[Feedback Request] Pile & Pop

[BitBoy]

Hi everybody! I'm finally about to release my game Pile & Pop, but before I make it available for the general public I would love to get some feedback from all you guys (and the occasional gal). I bet you will find lots of stuff that I haven't thought about!

First of all, here are all the links:
Game information page (http://www.bitbliss.com/pilepop)
Screenshot 1 (http://www.bitbliss.com/images/PilePop1Full.gif)
Screenshot 2 (http://www.bitbliss.com/images/PilePop2Full.gif)
Screenshot 3 (http://www.bitbliss.com/images/PilePop3Full.gif)
Download link for Windows version (http://www.bitbliss.com/download/download.php?file=PilePopDemoSetup.exe) (4.4 MB)
Download link for MacOS X version (http://www.bitbliss.com/download/download.php?file=PilePopDemo.dmg) (5.3 MB)

The game is a casual match-4 game (note that it's not a match-3! :)). I tried to design the game for short lunchbreak gaming sessions, which is reflected by the lack of any long-time goals in the game (except beating your own highscore). I sorta regret this now, since a lot of other games have worldmaps, collectibles and whatnot, whereas Pile & Pop falls a bit short in this department. You live and you learn I guess.

I'm interested in both technical and gameplay issues. Does the game run? Is the gameplay easy to grasp? Are there enough instruction screens, or too many? Is the game fun? Is it too hard? Is 60 minutes of demo time too much? Do you think the game will sell? If not, then why?

So bring it on! I want to hear all your opinions, good as well as bad (although the "OMG, not another color matcher!" is getting old! ;)).

[papillon]

Can I say "OMG, an Astro Pop clone!" (upside down) instead? :)

I was never any GOOD at Astro Pop or any of the Magical Drop style games, but I'll give it a look...

For some reason I find the use of yellow in the background offputting. It feels harsh to my eyes. Also, the red letters in the help texts are, for me, harder to read rather than standing out as important. That font/size/color combination isn't working for me. I CAN read them, but it's more difficult than the black letters.

I eventually noticed from the thing on the side that I had progressed through several 'levels'. But I've been given no clear indication of passing these levels and no feeling of reward, just the sense that this game goes on forever like this. Even if you aren't actually stopping and moving around a world map between levels, can you do more to show that progress is being made? I don't have time to look at that side measure all the time while I'm playing arcade mode...

Without a better sense of achievement, I felt bored and quit after about 10 'levels'. It just felt like it was going to keep going and going and never get anywhere.

I'd like to see the bricks actually traveling through the air instead of instantly appearing at their destination - it makes things feel more solid.

So I guess my end verdict is... even though I'm *terrible* at it, I'd rather play Astro Pop. :)

[BitBoy]

Yep, the game is heavily inspired by AstroPop. I really liked that game actually, and I'm surprised by the lack of AstroPop clones, compared to other color matchers. I'm guessing it's because the game play uses both mouse buttons, which supposedly is a big no-no. That, and the fact that AstroPop was less successful than Bejewled (well, that goes for most games I guess).

EDIT:
You're quite right feeling that the game simply goes on and on - it does! The reason that I don't stress the level ups more is that they're really not that important. The game doesn't change in any big way at later levels (although you get a new power up every five levels). I try to reward achievements by showing flattering messages, but that doesn't really take you further in the game. As I said, the game is lacking long-time goals, and without the must-beat-my-old-highscore mentality, the only reason to play the game is to kill some time. But isn't that what a lot of casual games are about? (Not trying to start a flamewar.)

[TheMysteriousStranger]

I like it a lot. It's funny, I never really liked astro-pop, but I can see myself playing this game quite a lot.

I did find a bug - when I used a time-out, a few seconds later I got a tutorial screen about another type of power up (brickrain). I noticed that the time-out timer was still ticking down even though the rest of the game seemed paused.

Also, you might want to up the highscores a little - I placed top of the board on my first go on normal level.

I personally don't have a problem with the yellow background. I think there's enough foreground stuff to obscure the yellow and make it less "in your face". I do agree though that there needs to be a much better indication of level progression. I didn't once notice that I had passed a level in all 15 levels I passed.

[BitBoy]

Nice to hear that you like it! And thanks for reporting that time-out bug, I'll look into it. Probably forgot to check if the game is paused when I decrement the time-out timer. Should be easy to fix.

I intentionally set the default highscores very low, since I don't see any point in having the player work to beat them. Perhaps I'm wrong here. Is it a fun challenge to beat a (moderately) high default highscore table?

[TheMysteriousStranger]

Well, I can't really speak from experience, but I figure it'd be best to have a wider range of scores. So it's easy to get on the table, but moderately difficult (but not hard) to get top slot. The sort of players that go crazy over beating their own high scores are the sort that will get to the top of any score table with ease, but for the rest of us, it's just a nice feeling to manage to go from 2nd place to 1st.

[RohoMech]

Wow, I loved Astropop, and I found this to be as engaging as it, despite the large difference in styles. Good luck with the game, it was quite enjoyable.

[Jamie Cheng]

My first impression is that I like the feel of this game more than Astro Pop, but it's lacking some polish that seems minor, but is really important.

I definitely had some fun playing the demo, but there are a few things that would greatly improve the game, IMHO:

1) When you explode blocks, the sounds are really lacking right now. Play some more Astro Pop, and listen to how it just feels so good to pop blocks. The sounds really need to feel like you *did* something, with more attack, especially when you do combos.

2) I recommend changing "show this again" to "continue showing help", and using a check mark instead of a green circle (which I thought meant "not checked", until I clicked it)

3) I didn't know when I completed a level! In fact, I didn't know I completed any levels until I was at level 8. I would recommend having the level up being much more in your face, with a simple click to continue, to give the player a break and to make it feel like they achieved something.

4) The "Nice!" and "Sweet!" also needs to feel more rewarding (sounds, FX, etc)

5) When my magnet was full and I couldn't pick up any more blocks, it just didn't work, instead of showing me that it tried but couldn't (again, look at AP)

I think I could go on a few more minor points, but all in all, I feel like the game needs to be more visceral -- everything I do should be extremely satisfying, especially the things I do *all the time* like popping blocks (click BOOM! click BOOM! clickBOOMclickBOOMclickBOOMBOOMBOOM). Don't get me wrong though, I dig the game, and just the music makes me want to play this more than AP. I also really digged the charging up of powerups. Nice work.

Hope that helps!

Cheers,
Jamie.

[Sharpfish]

I always liked astro-pop.. something about it's style and frantic gameplay. Have d/l demo will give more feedback tommorow. Looks good though and nice to see you finish your second(?) game after hexvex. :)

edit for bug feedback: Credits/Intro/Help all text was starting to scroll up then dissapeared. I could see the block icons in the help but no text! Can't give more details atm as I'm off somewhere but you may be interested. Nvidia gf4 card, winxpsp2, dx9.0c.


edit2: more serious there is something wrong with all of the sprite drawing, I can't see the blocks properly (ghosted then dissapear). The only thing I saw similar to this was text in my own game on a certain nvidia driver which I had to use d3ddevice->setTexture(0) before the actual texture to work around it. It reminds me of that bug but of course you are not using stuff like that, but it may be useful (not much). Basically though I can't play the game as it is. But what I have seen of it looks really nice and I Like the scrolling full version incentives and the mute button etc.

[Indiepath]

I like this game but I think you might want to consider changing the name, I had to re-read it a few times, I thought it read "Pile of Poop".

You might want to think about some other method of picking up and dropping the objects, my left-handed colleagues could not play the game at all.

Tim.

[BitBoy]

Thanks everybody for your suggestions! I'll definitely consider all of them, and I'm sure the game will become a lot better from it! :)

@TheMysteriousStranger:
I've fixed the time-out bug you spotted. Thanks again for telling me. I've also increased the default highscores, the highest now being 5000, which is a reasonable number I think..?

@RohoMech:
Thanks for telling me you like the game, it's always nice to hear! :)

@Jamie Cheng:
Really great comments! I just did a round of AstroPop to get a feeling for it, and you're right - it definitely pulls you in a lot more than my game. I could try to pack some more punch into the actions, but I don't think I can go too far, given the more casual style/theme of Pile & Pop vs AstroPop.

@Sharpfish:
I'm bummed to hear that you had technical issues. Hard to tell without seeing at least a screenshot (would it be too much trouble to ask for this?), but I'll try the usual it's-your-drivers-not-my-game excuse, although it sounds unlikely that a nVidia driver would have problems with such simple gfx. I AM using hardware acceleration through D3D, so I might try your tip about setTexture(0). Thanks. Btw, does my previous game (Hexvex) work on your computer? I'm guessing not...

@Indiepath:
Umm, Pile of Poop was not the impression I was going for! ;) It's kinda late for a name change though. I actually liked the name Pile & Pop, since it's both catchy and describes the gameplay. Or so I thought...

[Sharpfish]

@Sharpfish:
I'm bummed to hear that you had technical issues. Hard to tell without seeing at least a screenshot (would it be too much trouble to ask for this?), but I'll try the usual it's-your-drivers-not-my-game excuse, although it sounds unlikely that a nVidia driver would have problems with such simple gfx. I AM using hardware acceleration through D3D, so I might try your tip about setTexture(0). Thanks. Btw, does my previous game (Hexvex) work on your computer? I'm guessing not...


A screenshot may not tell the whole story so I took a quick video of it (compressed) it's a bit low quality of course but it's only 1mb. Hope you can view it alright (cinepack/radius codec)

edit > link removed (sent to PM instead.) :)


Download it rather than stream it if you want because I'll remove it later :)

You can see the text coming up in the credits and the tutorial then instantly dissapear, and also the shape of the blocks with "no texture" when playing. So probably is a setTexture prob if you are using D3D. good luck!

edit this is with forceware 81.89. (not old) on a gf4 ti 4200 128mb + dx9.0c. It could be a very rare thing as I have only noticed the "bug" in my early code on this system.. on the ATI (laptop) it was fine. I will check your game on that but I assume it will be fine on there. I had an old driver when I had the problem with my own game (50 something) so it's not the "same driver".

[mooktown]

i really enjoyed magical drop and digby's donuts was ok, for me this game comes somewhere inbetween. i agree about not knowing a levelup had happened, i only noticed that i had gotten to level 14 when the game had ended.

I hate that supposed 2 button barrier, let us know how your sales go and if theyre good i'll add this to my to-clone list ;)

[oldschool]

plays great

i never played this type game before.
I didn't notice the level ups either.

The brick would look even better with some texture to them to break up the look. After a while they start looking like balloons

But otherwise a great game.

good game good luck
ps. could i ask what you coded this in?

[BitBoy]

Dang, I really have to do something about the level ups, since everybody is complaining about that one! :)

@mooktown:
Having my game compared to a Hipsoft game is really flattering. I have huge respect for those guys, they consistently put out very polished games.

I checked out your website, and I must say that both the web design and the screenies for miXem looked really sweet. I'll download miXem and try it out later!

@oldschool:
The first prototype for Pile & Pop involved a junkyard and used cars (hence the magnet). However, I noticed that having a hundred small cars stacked on the screen created way too much details to be enjoyable for your eyes. That's why I made the bricks really simple. Which might be boring, but at least it's pretty easy to look at (I hope).

The game is coded in C++, and uses my own framework for gfx, sound, gui and all kinds of system related stuff.

[mooktown]

The game is coded in C++, and uses my own framework for gfx, sound, gui and all kinds of system related stuff.

wow, I was really convinced that this was using the popcap framework, (i think it was the dialog boxes and options screen layout that did it)

welldone, you had me fooled!

[Anlino]

The graphics looks slick and polished. It seems well presented, and kept me long enough to finish the 1 hour trial. The girl looked nice as well, and added some personality to it. Overall, i quite liked it. I have never played Astro Pop, so i have nothing to compare with, but still.

[Jamie Cheng]

Hey there,

A bit more feedback: I played around with it a bit more, and also showed my girlfriend who loved AstroPop. Her biggest complaint was that there were way too many help popups. After the second popup, she started skimming, and after the 4th she didn't read them at all.

She had no idea the powerups were clickable, and no idea that she was leveling (she lost at level 24, and then said "oh, I only got half the bar", without noticing the "level 24" bit).

Finally, I realized the help popups were *per* help box, so the second time I played it, I had to go through and disable each help box as they came up (remember I thought the check box was disabled by default).

Hope that helps ;)

[Melin]

Don't get me wrong though, I dig the game, and just the music makes me want to play this more than AP.

Hi! I'm Staffan Melin from Melin Music (http://www.melinmusic.com) and I composed the soundtrack for the game. I'm really glad you like it.

I would appreciate if anyone who tried out the game could write a comment or two about the soundtrack as well.


Staffan Melin
Melin Music (http://www.melinmusic.com)

[BitBoy]

I can highly recommend Staffan as a composer! He quickly understood what kind of music I wanted, listened to all my comments and delivered three really great tunes. If you need some music for your games, do yourself a favor and check out Melin Music. And by the way, I'm not the only one (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=3499) that likes Staffan! :)

@Jamie Cheng:
Too many help popups, eh? I know that people don't read help popups (heck, I never read them either), but I can't really take them out without people complaining that there are no help popups. So, I will still keep them, but I'll try to get a "disable all help popups" onto every popup, making it easy to get rid of them all with a single click.

I've already changed the checkbox to actually include a check mark, as you pointed out. That should make it more obvious.

[BitBoy]

(I'm reviving this old thread instead of creating a new one.)

I have spent some time adjusting the game based on the feedback I received in this thread, and have just released a new version. Some stuff I've changed:

* It should be more obvious that you level up.
* You can easily disable all hints at once.
* Found and fixed some minor gameplay bugs.
* Adjusted the difficulty curve a bit.
* The custom cursor is optional.
* The sounds are tweaked and in some cases changed.

I would really appreciate if I could get some feedback on the new version of the game. I will probably release the game like this, as long as you don't convince me otherwise. But please, if you feel the game is lacking something, tell me right now! No point in having the sales figures tell it to me... :)

The download links are the same as in the original post:
Windows version (4.6 MB) (http://www.bitbliss.com/download/download.php?file=PilePopDemoSetup.exe)
MacOS X version (5.3 MB) (http://www.bitbliss.com/download/download.php?file=PilePopDemo.dmg)

One more thing: I've been told that the game doesn't work on Windows 98, which would suck big time. Since I don't have a Win98 machine to try it on, I can't verify this. If anybody has the possibility to try it, please tell me if the game runs or crashes on Win98!

Thanks again,

[Emmanuel]

I gave it a quick play on MacOS X (Tiger, on a Mini), since you're most likely to get Windows testing from others. This feedback applies to both versions though.

I'm not sure what I did, but I switched away to Safari to start typing this post, and when I came back to the game, the play area was all blue (background) with nothing on it. Once I clicked on 'new game', it worked fine again.

The game might work better with a clickthrough tutorial in the first level (pick these tiles up with the left button; now, release them with the mouse button; bravo, you're a great tile mover, etc.) rather than a box with a huge page of text where nothing stands out. I ignored it, figuring that the game would show me, rather than tell me, but by the time I figured out how to release colors, the wall had already started advancing. I did play pick and pile a long time ago, but I don't remember how the controls worked now.

The first levels are way too long. I'm usually guilty of this, but you're worse :) The first payoff should happen a lot sooner so that players have a reason to play the next levels.

You can lose the first levels way too quickly even in normal mode. I'd suggest to show the game to someone who's never played it, and is a casual player, not tell them anything, and let them play. If they lose the first level without understanding 100% how they're supposed to succeed, you should probably tone it down a bit.

You can use some more feedback when succeeding. Right now it doesn't feel very satisfying to make matches.

When you lose, there's no game over sequence? The background is blue and waits for you to press 'new game' again. Maybe that's what happened when I switched to Safari earlier.

Having to match four items instead of three might be extremely unsettling at first. I didn't notice if this is explained somewhere, but you should probably add interactive feedback in the first few levels, like something that says "one more!" on a block of three tiles, "two more!" on a block of two tiles, or whatever. Once the player gets it then it can go away. In theory there is no reason why matching three is better than 4, but this is probably what the players will expect; most games can be solved by matching three gems, fairies, farm animals, whatever.

The fact that you can match in L shapes, etc. should probably be called out.

I originally mistook the level up bar (good) for a timer (bad) due to it being colored red (bad) and looking like a thermometer that shouldn't blow up (bad). Maybe that's me being stupid, though.

The game doesn't flow very well. You have to stop and look hard for matches at times. You may want to help the player locate them so they can keep doing something productive and not just sit there at times. Flow is very important for people to get hooked.

There is zero reward when you complete a level; it just gets harder! At bare minimum, you should have a nice completion effect, jingle, "bravo my lord" :), etc. At best, you would also have something to look forward to; story elements, characters to collect, something like this. It helps motivate the player go through another 10 levels and get hooked.

In technical terms, the game is very smooth, didn't seem to have any major bugs, and worked without any problem whatsoever on the Mini.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[BitBoy]

Thanks Emmanuel for taking time to try the game and posting your thoughts. From what you wrote it's easy to tell that you know what you're talking about and that you have high standards (which is good).

Some of the points you brought up I'm already aware of. Unfortunately I feel that many of these issues are inherent from the game design I've chosen, i.e. play until you die, Tetris-style, and hope you get on the highscore list. There is no intermission between the levels, and there is no reward for "completing" a level, except for a harder challenge. In some ways you might argue that the game is less casual than some other color-matchers in this regard.

I won't respond to all your suggestions, at least not right now (I'm at work), but you've given me a lot to think about. I might not implement them in this game, since it would require a major overhaul of many parts of the game, but when I design my next game I'll definitely have these things in mind from the start! :)

[Emmanuel]

Hi again,

I think most issues aren't related to the game concept and you can fix them. As many people on this board have found out, casual games sales aren't linear but exponential -- the fact that your game is accessible or not, rewarding or not, compelling to keep playing or not, may mean hundreds of times more sales, even if everything else is up to scratch. There is probably no pavlinesque, surgical fix that can increase your sales, but a general approach of giving the player quick understanding of what to do, quick successes, big rewards, and a feeling of progression will make a world of difference. This is obviously your call, but I think it would be a shame not to try to improve this game, as it is otherwise quite nice. At the very bare minimum, you can definitely make the game more accessible and add a nice level up sequence with the existing gameplay and without financing new art.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[20thCenturyBoy]

Hi Bitboy. I downloaded it and it ran fine in the default windowed mode, but when I tried to change to fullscreen via the options menu it crashed. There was a dialog but it was obscured by the remains of the main game window and I couldn't reveal it.

I have the "developers nightmare" system:

Intel Celeron 600Mhz
Intel 82815 graphics with 32MB RAM
DirectX 9.0c
512MB RAM
Win XP SP2
1024x768x16

[20thCenturyBoy]

Ok I managed to get the error in the dialog:

"Exception at line 228 in 'renderdevicedeirect3d8.cpp'
Couldn't reset Direct3D device."

[Frozen In Ice]

OS:Win98SE

Pilepop.exe file is linked to missing export SHELL32.DLL:SHgetFolderPathA

Clicked OK

A device attached to the system is not functioning

Clicked OK

Exited....

Rebooted and uninstalled program.

Hopefully this helps.:)

[BitBoy]

@20thCenturyBoy:
Judging from the error you stated there's an error when resetting the Direct3D device. Strange. I believe that I'm pretty much following the standard procedure, but I might have missed something. I assume that you are able to switch between window/fullscreen mode in all other games, right?

@Frozen In Ice:
Thanks for confirming that the game doesn't run on Win98. I will try to find a test machine with Win98 and fix this error. I had my suspicions that SHGetFolderPath was the villain, but I've read through the MSDN docs like three times and this is what it says:


Minimum operating systems:
Windows 95 with Internet Explorer 5.0, Windows 98 with Internet Explorer 5.0, Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), Windows NT 4.0 with Internet Explorer 5.0, Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 4 (SP4)

From what I can tell that should be satisfied on your computer (with Win98 SE). I must have missed something. Oh well, I'll try to work around it!

[20thCenturyBoy]

@BitBoy - to be honest the machine I tested it on (dev's nightmare :D ) is not my main gaming machine so I don't play other games on it. I also noticed that another game (The Cursed Wheel) which is a PTK game, did not even display anything in windowed mode on the same machine. However it is representative of a lot of machines circa 2000, and I guess there is a lot out there. I'll try some more tonight to see if they work.

[BitBoy]

I'm reviving this thread AGAIN, since I've worked on the game some more and I'm desperate to finally get the Indiegamer Approval (tm). Last revival, I promise! :rolleyes:

The biggest difference is that I've added a bunch of trophies to the game, which you can earn by completing various challenges. For example, there's a trophy for placing first in all highscore lists, one for reaching level 25, one for popping at least ten bricks ten times in a row, etc. All in all there are 13 trophies in the game.

The trophies are an attempt to give the game a more lasting appeal. It was the only (or at least the easiest) solution I could think of to remedy the lack of long term goals, without totally redesigning the gameplay. I hope the time I spent on the trophies is worth it - I personally think it's a nice improvement. (IMHO of course :) )

I also removed the big This-Is-How-You-Play screen at the start of a new game (with had too much text). As a substitute I've added some semi-interactive step-by-step tips as you begin to play the game, like "this is how you lift bricks" then "this is how you drop bricks" and so on. Is this enough to remove the Goddam-I-Just-Wanna-Play-The-Game feeling?

One comment that I can't seem to fix is the lack of reward as you progress through the game. It simply gets harder and harder as you reach increasingly higher levels. That's how the game was designed. It worked for Tetris, right!? I'll definitely design my future games with a more rewarding type of progression, but I can't do much about it in this game. I'm breaking my back trying to throw all kinds of visual and aural flattery at the players when they achieve something. I don't think I can do much else. :(

Finally, is the game too easy? I've made the Easy mode the default mode when you install the game. The reason for this is that you get pretty spectacular chain reactions in Easy mode, even if you're a lousy player! Perfect for making the casual soccer-mom (I'm stereotyping on purpose, chill) go "Heck, I must be awesome at this game!". My only worry is that you can easily see the whole game - including all powerups - during the free demo hour. You CAN'T get all the trophies in one hour though, it's just not possible!

So, if you do try this game and happen to play for the full demo hour, I would love to hear how far you got in the game! And do you feel that there's enough still in the game to make you want to come back for more?

Enough rambling already! Thanks to all who bears with me, and I'm ever grateful for any feedback! :)

[tolik]

12 trophies?
http://www.360monster.com/achievement.php?id=0000000246
Hmm, that's at least 75% creative...
I've seen it half a year ago ;-)

[PoV]

It's funny, but even still Tolik, it's not like trophies/achievements are totally original anyways. Microsofts integration maybe, but thats all. Clearly you guys have the Magical Drop/AstroPop thang covered on Live Arcade, and if the PC casual market dictates a need for more, then groovy.

I don't have the patience to actually download and play it right now, but I do have to say Bitboy, given the generally simple color scheme, I *really* like the art. Very smooth looking. Though it would have been nice to know (in a screenshot) that the portrait actually changes.

[BitBoy]

@tolik:
I'm not really sure what you're saying. That I didn't come up with the concept of trophies myself? Of course I didn't! Trophies have been used in numerous games before. I simply recognized that the concept of trophies would improve my game and then went with it. That it happened to be 13 (not 12) was a combination of me being too lazy/uninspired to make any more and the trophies popup getting crowded. My trophies aren't even close to the trophies listed on that page (except for Brick Basher apparently, which is called Hundred Grand in Pile & Pop), as I've never played the game on LiveArcade, let alone tried LiveArcade in the first place...

@PoV
Thanks for the compliment about the art. I'm a programmer by heart, but since I have no artist on my team (it's just me against the world!), I try to get by with my own programmer's art. It takes way too much time though, especially when it comes to character art (which takes forever compared to generic things like buttons and bricks and stuff). That's the main reason to the lack of animations for the portrait - it's completely static! :(

[dxgame]

"desperate to finally get the Indiegamer Approval.."

Why? We're hardly the demographic. ;)

[redito]

Well I liked it. I'm not a huge fan of matching games but this one was very enjoyable. I tried both modes and liked them both.

I liked the higher and higher sounds when you make multiple combos and matches. Makes me wonder just how high I can make it squeal!

The trophies are good. Very satisfying to see them rack up at the end. And being able to see which ones you are missing gives those competitive types something to aim for.

I played on easy mode and didn't find it too easy. Seemed just right to me for casual gamers with the option of harder modes to work into.

I liked the graphics and fonts for the most part. When I got powerups in the top right hand corner their color didn't seem to completely disappear when I used them. But I could clearly tell when they were full so I don't think it's a huge problem. Plus my video card is a loaner so it's a wee bit funky.

When the game is moving fast it can be hard to tell the row remover from the column remover brick. Maybe just change the colour of one of them. Something a little more visual to tell them apart.

It seemed to me that when the bricks got near the top the game used my powerups even without me clicking on them. Is this intentional to keep dopes like me from losing too quickly? If so, I think it's a good idea.

I didn't really know my score, or care, during the whole game. I knew I was moving up levels so I felt I was making progress. Obviously I was scoring points but right now I can't even remember where the score was on the screen.

I liked the powerups but some of them could have a bit more oomph when they go off. The bomb sound isn't particularly satisfying although the column removal one is. Nit-picking here.

In all this is a good game with real potential. I can think of several people I know who might like this one. Including - maybe - me!

[gummikana]

I enjoyed it. Very nice and slick game.

It was nice to see a game that didn't have all the extra crap between the levels that they usually have. The way the game continues from level to level without a pause, creates a nice flow and pace. For me it was very addicting. The combos are also very nicely done, because of them you get a feeling that your really good at the game.

As redito pointed out, the way power-ups are used when your about to die is a very good idea.

Only problem I encountered was at the begin of the game. I didn't know that the normal and hard difficulty levels were available. Because the buttons where grey I thought I had to unlock them by playing the game at easy level. I don't know if thats a bad thing.

One suggestion on making the player feel that the game is progressing. You could change the background color, when player completes a level. If its too hard to find suitable background colors by hand, you could create a algorithm that creates pastel colors from given level number.

The thing I'm worried about though, is that maybe the players feel that there isn't enough content to justify the cost. Because there's not that many long term goals. I don't know how you could even add more content and keep the slick pace the game has now. Despite this I hope it sells well.

Petri Purho

[BitBoy]

@dxgame:
I think you know what I mean. If the majority of responses here are positive, I know that the game has potential. If the game sucks, I would be told so. People on this forum tend to be honest and not sugarcoat their words, which is a great help if you're interested in actually improving your game, not just hear how nice it is...

@redito:
I'm glad that you like the game! The powerups are indeed used automatically when you're close to being game over, as you point out. I noticed that people often forgot to use the powerups, so I implemented this to help them. I think it works well.

@gummikana:
Good point with the grey difficulty buttons being mistaken for disabled or not available. They do change color when you move the mouse over them though. I'll think about how I could make it more obvious.

Changing backgrounds as you progress would be nice, but also a challenge to design, especially if I need to make a lot of them. Another concern is that the game is already very colorful, and backgrounds for the playfield could take it "over the top". It's a good suggestion nonetheless!