplay?
Boy... lots of little things to suggest here but it will take some time since it's all detailed stuff. There's no particular general big problems I have with it. It's essentially pretty simple and fun. Most of my comments (the ones still in my head) are detail type stuff.

>Is it too easy or too hard?
Not sure...


>Did you enjoy yourself?
A little, although generally this sort of game isn't my thing. That being said I thought it was pretty well presented and seemed good to me for the kind of game it is.


Now, the gameplay is under adjustment, and I'm fully aware of its sweeping variable of difficulty. What I'm really concerned about is: Did it work? It's extremely processor intensive, so much so that I worry that it won't run on anything but the fastest computers. Please let me know how it runs on your computer and how many MHz you've got under the hood.

>Doesn't detect chains yet
This sounds crucial

>Generally in need of some polish
Agreed but good so far. Has a nice colorful fun feel to it.

Sorry but I dont have anything scathing to say really. I will comment more with details when I have a little time.

- S

[Bmc]

I predict massive thread views.

as for the game, It's not bad but I have to say I'm a little disappointed. I expected much more from you (based on some of your more recent posts).

comments-
1-levels are way too long (the one i played anyway)

2-no windowed mode?

3-being sent back to main screen when completing a level instead of just moving onto the next

4-gameplay seems sort of slow at times because of the way blocks are eliminated

5-goals are not clear enough, I had no idea how I was supposed to win the level, also have no idea what the deal with the happy face is.... well I know that the more matches you make the happier it gets but does it have a purpose?

6-the backgrounds are screaming for animation

7-i actually like the upbeat rock music but some of your intended audience may not and I don't recall seeing anyway to turn off the music/turn down the volume

8-lack of rewards, for example: power gems which are pretty much common place in matching games now

9-the big medal at the end of level screen is quite pixelated

[svero]

I agree with the levels being too long comment. A small points since im posting...

- There should be some kind of really big warning thing going on when your'e about to die. The tutorial has that glass box, but Id like something where the screen shakes and the top block wobbles and flashes with a big alarm sound of some kind. Perfect opportunity to add one of those "BIG" effects that people love.

[AnthemAudio]

Yay! Tetris Attack! I fear my take on the game will be compared to Tetris Attack (of which I played endless hours :o) so my apologies firstmost.

I only got to spend around ten minutes with it (I'll play more later) and a program I was running in the background crashed so I had to quit. But I'll give one suggestion. And this is the reason I kept coming back to Tetris Attack:

Ok, I know it doesn't register "chains" and "combos" yet, but I would like to be able to set up moves while matched jewels are "popping". That is, the real skill in Tetris Attack was being able to think quickly and set up combos that took several well timed moves within the combo.

Right now, the game makes you wait until they stop flashing and disappear before you can do anything. It just makes the game feel very "stop and go", and I think for a more action based puzzle like what you got going here should be more fluid and less wait and see.

Certainly the people who want to play longer (therefore hopefully buying the game) will want more to master and I think being able to continue moving pieces to create bigger combos would do the trick.

I'll play it another 20 minutes later on and see if it wins me over anyway.

Other things? Looks good, sounds good, EXTRA BIG MENUS (nice), easy install, played well and smooth. I'm currently on a P4 2.4 with 512MB running WIN XP PRO with some nasty Intel onboard vid card.

I do look forward to seeing this going FINAL. Good job!

Tony

[Nexic]

Daniel, really I didn't think you were going for a standard gem swapping package. I knew you would be going for something casual but I was really expecting something much different, and a little more original. But anyway, here are my comments:

First of all, I suprised to see no theme at all? It feels a lot like Gamehouse titles from a few years ago, nice, big rounded graphics and no real theme. It is nicely presented, but I don't think it has a whole lot of personality.

The next thing is that I don't think the game flows so well as other gem swapping titles. Can I only swap sideways? If that is the case I think the gameplay suffers for it. It felt really restricting and a little frustrating. As a result I found myself floundering a lot of the time, not really knowing what to do. I think vertical swaps would make the game better.

When getting a match, you have to wait for a few seconds for the gems to pop away. It's quite annoying waiting for them to disappear, and I don't thing you get a good sense of reward. Beserker's Jewel of Atlantis did this really well with the explosions, it is instant rewards and the loud sounds and over the top visuals make it fun. The slow popping makes the game a little bland, and not very energetic.

I think the smiley face is an okay idea, but I think there should only be one to apease. The reason being that I got my face all happy, then suddenly it went sad. At first I thought I had done something wrong, but actually I had done well by moving onto the next face. It's a little disconcerting. I think you could build a theme around this face, so instead of a generic smiley, how about a cute character with some personality? Maybe they could say things every so often?



Now for some nitpicky stuff:

All the text in the game is way too big. Big is good, but not this big. For example on the buy screen I couldn't read the text easily as it was so large.

The hints can't be clicked away, which is rather odd. It's annoying to have them there obscuring your view, but having to wait until they disappear.

Endless mode is in my opinion not a good name. Seems kind of pointless to play if it's endless. I'm not saying the mode itself is bad, just the name.

As others said, levels are too long.


Overall it's a good start and a few years ago would probably have kicked ass, but these days its a bit lacking. If you are going to go for match-3 then the only real way to make yourself stand out is to have a decent theme. I really couldn't see any match 3 game without such a theme doing well in the current market.

This really isn't bad for a first shareware game. Have you seen my first game? Most who have preyed that they hadn't :-)

P.S Add a theme!

[jankoM]

you get very positive points from me for doing a lot of small things different. The music, the cartoon-style animations when things happen (go away, come on screen...), colors.... the type of swaping (inside stack and outside)..

"25% off" if I buy in first 10 minutes is very nice idea, you give push to impuls buyers without loosing the others too soon.

- I think there were some bugs or at least "features I didn't understant" in level 2 like blocks standing in air, two blocks in same place.
- blocks dont look like jevels at all to me (Jeweltopia)
- IANAA (I am not an artist) so I don't know if this is bad, but you have some pixelated graphics , some shiny (mac-like) graphics and some realistic 3d (the medal at the end of the level) -

[lakibuk]

Ha,many people have been waiting for this game. I have to admit i have been sniffing around your /images dir and expected a puyo-puyo clone.
Now to the criticism:
- GAMEPLAY
It's quite original compared to some other match-3 games which are pure rip-offs in terms of gameplay. I am not sure if it's fun though.
I am sure it's no match for brilliant match-3 superhits like Chuzzle or Magic Vines.
- GRAPHICS
Looks pale when compared to many match-3 games you see on the portals. A little bit amateurish looking (the the tiles, the pixelated fonts or medal).
- SOUND
Hardrock tunes are a bit stressful. No sound options?
- MISC
Encountered one serious bug on level 5 and 7.
Some tiles were hanging in the air, in level 7 they even messed up the levels structure so it was hard to see when you got 3-in-a-row. See attached file.
After solving the level it would be better to return to the level select screen than back to the main menu where you have to select "adventure" again to play the next level.
Explosion of the tiles takes too long.

[jankoM]

When getting a match, you have to wait for a few seconds for the gems to pop away. It's quite annoying waiting for them to disappear, and I don't thing you get a good sense of reward. Beserker's Jewel of Atlantis did this really well with the explosions, it is instant rewards and the loud sounds and over the top visuals make it fun. The slow popping makes the game a little bland, and not very energetic.
I would make them pop out faster too... but I like the stylish way that yours pop out more than particle explosions and lond sounds of Jewel of A. This game is made for us sensitive souls, not the ones who strap machineguns to the rodents ;)

The reason being that I got my face all happy, then suddenly it went sad. At first I thought I had done something wrong, but actually I had done well by moving onto the next face.
Same here

[Nexic]

This game is made for us sensitive souls, not the ones who strap machineguns to the rodents

I saw that one coming ^.^

[princec]

Does it run?
Yes

Does it run well?
Yes, on a super top of the range laptop, apart from occasional pauses (GC I bet :D)

What do you think of the gameplay?
Couldn't say, seemed trivial to the point of my intestines wanting to throttle my brain ;) Could be something to do with no shooting. I think it needs guns, haha :D

Is it to easy or too hard?
No idea what "hard" actually means in this game. Does it change as you progress through the levels? I got to level 3 and it didn't change at all as far as I could tell.

Did you enjoy yourself?
Trick question!

Further comments:

Level 2 seemed the same as level 1. Level 3 seemed the same as level 2. By the time I lost on level 3 I didn't really want to play any more, fearing more of the same.

The jewel removal needs to be much faster after the first few.

Already pretty well polished IMHO.

Cas :)

[Anlino]

The game lags like hell on my computer - my guess would be something like 0,5 FPS. My processor is Intel Celeron, 2,4 GHz. 512 mb Ram, FX5200. As you might understand, i can't provide you with any real feedback other than that. As comparison, my Computer runs FarCry smoothly with all settings on medium;)

[Bmc]

@sonicron: out of curiosity, are you using Flash?

[Rory]

Does it run? - Yep.

Does it run well? - Works like a charm on my Win XP Media Centre Edition P4 2.80GHz 512mb ram

What do you think of the gameplay? - I really liked the fast pace of the game. The menu animations and the block switching were excellent. However I did feel that the once i had matched a line, the blocks disappeared to slowly. it seemed to break up the fast pace of the game.

I also found myself wondering when the level was about to end. I didn't feel i had enough cues that i was progressing through a level. (And why did i keep making the little blue smiley face cry)

Is it too easy or too hard? - I would have too lean towards to easy. I felt that because there were only 4 blocks (in the levels i played) i couldn't fail. I even tried to fail by just randomly clicking on spots, but I was still matching block lines.

Did you enjoy yourself? - Very much so. It was a fun, entertaining and colourful experience. The music was bright and punchy and non-egypt related ( although I couldn't see an obvious way to turn it down or off).

Other Bits - I was getting a few 'Ghost Blocks' left on my screen after i had cleared them. They stayed on the screen despite other blocks falling into their spots.

Auto continue to the next level - Like the slow disappearing blocks, i felt that by not automatically going to the next level it broke up the fast action a bit.

I really like the medal system, espescially the screen where i get to see all the medals i have received. However can I have some fancier looking medals ? :)

Overall though, a fast and fun game. well done.

[papillon]

It's cute and appealing but feels slightly outdated. Not just because of the resolution hit. :)

Most of my comments are the same as others.

The block-popping was a little too slow and made me feel impatient with the game.

The hints couldn't be cleared by clicking on them, but also didn't disable the game field under them, so while clicking randomly trying to make the hint go away, it was affecting the game.

Also, I got a hint screen 'stuck' telling me about adding happiness to "the the harmony" (remove a the please!) and it WOULD not go away so I finally quit. Which made my impression of your nag screen extra negative, since I was first made impatient by the slow popping, then irritated by a stuck screen, and now it WON'T LET ME LEAVE! :)

If you're going to have multiple smiley faces you need to make it more clear. You could have a 'row' of smileys lined up waiting for their turn to get all happy, and then each time you happy-up a smiley, it gets a little animation of dancing up next to the meter and the next smiley in line moves into place. That way you feel "Yay! Achievement!" instead of "Did I do something wrong?"


The gameplay could be fun, but I don't want to try it again until the hint screen problem is fixed at least. :)

[steve bisson]

i agree with all the previous comments so my comment will not add anything but i said to daniel i would review it.

It felt like a a watered down version of a bunch of "proven formulas " but without a real identity. There is some cool stuff in there tho , the intro music was really upbeat and i felt i could like it then i realised it was skipping frames and seemed to run slowly on my 1.7ghz sonoma with 1gig of ddr2 ram ( maybe a p4 2.2ghz equivalent ? )

so the thing i liked best ( the squishy effect on the graphics ) was ruined because of poor frame rate.

the hint screen took forever to get out of the playfield , the blocks disapear too slowly , chain reactions have you sit and watch.

the crying chuzzle imitation doest have any "soul" its too simplistic of a character to be appealing and make you feel "empathy" for it crying. Black screen on game over ? i kept wishing there was a theme :(

No "special tiles" ? maybe i did not play long enough for one to drop.

The music that i liked in the intro seemed to get anoying in game where i would have prefered slower more relaxed music.

i guess i was expecting something more "exceptional" too based on your posts , you did create great expectations yourself.

Its not bad and most of the things that are not perfect can still be changed right !? everyone in this thread pretty much pinpointed all the weaker parts that could be improved.

Good luck !

[Ricardo C]

* Does it run?

Yep.

* Does it run well?

It ran very well on my aging system (Athlon 1.4Ghz, 256MB RAM, and a lowly GeForce 2MX)

What do you think of the gameplay?

I thought it was very engaging.

* Is it too easy or too hard?

Neither, really.

* Did you enjoy yourself?

Yep, it's quite a fun game.

Overall, I think it could do with more polish, and more detailed graphics. But I think the game kicks ass. Cheers, man :)

[Martoon]

Wow, a real game. Sonicron isn't a fraud after all. ;)

Overall, I like it. It's a nice variation on the Tetris Attack mechanic. The "hold" concept is interesting and fun.

I agree with others that the gem popping needs to happen a lot faster. It wants to be more of an action game, but it feels like chess (without the strategy).

Since the "hold" feature is so central to the game, it should show an obvious indicator of how many hold points you get from a swap (e.g., a big animated "+3" flying up to the hold counter, then the hold counter bounces up by 3). Maybe the hold counter could even be visual in some way, instead of just a number.

I also agree with some that the look is a little generic. It's bright, bold, and colorful, but it doesn't have any particular, distinctive personality or theme.

Out of curiosity, why is this game so CPU hungry? It doesn't look like it should be.

The big timer counting down for the 25% discount on the exit screen is fantastic. :cool:

[Sharpfish]

Hi Daniel - of course i'm glad to offer feedback on your first game, I can't believe it's finally out! (or nearly).

anyway I am posting quick just to say it has problems on my test system.

800mhz Duron
gf4ti4200(128mb)
512mb Ram

The problems were apparent from the first animated menu. I think I was getting maybe 1fps! it was just 2 jerks then the screen had changed to in-game and the message came up about "click between the 2 gems to swap them" - I did and the game didn't respond at all. It hadn't locked up but nothing happened. I think low FPS was probably the reason here (maybe multi clicks had piled up cos I was clicking like mad?).

anyway - of course this may just be the low CPU I am running - but I stick with this intentionally (I have a 3400+ amd64 in my laptop but can't check it on there right now). 800mhz it may be but it does run virtually everything I throw at it from these forums (and portals) and has happily been running my "3D game alpha" in a continuous (Soak) loop test all afternoon at a consistent 80fps with aniso+2xAA so I know the system can handle it.

I had to ctrl/alt/del and shut down the game (I saw a flash icon - was it done in flash? If so I think I normally have a little trouble running larger flash stuff so that could explain things).

Will report more tommorow when I get chance to give it a good going over.

Rgds

[Nexic]

From the looks of things Daniel you have some real problems with the speed. I gave it a quick go on my 800mhz Geforce 440 and it is totally unplayable. My games have 100s of sprites flying all over the screen and I always manage over 60fps on that machine (even in high res).

I would estimate that a lot of people are still running that era of computer and lower. This could really hurt sales. :-\

[Sirrus]

Great stuff Daniel...

I'll talk with you later about all my feedback - I definately agree about the pacing though...

[joe]

The game runs very well on my Dell Inspirion 6000 Notebook.

I always loved Tetris Attack and often asked myself why everybody is cloning bejewled and nobody tries something different for example by cloning Tetris Attack.

I also like your version, but I have to say, by terms of game play and game mechanic I still like the original Tetris Attack on SNES more. I doesn't like the hold mechanic very much and I prefer the original action-mode of Tetris Attack where all tiles are moving towards the top.

Also, the original game had more different game modes. Why not including a Puzzle Mode like in Tetris Attack or a two player mode?

The graphic is nice, but I agree with the others who said a professional presented theme would be a big plus for sales, I think.

But overall a nice game.

[RohoMech]

no problems running the game here...pretty neat stuff, a bit too slow paced for my liking, but as you can tell, there's people who like it

I really liked the menu transitions, I sorta felt the popup help was a bit much at times, perhaps adding a "disable all tips" , or "disable this tip" option to them?
also, they don't have a close button...so it was unclear how to get rid of them at first.

I also agree on the level objectives not being very clear, but the smiley face was a neat idea as well.

[steve bisson]

The game runs very well on my Dell Inspirion 6000 Notebook.

really ? i have the exact same computer

Dell inspiron 6000 laptop, 1.7 ghz sonoma, 1gig ddr2 ram , ati radeon x300 128meg

and i did notice low frame rate but mainly in the menu after that it runs smoothly.

i played it again tonigth and had more fun than the first time i played it.

[Sharpfish]

An update: Tried again it worked a little better this time, but still slow as hell - the menus seemed ok for a few seconds then slow again and once in game it was seriously slow (seconds per frame rather than frames per second!).

To give some feedback on visual style and anything I can see from what I could do I thought i'd add my 2pence worth:

.The "crying" white lines look out of place with the smooth/glossy/polished gfx - the lines themselves look like quick additions of lines in a paint package - consider swapping to tear sprites?

.I liked the overall polished look and clean/glossy feel - but as others have said, I felt it lacked personality for it. I don't think the colour choice (light purple) helped with that as it's rather a vague colour to use as your "main" colour for a game. I assume you experiement with many other colours, if you have some mock-ups post em here so maybe we can see which is most popular.

.I liked the look of the jewels - remind me of "meteos" a little (which I am currently addicted to), but not really that jewel like, title could be a bit misleading (and in itself fairly generic?)

.The part of the game I did see it said click *between* the blocks (jewels) to swap them, now I'm not sure if that selection rectangle is normally there as a visual aid because as I said, my frames were too low to play it - but clicking "between" is not as fun as clicking "on" something in my opinion. your focus is on a dark narrow gap rather than the smooth looking objects of play. Would have to play this properly (on laptop) to see if it's really a problem, as no-one else has mentioned it - take it with a pinch of salt.

What I can't understand, from your other posts and your blog is that you specifically said you WERE doing a theme based game and recently posted it was running at around 15mb download size? This leads me to believe you either have another game entirely different and this is just a tester to get all those who have waited for this day to arrive to post something about YOUR game and get it out of their system before releasing the real game ;) I'm joking of course but it's outside the box thinking and your "buy now for discount" shows you are open to that!

About the discount, at first I thougt "what a cool idea, give the player some impetus" then I thought, what about those who are not ready to buy (because they haven't become addicted yet) and then may NEVER buy because psycholgically they have "missed out" on their bargain. They may even try to track down another demo download (and wipe their registry etc) to get it again *or* fail in doing so and forget all about the game. You will have to keep us all updated on that upsell technique but I have my doubts.

Anyway.. that's enough opinion considering I haven't actually played the game itself yet :)

[Vorax]

What I Need to Know

* Does it run?

Yes

* Does it run well?
Yes
* What do you think of the gameplay?
It is kinda fun, I could see people liking it.
* Is it too easy or too hard?
Pretty easy, but makes you think a bit
* Did you enjoy yourself?
I like a little more action, but it was ok. It was a bit slow waiting for the hearts to do their thing after a match, I would like that speeded up.

I have the same complaints about the tutorial popups not going away and the pixelated awards, etc. Overall though, I think it's pretty good. Nice work.

[GameStudioD]

I have a 20" widescreen monitor running at 1600x1000, so your game looked stretched and pixelated (obviously). Generally, I thought the game was pretty good (with the assumption that you will be adding more polish). Here are some points:

* I grew impatient waiting for a things to pop, it really slowed the game down. If the popping was speeded up, the levels would be a good length.

* The tutorials were quite patronizing and annoying. One "help" box pointed to a button, with a picture of that button, and said click this to start. Come on.

* The music was really good. The rock music sounded different and seemed to fit really well.

As far as gameplay, the player concentrates on the bottom half of the board for the whole game. To drop a new line, you have to move the mouse all the way up to the top of the board and back to the bottom again. I am not sure how important this is in the long run though...

Where's the jewels?

I supposed you could call the tiles you have "jewels"; but, they sure do not look like jewels to me. I would change the name from Jeweltopia to something to do with the smiley faces or the harmony meter.

[Chris Evans]

It's finally here! :D Congrats on nearing completion.

Here's my feedback. I've read some but not all of the other comments so forgive me if I'm being repetitive.

The Good

- I like your screen transitions, very cool.
- I'm glad you did something different with the music. I'm not sure how well it will go over with the portal crowd, but it's nice to have a change of pace. Just make sure you add some volume controls on your final release.
- The medal system looks very cool.
- Once you get some of the quirks ironed out, the gameplay could be very fun for Tetris fans. My wife will probably like it.
- The nag screen! I like the limited time special 25% offer. I may "clone" it at some point. :) Does the time ever really expire though? If it does expire could it actually be a deterrent to those wanting to purchase at a later time? Make sure you get back to us with any findings you get.

The Bad

- I really wanted to swap the gems vertically. It just felt like the natural thing to do. I felt very restricted when I couldn't.
- The smiley faces were cool, but confused the heck out of me. I didn't know why there were going from sad to happy and back to sad. It wasn't until I read this thread that I realized it was essentially different faces. You definitely need to have some indication of multiple faces.
- The first level is WAY too long. You should have known long ago from Casual Games 101 that your first level should always only take a max of 30-60 seconds to complete even with your eyes closed. :-) You don't want people dying (or quiting) before they've even finished the first level.
- Why did you boot me back to the main menu after I completed a level? Just take me straight to the level select screen. At first I honestly thought that I completed the demo and thought, "that was it?".
- I didn't really see a difference between level 1 and level 2. A couple of years ago, this would have been fine but now players expect a lot more. They want to see new items or something introduced with each new level.

The Ugly

- The game ran fine on my AMD 3000, 512MB, GeForce FX. But it ran very badly on my Celeron 1.3Ghz. Yeah it's not the greatest system, but usually it can run some simple 3d games and all major puzzle games (ie. BKR, Zuma, and etc.). If you were doing an action or 3D game it would be okay, but since you're doing a puzzle game, it's really important that it can run on slow computers. I see you're using Flash. I think you either don't have enough experience with it or you're trying to push it too much. Bitmaps really aren't Flash's strong points (not yet at least), so if you use a lot of bitmaps it's going to chug on a great deal of slow systems. Maybe talk to Beserker or ArcadeTown about ways to improve speed with your Flash app. Though if you really want to have solid bitmap graphics while maintaining a strong web portability, you should check out Shockwave. Flash is making good progress with bitmaps, but it still performs best with vector art.

The Nitpicks

- While I love the nag screen, it does seem too busy. Initially I didn't know where to focus my attention. It looked like a big soup of text. You should try to focus the user's attention better to a particular area of the screen, so they don't get lost or confused. Using different colored text and altering blend levels could help.


Random/Final Thoughts

Again congrats on nearing completion of your first game. It was a long time coming. It's a solid first effort and I think it will end up being better than my first puzzle game (though it only took me a month a half to make mine. :D ). But like a few others said, I think you're a couple of years late with this game. There isn't a solid theme and there doesn't seem to be enough variety from one level to the next to make this game strong enough to be in the portal's top ten in today's market.

While I'm glad you're actually finishing this game (unlike many other people who talk but never do anything), I still you think you could have finished this game LONG ago. Judging by your posts, it seems you're capable of so much more. So it's a little disappointing to see you spend so much time on a somewhat fun but fairly simple unremarkable game. You should have finished this within a few months (especially with using Flash), got the experience releasing a game, and then moved on. It seems you have the potential to make something very cool, so I don't want to see you get burned out prematurely if this game doesn't meet your sales expectations (ala Savant. ;) ).

Good luck!

[Phil Steinmeyer]

OK, I'm posting without having read anybody else's comments (intentionally).

Game looks low-rez. Probably too-late now, but I'd have gone for 800 x 600 instead of 640.

I'd like an options window where I can change music and sound volume, and toggle full screen/windowed.

The tutorial was... odd. There were three arrows on the screen at a time - the animating arrow, my cursor, and the tutorial cursor. I don't like the structure. Also, I was confused as to whether I had to do an action to finish a tutorial message, or just click through it. In the end, I clicked frantically, got the tutorial to go away, but then never read the game rules. And there was no 'help' screen for those who missed something in the tutorial.

Keeping in mind that I never read the tutorial...

I liked the basic gameplay mechanic. A nice twist, but not TOO novel. I really was frustrated by the inability to swap vertically though.

I didn't understand the logic behind when a new row would drop and when it wouldn't. I saw something labeled 'Hold', and knew it was connected, but not sure how.

The 'remove block' animation was too slow.

Music felt generic.

Overall, the game mechanic felt interesting, and I think promising, but not quite 'there' yet. I'd suggest allowing vertical swaps, clearing up the rules for dropping/not dropping a row (maybe just representing it better visually), and implementing combos/bonuses. I didn't see any combos/bonuses, but maybe I just didn't earn them (only played for a few minutes).

[AnthemAudio]

Don't put in vertical swaps! Part of the puzzle is blocks coming at you vertically and all you have is horizontal defenses. It would probably be too easy with that much leeway...unless you intend on ramping up the difficulty.

So I played it some more and I definitely like it more than I did earlier but I'm still missing the combos within combos ability like in SNES Tetris Attack.

The music I like because you don't expect that kind of music in a puzzler and it worked, I believe. Though the two songs I heard need to be normalized/finalized with the same settings as one song was a little thinner and lower in volume than the other one.

Definitely need some audio indicator when your smily is full. Someone mentioned before even having an animated character (again, like in Tetris Attack) or at the very least just some VO indicating what's going on.

I couldn't play much longer because of the magic tiles that refused to go away.

Well the rest of my comments would be more of "do it like Tetris Attack" so I don't know how useful I am to you anymore. But my favorite part of Tetris Attack? Creating killer on the fly combos and sending the destruction over to my rival who was doing the same to me.

Tony

[Ninja Biz]

Oh geez Daniel, this game sucks.
I mean..I swear I've played something just like it before. It was identical.
Maybe a few weeks ago?
I don't know what I am talking about......
I guess I should probably not be on here, leaving not useful comments. I'm gone.
Good job. Love you. (can I say that? hm)
;)

[oldschool]

What I Need to Know

* Does it run?
* Does it run well?
* What do you think of the gameplay?
* Is it too easy or too hard?
* Did you enjoy yourself?

1 yes it runs. AMD athlon xp 1.34MHZ memory 896MB

2 barley notice the lag, except with the slow particles

3 took a second to notice the click-swap instead of a drag swap

4 can't tell just yet I need the verticle swap:)

5 see number 4

When you die make his heart break:D

I liked the graphics alot did you do them yourself? And just out of curiosity what language is this coded in?

good luck

[Christian]

Hi,
What i liked about your BETA game:
- Music, very well done.
- Graphics, well done, i even like the fact that they are pixelated, maybe it needs more polish on the FX side, for example when the stars appears, they are not as they are supossed to be, i think they should be more "flashy".
- Controlls, really good.
-The game runs with no major problems, it has no obstacles for me to play it as it is supossed to be played.

What i didnt like:
- In the tutorial, i saw too many moving arrows fighting for attention that i didnt know where to look at, just put 1 arrow, and thats enough, my advice is leave the bigger one, delete the little.
- Too long levels.
- When i won, i wanted to go to the next level but i the game pushed me to the main screen, why?, if i want to quit, i press button in the left bottom of the screen and thats it, let the player continue playing and quit whenever they want.

Other things:
- You have the heart and the face as a way of measuring the points, why not have one point bar? you are complicating things with no reason. But i think that the face is a good way of measuring points, maybe you can mix the face and heart in one and leave only that to fill with points. Why to wait to make the face happy to add point to the bigger point bar? i dont understand, what is the purpose of having 2 point bars? why not only one?.
- When 4 or more blocks where destroyed, a slowdown started to be noticed, with more blocks destroyed, it wasnt nice to look at, but play was not hurt, only the visual part.
- Some times some blocks remained still, and i could put other blocks on top of them, i dont understand when or why this happened, but it happened in the first levels, first or second.
- Did i have fun? not exiting fun, but "keeps me busy" fun yes, excpet when i planned what pieces to move when i had no more than 2 blocks of the same color and i had a reduced number of Holds, that was interesting, i had to plan my moves carefully looking what colors where going to fall in what places, and choose my best strategy. You should pay attention to this times, thats the best of your game. In normal moments, when i have plenty of holds and plenty of blocks to choose from, its just an easy task of searching for matches, not so fun.

I think its going to be a great game, you are doing real good so far, and i expect to play the non-beta version when all the things that you planned are there, and you make a really playable version, just as it should be, not like this one where there are missing things, its really hard to judge a game that has missing features.

Ok, good luck, keep the hard work on your game and post less :D

Edit:
i forgot to tell you my pc specs:
AMD athlon, 1,47mhz, 512 ram, Geforce4MX 460

[Ninja Biz]

disclaimer: I am daniels sister.
Daniel,
you know my opinions of the game (I think), the general public should ignore my comments.
Biz

[soniCron]

Wow! There has been some excellent feedback so far! A special thanks to everyone who's taken their time to check out this project! :)

Several of the issues (speed, tutorial) were on the tip of my brain, and I suspected they would be problem areas. Would a single help screen (standard) before playing the first time be more adequate and less in-the-way?

For those of you on laptops: Your speed stepping may be the cause of the slowdown. Even though you've got an insanely fast processor, the computer will halve or quarter your processor speed if it's under heavy load. (Kind of negates the purpose of having a fast processor if they won't let you use it!) I know of no workarounds for this, and this is an issue that affects any CPU intensive task on such laptops. (Try rending a 3D scene on one and watch it slow to a crawl as it progresses.) It may be possible to bypass this setting by changing your power saving features to Always On. (Maybe.)

Some other comments were insightful and brought my attention to problems I didn't know existed, such as the smiley face and feelings of failure. I'll be sure to work on that to express a feeling of reward, rather than failure.

Some comments, however, confused me. This is not an action game, and as you progress further into the game, you will find yourself spending much more time thinking than clicking. Perhaps the jewel-popping time won't be such an issue at that point? On the earlier levels difficulty is intentionally very easy, so as to encourage new players to make the transition from their usual match-3 fare to this more contemplative version. Please, try playing Endless from level 25+ or 50+, in which new jewels are added, and let me know if the game is still too slow or easy. The comment about chess was on target: When the difficulty ramps up, the game transforms from a reactive click-fest into a proactive contemplative puzzle to be pondered. This may be more apparent in the advanced stages, so I'd appreciate any time you could take to try it out.

Disappointed that I released a match-3? Don't be. :) This game was developed in tandem with a few other titles, each of differring gameplay and quality. (I'll post some screenshots shortly.) I've got a (real) puzzler, an action game, a casual/web game, a multiplayer boardgame, and a few other projects in the works, so this is certainly not the last you'll hear of me this year. And you developers will certainly be more pleased with some of the future (more hardcore) titles to come. (I promise!)

Now to the crux of it: Jeweltopia is an experiment in many ways. A social experiment to see how the casual audience can handle new-but-familiar gameplay and cost-effective production values. A personal experiment to see if I could create -- from start to finish -- an entire game, including all the yuckies. But most importantly, it is an experiment in development. With my other titles, I followed the rather standard approach of prototype/polish/ship. But this one was an entirely organic development.

I started with an question: Who am I making this game for? And from that moment, every decision I made was in the interest of that target personality. I began with the music, sifting through royalty-free sites until I found something acceptible -- something that would inspire the direction of development. And who was I trying to hit? Huggies moms. Yes, diapers. I wanted to emulate the upbeat, happy, family fun that is expressed in Huggies brand diaper commercials, and the music reflected that.

From there, I asked myself what type of game would appeal to them (simple, but contemplative), what other games I could use to draw out familiarity (Bejeweled), and the theme (or lack thereof) was borne from a combination of these factors. Development went straight into a Bejeweled clone, and from there I moulded the gameplay in such a way as to not alienate those already familiar with match-3's, but still be unique on some level. I've also got a lot of interest in contrasting components, and I'm rather fond of the idea that the player plays against herself. (Each action has an opposite reaction.) The game went through dozens of iterations with significantly varying mechanics, until I found one that I was most comfortable with. (And I think I've achieved my goal of simple to learn and difficult to master.)

I wanted to see what a game borne from theme turned out to be, and I am not surprised at the result. I was also very interested in using the music as the primary driving force behind the product, and from some of your comments, I think it shows. For this, I am greatful.

Would I have done things differently? Of course, but I am glad I went through this rather non-standard approach of development, because it introduced me to a facet of development with which I was not intimate. (Spaghetti code!) But, now that I've taken this approach, I'm rather satisfied with the ususal prototype/polish/ship approach I've taken with my other titles. (Well, sans the "ship," anyway! ;)) I'd strongly recommend not doing what I did with this title -- it's just not worth the trouble. (Retooling the same code for significantly different purposes, building from theme to gameplay rather than vice versa, etc.) There were really too many problems that have arisen to make this type of development worthwhile.

This is evidenced in the time it took to develop such a slender title -- four months. (Or is it five, now?) I did have a personal crisis come at the end of the project (2 months ago) which severely affected my productivity, and that was a major factor of why this took so long to develop. I think, with what I know now, this game could have been developed fully in 2 months or less. (Entirely by one person, mind you.)

I've learned a lot through the development of this game, and it will be interesting to see if it has the capacity to sell more than a couple copies. (I'm considering that it's not.) Nevertheless, I am satisfied that I have finally completed (sans the couple bugs and tweaks) my first game, and I expect I won't be hearing any more, "You haven't made a game!" comments. Right? ;)

Jeweltopia: Dedicated to the cats at Indiegamer. Without you, I wouldn't have known where to begin! And also a very special dedication to the many supportive souls who have afforded me this opportunity. Without you, I wouldn't have the opportunity to begin!

Thanks for your time, everyone, and I pray my future titles may pique your interest a little more!

(I was going to write a post-mortem, but I think this will suffice, and any additional analysis would be a waste, but if you'd like to hear more, just ask!)

[Ryan Clark]

Hey soniCron, this is Flash, right? If so, do you have a Flash file we can try? Then I'd be able to try this out on my Linux boot.

[soniCron]

Hey soniCron, this is Flash, right? If so, do you have a Flash file we can try? Then I'd be able to try this out on my Linux boot. Yes, it's Flash. Contact me through an IM or PM and I'll pass it along to you.

[DangerCode]

Congrats on meeting this milestone, soniCron.

[soniCron]

Congrats on meeting this milestone, soniCron. Thank you, DangerCode! :) The support has been most surprising. To be honest, I fully expected more ass reaming! ;) (And I'm still waiting for it...you know who you are, Robert, Savant, luggage, Omega, etc. I would certainly appreciate any insightful opinions you'd care to share.)

[Talisman]

The game ran perfectly - AMD Athlon 3400+, GeForce 6600 GT

The gameplay is OK. I had fun playing. I played the first six levels and some endless levels.

The gameplay was often easy because I obtained a large number of "Holds". Like 30. For most of the first 5 levels I never ran out of holds and had to manually bring down new rows of falling blocks.

When I didn't have so many "holds" the game was challenging and I had to look carefully for matches in my highest stacks.

I tried Endless at level 100, 75, and 50, and lost almost immediately.

On the second level, a combo was formed (maybe in the starting blocks already on screen, I can't remember now), and the block above the combo did not fall down. I took a screenshot.

Misc:
-loved the music.
-barely noticed the changing backgrounds.
-noticed some dodgy\low res images
-didn't like the unclosable tutorial boxes
-loved the smiley.
-I hated the way the smiley immedately started crying again after I filled its heart meter, especially when I'd just won a level.

[Ryan Clark]

Yes, it's Flash. Contact me through an IM or PM and I'll pass it along to you.
Actually, I booted into Windows and tried it. My response:

Does it run?
Yes.

Does it run well?
I have a 1.7GHz Win98 machine, and it seems to slow down when a number of bricks are disappearing at one time.

What do you think of the gameplay?
It's fun, but I wish it were faster... the slow disappearances keep me from really trucking as I'd like. Also, I wasn't quite sure why that top-row of bricks would fall down sometimes, but not other times. I thought it was supposed to fall down every time I swap something?

However, I think I missed one tutorial dialog. It came up but then disappeared immediately because a combo (secondary match, after a collapse) caused it to go away, I think. So maybe I missed some explanation.

Is it too easy or too hard?
Seemed balanced enough, for me. The levels did seem a bit long though.

Did you enjoy yourself?
Somewhat, but as I said I wish it were faster paced. But perhaps that's just because I'm more "hardcore" than casual.

Last note: I honestly can't read the text at the top-left corner of the screen:

http://www.solaristudios.com/jeweltopia-beta/2.jpg

What does it say? "Harm on!"? The angle of the text, and the font is hard for me to read.

Anyway, good stuff! I'm happy to finally give a soniCron game a whirl :)

Edit: Almost forgot. I had to turn off my speakers to get the music to stop. It's not that I didn't like it, it's just that I wasn't in the mood for music, and there didn't seem to be any way to disable it.

[soniCron]

When I didn't have so many "holds" the game was challenging and I had to look carefully for matches in my highest stacks. This is the sweet spot that I'm trying to get to right now. I'm having trouble organizing the structure to afford an acceptable ramp of difficulty; too easy and the first 50 stages are too simple, too hard and the last 50 are impossible.

Also, I wasn't quite sure why that top-row of bricks would fall down sometimes, but not other times. I thought it was supposed to fall down every time I swap something? This is a "feature" that wasn't discussed in the tutorial. If you match more than 3 tiles, you get an exponentially increasing number of "Holds." If you have a hold, you get a free swap in which no jewels fall, and then the hold is expired and disappears. The idea is to match several large combos so that you have the capacity to match several more large combos, etc.

I have a 1.7GHz Win98 machine, and it seems to slow down when a number of bricks are disappearing at one time. There's something I'm doing wrong, but I can't quite figure it out. This is on my Primary/Critical list.

Almost forgot. I had to turn off my speakers to get the music to stop. It's not that I didn't like it, it's just that I wasn't in the mood for music, and there didn't seem to be any way to disable it. Yes. This is on the todo list. With the exception of a couple major issues (balance, speed) the game is feature complete. I have a long list of "extras," however, that will be implimented over time, and that is the first one on the list. (I see it as important, but not critical.)

What does it say? "Harm on!"? The angle of the text, and the font is hard for me to read. *laughs hard* It says "Harmony" :) I'll see what I can do to fix that!


Thanks, guys, for taking the time to give this game a whirl! :)

[Nauris]

Nice.
I really like it. It exploits the usual swap-match, but with twist (I`m not familiar with Tetris Attack so cant say how derivative it is, not that it matters much, I guess, I just like it:)

Resolution didnt really bother me and I`m an eye-candy whore. I think its offset nicely with the overall dynamics, you got nice rythm here, more games should be so "motion-happy".

I do think it needs some slight additional glitz, though. Its Jeweltopia after all, I want me gems with deep colors and a bit more sparkle. Its little tweaks, though, nothing fundamental.

Regarding some earlier comments- I can`t really say I understand why it should be "themed". I doubt it`d be a better game featuring pirate skulls or Atlantis-y underwater bubbles :) I do think though, that you need a bit more stuff either in backgrounds or inbetween levels. So its abstract game with jewels and smiley throwing a hissy fit- then I want me rows of dancing smilies, jewel rain popping from trippy clouds, heaps of sparkling stuff. Use these elements within the abstract concept, explore that stuff, its great.
Theme-ing the game might lead it to be more "seasonal", I think.
So you`ll get couple of extra sales when Pirates of the Carribean 2 hit the silver screen, if you have undead monkey there, so what? What about the rest of the time?

I disliked the medals/coins you get after level is completed. They look like ripped from some other game and dont fit your "non-theme". Perhaps its the render-iness. Gimme something more cartoony.

Music rocks. I cant understand why upbeat rock music should scare away imaginary Average Soccer Mom. Its like we see the casual "moms" not soccer moms they are, but our grandmoms, listening to wobbly vinyl.
Woman in her 35 years grew up to 80ies, 90ies music. Why shouldnt she like upbeat rock tunes? Its not Sisters of Mercy rock, it`s "Friends" rock after all.

There was a situation in game when I earned quite a lot of "holds" (some 15, i guess) by combos, but it left me with board with 3 lonely different gems i couldnt really do anything about, just had to shuffle them there and back for 15 turns. Really killed the pace. Perhaps game should recognize such situations and throw the next wave of gems at player despite the number of holds left?

Gem-clearance on itself didnt feel too long, however, it may become tedious when long combos enter the scene. Perhaps each next "explosion" should be slightly faster? Couple it with each next explosion sound effect slightly pitched and hearts getting bigger and bigger plus changing color to a bit more saturated, ending with pure red, perhaps?

Overall graphics looked good in the game, yet the screenshots you posted looked not really appealing for some reason. Perhaps they dont express that dynamic feel the game has. Perhaps you have to experiment with color tweaks, dunno.

Overall, me like-y. As someone mentioned above- "hey, Sonicron is not a fraud!" :)

[soniCron]

There was a situation in game when I earned quite a lot of "holds" (some 15, i guess) by combos, but it left me with board with 3 lonely different gems i couldnt really do anything about, just had to shuffle them there and back for 15 turns. Really killed the pace. Perhaps game should recognize such situations and throw the next wave of gems at player despite the number of holds left? I forgot to mention (and it's not in the tutorials), you can click the row of jewels at the top to drop them. As far as the screenshots are concerned, I took them very quickly for this thread. However, they should appear more dynamic with some scoring and action going on. Thanks for that really excellent feedback! :)

[Sharpfish]

Oh, about the theme thing (again) - I also feel that it is not compulsary if your games mechanic is fun enough, but it does offer something more to the casual gamer.

The amount of polished 2D games out there now is very high. The ones with the stunning 2D artwork that look like mini-masterpieces. The problem is I have become jaded towards that "look" and prefer something that I can consider "fun" rather than "art". The clean looks of your game can actually be more relaxing that those games stuffed to the gills with stunning 2D artwork/backdrops. Kind of reminds me of a 3D game done in 2D ( in that things are simple and chunky rather than ultra-detailed). Best game I have seen for looking fun while being detailed in the right way is Chuzzle, it has stuck to it's theme 100% and not gone over the top with the kind of artwork you are more likely to see in a fantasy book illustration. I think there is a bit of chuzzle style in some of the 2D meters because it's not just glassy (which is very common) but exagerated/cartoony.

Fix the faults, inject a smidgen of personality into it and get it to run on low end systems and all will be right with the world :)

[soniCron]

I'd like to throw out a mention: The game isn't supposed to spit you back to the main menu when you beat a level. I must have broken the code somewhere along the way, and I haven't beaten an adventure level in a while, so I'll get right on that. ;)

[Chris Evans]

The clean looks of your game can actually be more relaxing that those games stuffed to the gills with stunning 2D artwork/backdrops. Kind of reminds me of a 3D game done in 2D ( in that things are simple and chunky rather than ultra-detailed). Best game I have seen for looking fun while being detailed in the right way is Chuzzle, it has stuck to it's theme 100% and not gone over the top with the kind of artwork you are more likely to see in a fantasy book illustration.

Hey I agree with this. I'm all for elaborate themes and detailed artwork but sometimes it does seem like an overkill, especially when the underline game is very simplistic. I'm obviously not the target audience but if I'm essentially matching 3 colors I don't need a whole Pyramid/Lost Treasure extravaganza to enjoy the game. Like Sharpfish, the thing I like about Chuzzle (and possibly Jeweltopia) is that it just "feels" like a fun relaxing game; it's very polished but doesn't get lost in the production values. With Chuzzle it seems like your more "connected" to the game while the others do feel somewhat like a storybook that you interact with (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

But like I said I'm not the target audience. I'm just rambling here in the middle of the night. :) Anyway, as Sharpfish said you may have a tough time because casual gamers do expect elaborate themes these days. But if you polish it up enough and give it some more personality there's a chance it could appeal to some of the Chuzzle crowd. You never know.

[Bmc]

I don't know about the others, but I didn't say I was disappointed because you made a match 3... I knew that was what you were making.

[Nexic]

The clean looks of your game can actually be more relaxing that those games stuffed to the gills with stunning 2D artwork/backdrops. Kind of reminds me of a 3D game done in 2D ( in that things are simple and chunky rather than ultra-detailed). Best game I have seen for looking fun while being detailed in the right way is Chuzzle, it has stuck to it's theme 100% and not gone over the top with the kind of artwork you are more likely to see in a fantasy book illustration.

I think you are totally right. Themes are really great, but I prefer lighter themes, that aren't so busy. For example I reconised how nice Fairies and Magic Match looked, but I didn't really enjoy them. Chuzzle on the other hand I really like, as I found myself concetrating on the game, rather than the shiny things.

[Sharpfish]

Chris + Nexic, yes indeed. I want to make it clear I have nothing against those other more detailed games but I think you run a risk when you do it, probably ONLY a problem for less casual players though, and that is delivering everything on a plate and leaving no room for the players imagination.

With more simple graphics it's like your mind can "breathe". You can interpret the (still must be polished) graphics and become more involved with the game. When you lay on a heavy theme in your own intricately detailed way, you risk alienating a player who doesn't like your interpretation of that theme. Rather than suggestive key points of interest thatget the imaginative juices flowing in a player, you can end up with a clinical passive response.

Of course all art should and must be polished, but it doesn't always mean getting artwork from someone who doesn't understand why games are fun and putting it in your games. A book style illustration always impresses on it's own - but the amount of times I have seen the presentation overpower the underlying (simple) game mechanic in a perfectly polished game is immense.

I have seen some decent examples of very detailed 2D games (some using pre-rendered 3D stuff) where they fit their theme and tie in with the gameplay well. And others where the only thing you remember after the game is that it had a backdrop like a painting in a gallery but with very stale gameplay (by comparison). Fine - but make people remember the FUN first and then layer on the graphical niceties, but always in balance with the core game.

Same goes for AUDIO i'm afraid - overblown orchestral scores, dramatic music that wouldn't sound out of place on a film. In it's own right it is very fine music, and something anyone would be proud of producing. When it's "tacked onto" a simple casual game it kinda upsets the balance. It makes things seem as if you are expected to listen to and look at rather than PLAY the game. If your game is as epic in scope then fine you have a real winner, if it's a bubble popper then you just overegged the cake and wasn't sympathetic about the production.

Of course, these games have done well so I'm certainly not saying any of this from a business perspective, just a players. And I am not saying games shouldn't be polished and have good production, just keep it in balance and remember sometimes less is more! :)

[Ryan Clark]

*laughs hard* It says "Harmony" :) I'll see what I can do to fix that!
lol, ok that makes more sense :) The "Y" looked more like a squished exclamation mark to me, or an upside-down "T". And the gap before the "O" was also confusing.

I hope this helps.

[Gilzu]

I was going to start with tons of compliments, but many people got there before me, so let me just say - Great job.

now, for the bugs.
1. during tutorial, there was no way to remove that annoying pop-up. Sure, I got the message, but i presumed that it will fade in a while. when it didn't i tried pressing on the window. sure it disappeared, but i lost a move.

2. reached level 2, where (strangly enough) in encountered "floating" bricks on the screen. yup. the level started with 4-7 floating bricks that didn't appear to function (couldn't match them to other bricks, but bricks seemed to stop their fall after landing on them... :confused:

3. This isn't really a bug, but you'll understand its importance later on #4. there was no way to adjust the sound nor alt-tabbing. I wanted to take a screenshot of #2 and mail it, but unless I exited the game, I couldn't paste it anywhere.

4. I really liked playing the game. So much that I reached the time limit, And next time I tried to play it, I reached the screen that tells you that you've reached the limit. I clicked on it and nothing. After a few secs it asked me to click on the screen, and nothing.

well, Alt-tab didn't really work, so trying to distroy the app was annoying. But even after destroying the application, It just changed resolution and continued to hang. Alt-Ctrl-Del. I'd check this out if i wanted to remind potent-clients to return to you rather than hang their computer.

[oNyx]

>Does it run?

Yes.

>Does it run well?

No. Menu was sorta ok ish... then the tutorial, slow screen drawing (garbled graphics for a few seconds), then it took about 2 minutes (seriously) to register the click, then 2 more minutes, then it started moving again flooding me with tutorial dialogs and game over a few seconds later. The animations after that were ok again. Tried it two times... same result.

CPU usage 100%, music played fine.

Specs: k7 500, ati 9100 (cat 6.2 [latest]), dx9.0c, win2k sp4

Known issues with this hardware: QPC leaping under high bus load (the symptoms are different usually tho... more like randomly warping a few seconds into the future, if the game uses QPC.)

>What do you think of the gameplay?
>Is it too easy or too hard?
>Did you enjoy yourself?

No idea.

---

On a side note... not all graphics are antialiased and FSM only is pretty meh (especially for a puzzle game).

[soniCron]

I really liked playing the game. So much that I reached the time limit, And next time I tried to play it, I reached the screen that tells you that you've reached the limit. I clicked on it and nothing. After a few secs it asked me to click on the screen, and nothing. I disabled fullscreen clicking on that message when it first pops up, because I didn't want someone accidentally dismissing it immediately after it pops up. However, why it didn't work when it asked you to click...I don't know. Do you recall if it had a hand cursor or the regular arrow cursor? I can't understand why it wouldn't work...

well, Alt-tab didn't really work, so trying to distroy the app was annoying. Unfortunately, this is beyond my control. The Flash wrapper I'm using (SWFXXL) doesn't share the computer very well and I don't have many alternatives. The alternatives either run too slow (Zinc, MDM) or don't work with DRM wrappers (Flash Jester). Sorry.


@Ryan: Thanks for the heads up! :)

[Savant]

I finally played it. I really don't have much to add to what the people above have said so I'll just quickly recap.

I liked it overall, it seemed fun. I think the first level is WAAAY too long. I actually stopped at one point and started looking around the screen to see if I was missing something but, no, the progress bar was filling up it was just really slow.

The crying/happy thing is good but I think it really needs to be played up more. have the finished happy face fly off into space or into the progress bar or something. Make it mean something more than it does right now.

I was impressed that you made the Tetris Attack swap style work with a mouse - I always wanted to try this but I could never convince myself that it would be viable (after hours and hours on my GameBoy Advance). But it is. Nicely done!

I think the music could use some changing and I really do agree about the backgrounds. They should be animated, even in some small way (panning clouds or whatever). They look like they want to move.

[soniCron]

I was impressed that you made the Tetris Attack swap style work with a mouse - I always wanted to try this but I could never convince myself that it would be viable (after hours and hours on my GameBoy Advance). But it is. Nicely done! Thank you! :) It was a lot of hard work and there were many limitations which restricted the gameplay because I used such a control method, but I am satisfied with the result. When I decided to use a single click swapping mechanism, the association with Tetris Attack became apparent. Another aspect of Tetris Attack that was ultimately pushed out of the game was the bottom-rising tile mechanic (as opposed to the top-dropping tiles). I had originally used this mechanic because it led to more predictable gameplay results, but decided against it when the similarities with Tetris Attack became too strong. (And it was actually Collapse that originally planted the seed, not Tetris Attack.) Nevertheless, it is very interesting to see how similar the two games function, especially since Jeweltopia evolved to its current state without intentional influence from Tetris Attack.


...I really do agree about the backgrounds. They should be animated, even in some small way (panning clouds or whatever). They look like they want to move. I really want to add animations to the backgrounds. (Bubbles for the underwater scene, clouds for the hilly countryside, falling flower petals for the spring tree, etc.) However, I fear that with the existing speed issues, this will only hurt the game. That said, if I am able to wrangle the system requirements to a more reasonable level, I will certainly devote serious time to background animations, because you're right, they're screaming for life!

Thanks for your feedback! :)

[Bmc]

just a little curious
from your posts I'm gettting the impression that Jeweltopia came into being like Tetris Attack by accident... was it also coincidence that the "jewels" in your game are the exact same as the tiles found in Tetris Attack?

in case anyone doesn't remember what Tetris Attack looks like

http://duality.quadoshock.com/wp-content/images/photos/ucb-graduation-sp2005/tetris-attack.png

[soniCron]

just a little curious
from your posts I'm gettting the impression that Jeweltopia came into being like Tetris Attack by accident... was it also coincidence that the "jewels" in your game are the exact same as the tiles found in Tetris Attack? Yes, in a manner of speaking. I had originally used jewels similar to those found in Bejeweled (in fact, I used the actual jewels from Bejeweld as placeholders), but decided against those for several reasons: They didn't fill the grid acceptibly -- I found there to be too much white space between the jewels, and it wasn't very cohesive to the type of gameplay I was using (matching). The fun animations looked silly -- squishing and distoring regular jewels just doesn't feel right
My time budget for graphics and animation was slim -- I needed to make the graphics as simply and quickly as possible
I had modeled some basic jewels but didn't appreciate the way they rendered -- It was difficult to make them shade in an interesting and attractive manner.

At the point I started plugging in my basic renders, I found that only the square jewel looked good. As additional placeholders, I swapped out the remaining jewels and replaced them with hue-modified square jewels. (Which were originally red.) After some time, I felt that with minor modification for color blind people -- adding abstract shapes to the surface -- these were the most visually effective and appealing jewel graphics I could have made. I used basic primary and secondary colors (red, green, blue, yellow, purple, etc.) and decorated them with patently obvious shapes: A heart on red, a star on yellow, etc. In the end, the result was a logical series of tiles that I feel anyone could have developed independently. (As is evidenced by my own development.)

As far as the game evolving to be similar to Tetris Attack, the most significant shared feature is the vertical grid, and this was chosen after a lot of trial and error. Square grids were too complex and wide grids didn't afford the player enough time to act. I could have rotated the playfield 90 degrees, but a sideways moving mechanic felt weird and wasn't condusive to coherent physics, as is found in the existence of gravity in the game. In addition, it didn't work with the horizontal swapping mechanic. (The player needed the capacity to move jewels opposite the direction they naturally fell.)

In the end, I believe Nintendo and I both made very intentional and logical evolutions that would fully benefit the styles of games we developed. They chose a single direction swapping mechanic for technical reasons, I chose it for my audience. They chose a vertical grid because of the gravity components, as did I. The same can be said about any of the similarities of the two games -- they all evolved to support and enhance the primary gameplay mechanic.

However, my underlying goal when I started out with a simple Bejeweled clone was to create a contemplative game that was distilled into its most basic components, each of which further supported the other elements in order to create a cohesive gaming experience that was simple to learn and difficult to master. I did sacrifice an important feature (the bottom-rising jewel row mechanic) that I feel would have made Jeweltopia an even more fun and engaging game, in order to avoid stepping on Nintendo's toes too much, because I very much respect their deep thought into the development of their games. Short of the way new jewels are introduced into the game, I wouldn't change anything about Jeweltopia's mechanics, and I am beyond satisfied with the result. I am greatful that my gameplay evolution is validated by an existing product that I respect by a company I greatly value, though I think there is little comparison between our two products beyond the superficial. (Anyone disagree?)

The popping sounds, however, were specifically chosen as an homage to the Tetris Attack franchise! Viva la Nintendo! :)

[Bmc]

I can see someone coming up with a heart on red, and a star on yellow independently... but come on, every tile is the exact same, except for the square on the green doesn't have the rounded corners.

the grid size is basically the exact same, the tiles "pop" the exact same.

[soniCron]

basically, you made a nice Tetris Attack clone and slapped on a few meta-mechanics, which is fine. I don't see why you need to spout all this bs about your (non-existant) process... I suspect you don't understand how Jeweltopia is supposed to be played if you insist it is a Tetris Attack clone with slapped on meta-mechanics. I urge you to play again, possibly at a higher level, to see how the similarities are merely superficial. (Not unlike how all shooters have guns.) If you still feel the game is Tetris Attack plus meta-mechanics, I would appreciate it if you could quantify that statement with examples that extend into the primary game mechanics, and not the operations used to support those mechanics. (Tile swapping.) In my opinion, comparing the two games is not unlike comparing Checkers and Chess -- they may look, and even act, similar, but the fundamental mechanics are so different that there is no question to each game's uniqueness.

[Bmc]

I suspect you don't understand how Jeweltopia is supposed to be played if you insist it is a Tetris Attack clone with slapped on meta-mechanics. I urge you to play again, possibly at a higher level, to see how the similarities are merely superficial. (Not unlike how all shooters have guns.) If you still feel the game is Tetris Attack plus meta-mechanics, I would appreciate it if you could quantify that statement with examples that extend into the primary game mechanics, and not the operations used to support those mechanics. (Tile swapping.) In my opinion, comparing the two games is not unlike comparing Checkers and Chess -- they may look, and even act, similar, but the fundamental mechanics are so different that there is no question to each game's uniqueness.

here are the main differences between the 2 games.

Tetris Attacks
-it plays faster, tiles constantly rise from the bottom

Jeweltopia
-it plays slower, tiles fall from the top when you swap 2 tiles or when you click

everything else is the same or irrelevant

I'm not really interested in discussing this further because it will derail your thread even more

[soniCron]

I can see someone coming up with a heart on red, and a star on yellow independently... but come on, every tile is the exact same, except for the square on the green doesn't have the rounded corners. Oh, dear. I didn't realize the tiles were that similar! Thank you for pointing this out. I don't think it's impossible to decide to use the same colors (primary and secondary), nor is it impossible to assume the same shapes would be used (square, circle, triangle, star, heart, etc.). However, I did not realize that my tiles were exact duplicates verbatim, down to color + shape combinations. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, and you can bet I'll be rectifying this immediately!

I only consciously noticed the heart and star shapes were on identical colors, because they were obvious. I didn't bother checking the other tiles because, like you, I assumed it was an impossibility to come up with the same combinations. In retrospect, it would have been wise to intentionally avoid this similarity. Again, thank you for bringing this to my attention, and rest assured I will modify them appropriately.

the grid size is basically the exact same... You will find 6-tile-wide boards used many times over in the match-n world, so this is certainly not a first.

...the tiles "pop" the exact same Again, this was an intentional addition. To be honest, however, I didn't have much choice. Of all the sounds on the sound effect CD I've got, only the popping sounds were appropriate for tile removal. (The explosions, strangely, felt out of place! ;))

[soniCron]

Just know that I think you've made a nice game, but I also think 95% of what you post (especially in this thread about your "process") is bs. Thank you. But please be aware that I may be many unpleasant things (too straightforward, inconsiderate, intolerable), but a liar I am not. I have been nothing but sincere and honest with this community from the beginning, and I will not tolerate you calling me a liar. I am firm about this when I say: If you hear something from me, you can bet you life that it's the truth. Whether you chose to believe that is your own problem. However, my honesty is not, nor has it ever been, a point of debate, and I will adamantly defend it if need be. It is an important part of my life; something of which I am very proud. Please understand why I find your assertion so insulting.

In addition, I appreciate your consideration for the thread and your desire to not derail it. Please contact me through PM or IM if you would like to discuss this further.

[steve bisson]

@sonicron

man you like to post ! :)

[soniCron]

man you like to post ! :) :) Well, I like to think that other beginners would find my development process an informative read. I know there is very little specific information written in the way games have been developed, and I'd like to contribute to that void. If my description of my process has been of help to just one person, then it wasn't a waste of time. Of course, it should be understood that this is my first game, and as such, I made many of the same errors as many others, so the content should be taken with a grain of salt. But, all in all, I like to believe it's somewhat useful!

And I'm taking a little time off today. :)

[Gilzu]

I disabled fullscreen clicking on that message when it first pops up, because I didn't want someone accidentally dismissing it immediately after it pops up. However, why it didn't work when it asked you to click...I don't know. Do you recall if it had a hand cursor or the regular arrow cursor? I can't understand why it wouldn't work...

A regular arrow.

[soniCron]

A regular arrow. Thank you. I am looking into this.

[Grey Alien]

seems well made and "Big", lots of good points but it's the bad you need to know, I know others have said similar but heres mine:

Does it run? Yes
Does it run well? Yes
What do you think of the gameplay? Bit boring/slow
Is it too easy or too hard? easy but long-winded
Did you enjoy yourself? hmm, not sure :-|

- On the title page the first hint box obscures the game title.
- The arrow that points to adventure isn't anti-aliased.
- In game music is good but I don't think it's suitable for this type of game as it's too in your face.
- Shame you can't make vertical swaps. How? I don't know.
- Weird process of filling up a heart to make a face happy, this resets and fills up the main bar. Why?
- Quite often I have made all posible matches and find my self pointelessly swapping two bloks until the hold runs out and the next line falls down.
- The match glint is nice but the whole matches disappearing thing is way too slow, I'm bored waiting for them all to pop, I just want to carry on playing. Maybe it would be good to allow moves to be made whilst the others are popping. This was a very important thing in my match-3, it was hard to program out all the possible bugs though.
- Level took too long and 2nd one look the same, I quit then.

Hope you manahge to refine this and make some sales, all the best.

[Nauris]

Am I the only one who really likes the music? Its not even my type of music, yet I think it gives great mood and fits game well.

Grey Alien has point about err..pointless-ness of face filling up. Perhaps when its filled up and smiles you get some kind of bonus? Gift?

And yeh, its not obvious that you can make gems fall even if you have holds. It has to be tutorial-boxed :)

[jankoM]

I like the musc too

[Tom Gilleland]

Okay, I'm currently swamped at the moment so I could only do a quick review. The way I see it; if soniCron can comment on every single post on this board, then I can at least make the time to do a little review of his game. So here's my random impressions:

----

Fun music - may be a bit too strong for your diaper demographic, and it got a little annoying to me after awhile. Good for intro, then shift to something more soothing.

Change your company logo down on the bottom left to the name of the game. I can see why you want the company name reinforced constantly, but it seems like it should have the game name there. (Or maybe both) How about a dissolve or morph between the two?

Fun clean animations, clean art style, classic Flash. I like it that you have something moving on all screens all the time.

Playback was fine on a Windows XP 2.2 Ghz machine.

High energy is good.

Use anti-aliased numbers on the score. Do it as art members not text.

On match animations, have the items pop away, 1,2,3 and then have a single animation of hearts go off. This would speed things up.

Chain reactions hearts should animate all together after a set of chain reactions have happened. It seems like it takes too long for the current set.

Add some randomness to the frown/smile face animations. This whole face thing is a bit confusing. It was not clear to me what made the face happy or sad. Of course I didn't read any docs or anything, as is the case with most casual players. I don’t like the face going all negative all the time. I think the crying has a subliminal relation to crying babies. And to the diaper demographic this is probably even more the case. Good thing there is no smell output device on PCs or you would have to include a poopy diaper smell routine. :eek:

Clicking on a message windows should make them go away.

What's with the game icon that looks like a "XXL" on a monitor. Are you trying to say the players of this game are fat (they wear double extra large clothing)? :confused:

And then I got a phone call and forgot to quit the game, so my trial period was over…

When I tried to run it again, I got the intro screen and then I went to a screen that said "Trial Over" and some text. You need to add a button here to go purchase the full game.

And then after awhile I got a Flash Player error saying that some script is making my machine run slowly. Look into this.

Overall, I think you did a really good job.

Tom

[tolik]

Doh, I'm disappointed.

Here goes another Tetris Attack game after:

Romero's Congo Cube (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/puzzle/congocube/index.html, get it from RealArcade)
Zylom's Cosmic Switch (http://www.en.zylom.com/game/56/cosmic-switch.html)
Zylom's Honey Switch (http://www.en.zylom.com/game/238/honey-switch.html)

and other countless almost direct "clones".

I would say that production values are low - quite typically for a Flash game.
Also, size, for some reason, is enormous... I guess it's all about low quality MP3 music - may be you should change Flash wrapper to better one (contact me for some tips if you care) to support module music.

When I first started at "casual" space, I also thought that TA is a great game. The more I analyzed and though about it, the more complex it was. Combos, chains, puzzles, whatever...
Congo Cube came out and then Zylom's games that even allow web-2-offline multiplayer play. Mostly it was B- flop.
Removing all original game features doesn't make sense - it becomes quite a tasteless game and "horizontal ONLY" swap is just too hard to get for casual players. Puyo Puyo clones like Candy Crisis also fall underneath "too hard for casual" mechanics. I've got couple of prototypes and graphic sets for TA-like game, but ultimately I abandoned the idea. It needs different mechanics. Casual ones.

A really great game fixing all the TA mechanics is coming out soon (and it's not mine) ending all the endless "TA sucks for casual" talks.

[Sean Doherty]

It appears that I had my expextations set way to high. Sorry, I guess I was expecting something very unique and different from you. The game it self is fine but it is not something that I would have expected.

Good Work dispite my high expectations.

[soniCron]

I would say that production values are low - quite typically for a Flash game. Thank you. That was the goal: To replace expensive production with affordable and fun "charm." (Why the game "feels" good.)

Also, size, for some reason, is enormous... I guess it's all about low quality MP3 music - may be you should change Flash wrapper to better one (contact me for some tips if you care) to support module music. Thank you for your offer, but I have no interest in supporting such a limited music format. The choice to use full, streaming rock music was very intentional.

Removing all original game features doesn't make sense - it becomes quite a tasteless game and "horizontal ONLY" swap is just too hard to get for casual players. I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that it was too hard for casual players, unless you're using the above cited examples as "proof." And if that's the case, I'd have to disagree vehemently. Those games did everything wrong: Neither Switch game had any semblance of an attractive-to-casual-players theme (space on one and both had impossible-to-see tiles) and Congo almost had it, but lost it with the controls and lack of character. And all said games implimented fatal error number one: Using the speed as the gauge of difficulty, not the number of different tiles introduced. This immediately hurts the casual player: Finding matches is an order of magnitude (quite literally) more difficult than it has to be. And they all failed to impliment a solid control scheme, which I feel is the most valuable part of Jeweltopia.

The version of Jeweltopia that was announced on these forums was at an awkward crossroads, and many of the problems that consistently plagued players have since been fixed or changed and were quite anomalous in the progression of development. I strongly believe Jeweltopia will be a strong contender on the casual platform when it is complete and I think the next iteration will reflect that.

Nevertheless, thank you for your time and feedback! :)

[soniCron]

It appears that I had my expextations set way to high. Sorry, I guess I was expecting something very unique and different from you. The game it self is fine but it is not something that I would have expected. A lot of people were disappointed. Some because it was a match three, some because they expected better production. The production is still in flux, so the end result has yet to be seen. However, the fact that it is a match three is insignificant. Surely, you don't expect this is the last game you'll see from me, do you? :)

I wanted to begin by releasing something that had half a chance of making money, and that meant it was important I strongly considered the casual game space. As such, I didn't want to create "just another clone." While this turned out to be rather derivative, I'm satisfied that it explores itself a little more than many other "clones" do.

However, I've got several games still in development, and only one (maybe two) has been designed for the casual audience. The others were designed for a more core audience. And those, I suspect, will appeal to the Indiegamer developers a little more than Jeweltopia. After all, it wasn't my intention to appeal to you guys with this title, and if it had, I would be rather worried about my ability to analyse the casual audience! :)

The upcoming beta 2 of Jeweltopia transforms itself into a much more casual-friendly title, while still retaining its ability to stump even the deepest of thinkers. It will be out very soon, and I think people will find it even more charming than this latest iteration.

If you'd like a taste of what's to come for the core audience, have a look at this curious game in development (http://www.solaristudios.com/bloxen-shot.jpg). ;)

Thanks for your time and feedback, Sean! :)

[Savant]

One idea I'll throw out here is to say: Have you considered changing how the matches are made? If you counted any group of 3 or more adjacent matches as being removable, that would add an element of strategy to it that might be missing now.

I hope I'm explaining that reasonably. Like in Collapse or Big Money - any group of cells that match that are touching and number more than 3 will remove themselves. That was my instinct when I first fired up the game so it might be something to explore rather than stick to the vertical/horizontal matching.

[soniCron]

Thank you for the suggestion, Savant. Interesting you should mention that, because a tester tried the game out last night and she expected that same behavior. I'm seriously considering that change. I've also toyed with the idea of chaning the control scheme to the more traditional drag (ala Bejeweled). I don't think the two would work together (though it's worth a shot), but I'm going to be playing around with those ideas a little bit. Would you be interested in testing the three various iterations when they're ready? :)

[tolik]

Thank you. That was the goal: To replace expensive production with affordable and fun "charm." (Why the game "feels" good.)


In the pre-production stages artist tried making same style graphics, but they were called "cheap crap" and not "charming" from the perspective of casual people who've seen them.


Thank you for your offer, but I have no interest in supporting such a limited music format. The choice to use full, streaming rock music was very intentional.


Module music depends on a music artist. Good module music isn't cheap, but it pays of in a long run when the download size saves few megs (and $$$).
I couldn't call 22KHz mono "full streaming rock". It's 1/4th of a rock.


I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that it was too hard for casual players, unless you're using the above cited examples as "proof." And if that's the case, I'd have to disagree vehemently.


Nah, get 5 soccer moms and see what they say after 5 minutes. They say "I don't get it". "Classic" Match-3 is so popular now because it's a common mechanics that doesn't require re-adjusting "brains". While classic match-3 game ALWAYS allows to make 1 swap to get a match, in TA after 5 swaps present on the screen you'll have to move multiple block to get a match = difficult since it requires real understanding of what's happening. And the understanding is "NO MORE MOVES". I'm sorry, but this isn't casual.


Those games did everything wrong: Neither Switch game had any semblance of an attractive-to-casual-players theme (space on one and both had impossible-to-see tiles)


Yeah, space sucks, but Honey one isn't that bad besides insects that everyone hates unless they are as cute as Beetle Bomp.


and Congo almost had it, but lost it with the controls and lack of character.


I would say that Congo's control scheme makes the game more casual than standard "swap horizontally" but misses initial tutorial screen and good cursor/grid indicator. The game is much easier to play, however speed is the real bottleneck.
I missed your point "lack of character", as Congo has a great Monkey that could easily compete with Ewoke from Magic Match.
Congo's production value is top-notch though.


And all said games implimented fatal error number one: Using the speed as the gauge of difficulty, not the number of different tiles introduced. This immediately hurts the casual player: Finding matches is an order of magnitude (quite literally) more difficult than it has to be.


I agree on that part when looking at Congo. BUT: too much falling stuff from the top is more agressive in your game than default first 5 minutes (that ARE an initial game impression) in Honey Switch where stuff SLOWLY goes up from the bottom.


And they all failed to impliment a solid control scheme, which I feel is the most valuable part of Jeweltopia.


I see no difference in control scheme between Jeweltopia and Honey Switch.


The version of Jeweltopia that was announced on these forums was at an awkward crossroads, and many of the problems that consistently plagued players have since been fixed or changed and were quite anomalous in the progression of development. I strongly believe Jeweltopia will be a strong contender on the casual platform when it is complete and I think the next iteration will reflect that.

Nevertheless, thank you for your time and feedback! :)

I wish you great luck :)

[EJSainz]

Hello, EJSainz here,

I've played the game for just some minutes, and found some minor troubles and a big good thing. Let's go for good: the game has something. I don't know what it is, but the game has something that catches. I don't think it's something in particular: lately I've seen just too many games like this. But this one has that something that will make me play a second time (I'll come with more feedback then).

Now for the troubles:
1) The tutorial text gets in the middle, and, for some reason, I thought I just had to click to take it off, and did some vain clicks before I noticed I could keep on playing.
2) Sometimes I had, for example 6 holds and only 3, all different, tiles on the set. Had to swap them 6 times to get the next row. Maybe there's someway to force the next row go down, but if there is (and I think there should be), it wasn't that intuitive to find.

I'll come back with more feedback as I play a bit more, but my first impression is rather good ... and right now that's not so easy.

[EJSainz]

OK, definitelly your game is both fun and absorving, but it would be nice to explain the Hold behaviour, since it's a very important element in the strategy: how you get holds, how many of them, and, more important, show when the hold is going to start working:
1) if you had 0 holds and you get 3 new holds, the next row will fall
2) if you had 1 holds and you gain 2 new holds, the next row will not fall because you had 1 holds before

in both cases, you look at your holds and there are 3 holds at the end of your movement: nothing indicates if the row will be falling or not. I think that it could be a little more clear by, for example, making the next-row iles vibrate if they are going to fall. ¡It's very strange to see you have died with 8 holds!

And again, there should be some panic button to consume all holds an make the rows fall inmediately. It would be of great help, at least at the first levels.

Finally, one strange bug: every time I've beaten a level it read I got a bronze (3) medal, but in the selection screen I've got many silver medals ... a minor bug, that I'm sure can be easily corrected.

[soniCron]

...the game has something. I don't know what it is, but the game has something that catches. I don't think it's something in particular: lately I've seen just too many games like this. But this one has that something that will make me play a second time...definitelly your game is both fun and absorving... Thank you! That's really great to hear! :) I don't know if you like the gameplay or the presentation, but I was trying really hard to bypass a huge production budget and focus very strongly on the interactivity and "life" of the game and the way it responds to the player. There are still many things that are left to be done, but I feel there is a solid foundation to work with. Thanks again! :)

As per the hold behavior, this is still in flux. That is why the tutorials don't accurately reflect the way the game should be played. However, the current version is vastly improved in this regard, and the tutorials (all that remains before the next beta) are being updated to reflect that. This release was mostly a technical test and sanity check.

And again, there should be some panic button to consume all holds an make the rows fall inmediately. It would be of great help, at least at the first levels. It wasn't explained in the tutorials, but you can click the row of jewels at the top to drop them early, and it doesn't use your holds! :)

Finally, one strange bug: every time I've beaten a level it read I got a bronze (3) medal, but in the selection screen I've got many silver medals ... a minor bug, that I'm sure can be easily corrected. This is news to me, and I'll be looking into it. While the medal system hasn't been calibrated correctly, I'm surprised you are getting errors. Are you sure you didn't replay them and get silvers later on?

Thanks for your time and your feedback! There will be a greatly updated beta release soon (tomorrow?), and I would appreciate your feedback on that as well. Thanks again! :)

[Sharpfish]

There will be a greatly updated beta release soon (tomorrow?), and I would appreciate your feedback on that as well. Thanks again! :)

Have you managed to address the speed issues on < 800mhz crap(ie duron/celeron) CPUs? If not I may give it a whirl on one of my other systems because I'm very interested in actually giving it a play rather than a stare this time ;)

[soniCron]

Have you managed to address the speed issues on < 800mhz crap(ie duron/celeron) CPUs? It's quite a process to transfer the game to my old 500MHz K6, so I haven't tested it on that yet, but Andy tried it on one of his (old) computers and said it ran fine. If you contact me through IM, I will send you a copy so I can make sure the problem really has been resolved. Thanks! :)

[EJSainz]

Thank you! That's really great to hear! :) I don't know if you like the gameplay or the presentation, but I was trying really hard to bypass a huge production budget and focus very strongly on the interactivity and "life" of the game and the way it responds to the player. There are still many things that are left to be done, but I feel there is a solid foundation to work with. Thanks again! :)

You are welcome. About what do I like from the game, I don't exactly know what is it: presentation is great, very rich on effects (love the shrinking of pieces when swapping: it's as simple as effective, and it just doesn't overload the action), and gameplay is simple, yet the hold system seems to promise deeper challenge.

Plus, when playing I feel like I am the one that controls the outcome. Much of the last mach-3 games I've played lately generate random filling and you simply can't do anything about it: only luck (or an evil pseudo-random number generator) seemed to decide if I was to get the match I was in need of.

Thus, having the sensation of control over the future has become a very important fact for me: in your game, if I lose it's just because I did wrong, not because I was unlucky; therefore, trying to play better makes sense, not like in other games where the sensation is that playing better or worse just doesn't make any difference.

It wasn't explained in the tutorials, but you can click the row of jewels at the top to drop them early, and it doesn't use your holds! :)

I wish I had known! So many holds wasted ...

This is news to me, and I'll be looking into it. While the medal system hasn't been calibrated correctly, I'm surprised you are getting errors. Are you sure you didn't replay them and get silvers later on?

Absolutely. I just played levels on and on until the trial time expired :P ... which happened so soon ...

Thanks for your time and your feedback! There will be a greatly updated beta release soon (tomorrow?), and I would appreciate your feedback on that as well. Thanks again! :)

Sure!

[Sharpfish]

It's quite a process to transfer the game to my old 500MHz K6, so I haven't tested it on that yet, but Andy tried it on one of his (old) computers and said it ran fine. If you contact me through IM, I will send you a copy so I can make sure the problem really has been resolved. Thanks! :)

WEll I really don't know what it is then. This machine has a GF4ti4200 128mb (So hardly a "casual" users card even though it would be laughed at by hardcore users). The cpu being 800mhz itself may not be the problem, but my ram speeds and L2 Cache of the duron etc. Of course I purposely hang onto this old machine for development reasons. ;)

I had re-installed winxp (pro+sp2) recently and have had no problems with any other game. However I have noticed larger FLASH based stuff doesn't run as fast/smooth as it could compared to my amd64 laptop.

Oh and I don't have IM (or any instant messaging gizmos) installed now because I have "cleansed" my system.

I will check out the next one, i'll let you know if it's still the same speed wise but I won't go on about it. Maybe it is just something weird with my system. You'll obviously know more once released and those "football mothers" get it downloaded to their celery 1ghz + intel intergrated graphics en masse.

[EJSainz]

WEll I really don't know what it is then. This machine has a GF4ti4200 128mb (So hardly a "casual" users card even though it would be laughed at by hardcore users). The cpu being 800mhz itself may not be the problem, but my ram speeds and L2 Cache of the duron etc. Of course I purposely hang onto this old machine for development reasons. ;)

I'd suggest that you compare the CAPS of your videocards, for SoniCron may be using some special hardware supported operation that your graphics card may not be supporting.

This can be done with the DirectX Caps Viewer, a little utility from the DirectX SDK.

[Sharpfish]

I'd suggest that you compare the CAPS of your videocards, for SoniCron may be using some special hardware supported operation that your graphics card may not be supporting.

This can be done with the DirectX Caps Viewer, a little utility from the DirectX SDK.

I know the caps viewer.

Mind you, I doubt that Daniel is using ANY obscure gfx card features (though I could be wrong) and I put it down to my test system having slow memory, slow CPU, small cache/s and slow bus speeds not getting along with his particular brand of full screen, bitmap filled, flash app.

Besides, my card is probably one of the most common out there (lots of hand me down systems but still more powerful than most integrated graphics) so I doubt the card is the problem, though it could be the drivers.

I still think it's purely bandwidth/bus related (combined with a full screen flash app which others have said is CPU intensive?). Of course if this is a problem worth fixing for a presumably "casual" game is for the big "D" to decide!

I am going to play the next version on my laptop which should run it fine (amd64, radeon9700). However I was more interested in just letting him know that there is a problem on an "old but still powerful enough to run ut2004 well" system.

BTW Daniel - what card DO you use for testing/developing this with and does it run in software as a fallback (or solely)?

[Martoon]

For those of you on laptops: Your speed stepping may be the cause of the slowdown. Even though you've got an insanely fast processor, the computer will halve or quarter your processor speed if it's under heavy load. (Kind of negates the purpose of having a fast processor if they won't let you use it!) I know of no workarounds for this, and this is an issue that affects any CPU intensive task on such laptops. (Try rending a 3D scene on one and watch it slow to a crawl as it progresses.) It may be possible to bypass this setting by changing your power saving features to Always On. (Maybe.)

Is this a "feature" of some laptops that I'm not aware of? With all of the laptops I'm familiar with, the opposite is true. Speedstepping throttles down the speed of the processor when it's not under load to conserve power (no sense having the CPU spin its wheels at full speed when it's idle), then steps up the speed when the percent of CPU utilization goes above some threshold.

[soniCron]

The cpu being 800mhz itself may not be the problem... Oh, it most likely is. The entire game was written in Flash, and flash is all about the CPU. There is no hardware acceleration. (Unless Flash utilizes MMX, SSE, etc.) So nothing is going wrong with DX caps (it's all GDI drawing, I believe).

BTW Daniel - what card DO you use for testing/developing this with and does it run in software as a fallback (or solely)? I have a GeForce FX 5200 on my main development PC (2.66GHz) and an ATI Rage Pro on my low end (500MHz K6) testing PC. And as I said earlier, the game uses the GDI to draw. I got sloppy with this title: Because my action title was able to run fine on the 500MHz machine, I figured, surely Jeweltopia would, too! However, it appears it was some sort of anomaly, and I believe it has been fixed. We'll know for sure once you run it.

Is this a "feature" of some laptops that I'm not aware of? With all of the laptops I'm familiar with, the opposite is true. Speedstepping throttles down the speed of the processor when it's not under load to conserve power (no sense having the CPU spin its wheels at full speed when it's idle), then steps up the speed when the percent of CPU utilization goes above some threshold. I may have incorrectly identified it as "speedstepping," but the effect is what I described. I've experienced this on several laptops. However, it only seems to exist with applications that require 100% CPU use. It's been confirmed by other developers (where the power settings workaround/suggestion comes from). That said, it may have something to do with the CPU getting too hot in these machines, not power saving. Sorry I don't know more about the problem -- I can only identify the circumstances in which it occurs. (And it's rather inappropriate, as it'll work fine for 30-60 seconds, then painfully slow down.)

[Sharpfish]

Oh, it most likely is. The entire game was written in Flash, and flash is all about the CPU. There is no hardware acceleration. (Unless Flash utilizes MMX, SSE, etc.) So nothing is going wrong with DX caps (it's all GDI drawing, I believe).


That's what I thought (not dx/gpu hardware related) - to clarify my 800mhz point, I thought maybe it wasn't the 800mhz per se but the fact it's an 800mhz sub-par-duron with missing cpu features and limited caching. For instance an 800mhz P3 or whatever "may" just be ok.. You say Andy ran it on a slow cpu and it was fine!? but as I don't know what mhz we are talking I am shooting in the dark. I suppose some people consider 1ghz low these days.

Good luck with new version. :)

[EJSainz]

Mind you, I doubt that Daniel is using ANY obscure gfx card features (though I could be wrong) and I put it down to my test system having slow memory, slow CPU, small cache/s and slow bus speeds not getting along with his particular brand of full screen, bitmap filled, flash app.

That changes everything: I'm so used to my good old DirectX engine that I always point to the same direction :P .