[Feedback Req] Game Prototypes by New Crayon

[Phil Steinmeyer]

I've spent the last few weeks playing with game concepts and prototypes for a new casual game. I'd like you to download them and give me feedback, so I can decide which game(s) are worth pursuing, and where to take them from here.

They're all match-3 casual games, but have anywhere from modest to significant innovation in their mechanics (at least I think so)

You can download the prototypes from here (5.1 MB). What I'd love is for folks to take a look and send me their ratings, from 1 to 10, on the different game concepts. There are 10 main concepts that I'm mainly interested in feedback on, and 6 others (variants, mainly), that are prefixed 'Weak' that you can skip unless you're really interested.

Check them out and send your feedback to me at psteinmeyer A T newcrayon.com (or PM me on this forum). Also, let me know that you saw this here on indiegamer (so I know which responses are from developers as opposed to the semi-general public that may have seen my post on my blog).

More details/description here.

Really lame prototype screenshot here (small)

For those wondering, my LMB/RMB rotate issue, discussed in the design forum, is for GameR (rotate version) and GameO (no-rotate version).

There's a variety of both progressive-fill and always-full concepts here. I started more on the progressive-fill side, but the later concepts are mostly 'always-full', though I'm still open to going either way.

A few of you saw my first round of these, up through roughly 'G', but there's about twice as many concepts now.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

...oh, and hopefully posting this stuff early won't turn out to be a mistake and get me burned by a clone of one of these concepts.

The one thing I can say is that if anybody else sees them and decides to implement one of these concepts, they're running a chance that'll be the same one I do, and I'll release a game ahead of or simultaneous to them, which isn't good for either party. (See Bonnie's Bookstore/Big Kahuna Words/Acropolis)

[Bmc]

I'm partial to GameJ, although I'm not sure if I like the dummy block system in this better than the one in GameC

I also like WeakGameH but I think that a column should stay together when you move it sideways(instead of the pieces on top falling down), that way you could have some fun stacking action going on sort of like in the old ubisoft game Pick'n Pile http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=2152

[Phil Steinmeyer]

I'm partial to GameJ, although I'm not sure if I like the dummy block system in this better than the one in GameC

I also like WeakGameH but I think that a column should stay together when you move it sideways(instead of the pieces on top falling down), that way you could have some fun stacking action going on sort of like in the old ubisoft game Pick'n Pile http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=2152

Yeah, I debated whether the piles should stay on for both J and H. Would be easy to change, and I may play with that.

People may actually like the 'weak' games in some instances, but I wanted to limit the 'core' set of game prototypes to 10, so I took the extra 6 that in some cases closely resembled others and labeled them 'weak' to make it easier for people to sample the 'core' set.

As I was paper-designing, there's a VAST amount of permutations of both new and existing mechanics that can be implemented for match-3s, with the innovation primarily coming in whatever system you use to maneuver/exchange blocks, and the permutations coming in things like board size, number of colors, match-3-in-a-row versus match-3-in-a-group (or match 4, etc), use of wildcards, etc.

But while I could play with these things for an extraordinarily long time, eventually I gotta pick one, and hopefully I can find one or two that resonate with follks other than myself...

[RohoMech]

Wow, that's an almost dizzying array of ideas to look at :-)
I would say that N seemed the best to me, every time I play bejeweled, I wished it worked exactly that same way. But I'm really hooked on things like Tetris Attack or Puzzle Fighter, which are really more "action puzzle" games than they are thinking puzzle games.

I did feel really awkward dragging blocks around that were already in place, Dr. Germ does something similiar in one of its modes, where you can move pieces around (you don't drag them, its click-and-place, but that's almost like dragging). This went double for dragging dropping blocks, or trying to "catch" dropping blocks, although at first, both those mechanics seemed pretty cool.

Hope this helps.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

I did feel really awkward dragging blocks around that were already in place, Dr. Germ does something similiar in one of its modes, where you can move pieces around (you don't drag them, its click-and-place, but that's almost like dragging). This went double for dragging dropping blocks, or trying to "catch" dropping blocks, although at first, both those mechanics seemed pretty cool.

Re: the 'awkward' feeling ones - do you mean only the various progressive fill prototypes where things fell and you could pick them up and move them, or also the always-full variations where you were freely sliding one tile amidst the many?

[RohoMech]

The most awkward to me was trying to drag a falling block, I think the block moved when the mouse moved, I would have been okay with that. Even the ones where you could slide blocks around felt a bit odd to me, it could just be that its a very unique idea, so it'd take some getting used to. I think part of it was just how gravity kicked in, blocks moved in steps, so for a moment, something could be suspended in the air. But this could all be just me, once again, I have a specific type of game-style I like, hopefully others will chime in soon and give you more diverse feedback.

[svero]

If you have a game using a new concept/mechanic that you're working on (like I do) these prototypes are a little frightning. Its like.. please don't let game R be mine.. please dont let game R be mine... I get the worried feeling you'll hit it eventually if you make it to game AA or something.

Public prototypes is kind of a strange thing for me. I'd be quite loathe to use one of these ideas now just on principal, and yet they're not games someone has completed and released yet, so its a little like laying claim to a mechanic/idea without having to finish one.

Seems like a lot of these that I haven't seen yet could be good. I liked J and the limited chuzze thing as well. (although the limited chuzzle slidey thing seemed maybe a little too logic/puzzly to be an ideal market candidate)

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Seems like a lot of these that I haven't seen yet could be good. I liked J and the limited chuzze thing as well. (although the limited chuzzle slidey thing seemed maybe a little too logic/puzzly to be an ideal market candidate)

You mean GameP - the one with the sorta 'Barbeque Skewers' control device?

But yeah, I debated whether to show these publicly. It is a risk, but I think it's outweighed (hopefully) by the benefit of wider public scrutiny and feedback - hopefully a wide variety of voices should help highlight the two or three of these with the most potential, and maybe spark ideas about how to refine them further.

And maybe somebody will send me an e-mail saying "I'm 6 weeks away from releasing a game just like X, and here's the beta to prove it", in which case I'd very likely stay away from that idea...

[Curiosoft]

Hi Phil,

First, great job on making a lot of prototyping before going ahead and choosing one. Have you thought of doing a blog post on the process....could be as good as the last one that made headlines a few weeks back.

Ok...the games I like are...
GameD.exe
GameJ.exe
GameN.exe
GameO.exe

I don't know the exact names of the game within them; only the .exe files. I really like the Zuma-like gameplay of Game D.

In any case, I also recommend that next time you have a batch of prototypes, put the directions for each one in the screen (so it's easier for folks to tell what to do). I couldn't really play half the prototypes because of this. Sure, you may have typed it out in the forum...but it's easier this way.

If you need a beta tester for the Zuma-like game....PM me

Later,
Curiosoft

[TimS]

I'm not even going to look at these... I'm too scared. It is really quite a brilliant thing to be prototyping prior to settling into a next game project. I'm sure it will help your next project be super-fantastic!

I think if I were you I'd've put the concepts in front of a broader chunk of your target audience instead of a bunch of fellow developers... (I know, we play games too, but we're not really the target audience for this type of thing), right?

Anyway -- good luck!

[oldschool]

game B 10+++ - reminds me of Tumiki fighters http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/tf_e.html fantastic, maybe you could do this in 360 instead of top down. I also like being able to touch things on the ground, perhaps in a 360 game you could have stationary objects and thing just floating around.

game C 5 - the mechanic alone is bad but, with polish probably very good.

game D 10 - I hope you don't choose this one. Fingers crossed! (My idea was zoop + centipede, an idea I formed from a fan of Princec here http://www.javagaming.org/forums/ind...?topic=7228.15 and my desire to make a zoop game) but mine would not be much of a puzzle. Homer Simpson(garage chiropracter) - patent pending, patent pending.... However, I'm working on another project now a mouse dexterity puzzle. So don't mind me


game G 10 - a little to sticky, after a short period of time I want it to drop so I can move on. when the next piece comes I forget about the old piece and
want to concentrate on the new piece.

game I 10 kind of difficult, wish I could choose when to pop so I could stack more up, but fun I want to beat it.

game j 9 - fun
game k 9 - fun
game N 7 - more fun with a timer that went off before the red walls went up.
game R 10 - great, more thought than Game O, I like the rotation a lot!
game E 10 - great (not weak at all!)
game F 2 - hard to control reminds me of bad freeware. (maybe a pointer to indicate which way to cross to move the block in a certain direction)

game H 7 – OK
game L 2 - as advertised
game M 4 -probably too easy. that said I like it when a game starts off with stuff breaking or going pop.

game O 5 - game R was far better.

[svero]

You mean GameP - the one with the sorta 'Barbeque Skewers' control device?

Yeah. Interesting but too puzzly.

[Rubs]

I liked GameN lot more than others. Others seemed too puzzling/unfriendly and it took time to figure out what to do.

So, my choice - GameN! Really nice idea!

[Anlino]

GameN gets my vote as well

[mooktown]

I think if I were you I'd've put the concepts in front of a broader chunk of your target audience instead of a bunch of fellow developers... (I know, we play games too, but we're not really the target audience for this type of thing), right?

i only heard about this prototyping over at edge-online which led me back to here

[Phil Steinmeyer]

The story got picked up on a couple of semi major sites (edge-online, gamesetwatch, and I think another) and a bunch of blogs.

I got about 18 fully detailed responses (with scores, and often detailed comments for each prototype), and another ~12-15 shortened responses (like the ones above, just listing their favorites).

Unfortunately, only one or two that self-identified or otherwise seemed to be from female gamers - it was mostly the game developer crowd who responded, I guess because they're the ones who read game development blogs and are motivated enough to download prototypes, play them for a while, and respond.

I thought about doing a blanket e-mail to my New Crayon mailing list, but it's small enough at the moment (~60), that, assuming a low response rate, I probably would only have gotten an extra one or two responses.

[Ricardo C]

Game N is the winner for me.

[Nikster]

yep, game N here too, quite enjoyable little game.