maksum
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 11
Registered: 02-02-2005
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What an awesome forum. I just want to quickly toss a link out to my new game and introduce myself.

http://www.bluebuggames.com/games/addemup.htm

I just finished my first game. I want to make a career out of independently developing my own puzzle/logic games. So anyway, any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I will most definitely read and reply to responses in this thread.

Looking forward to frequently visiting this forum!

Mike

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2936
Registered: 03-29-2003
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Okay, I tried this game out. I like it, the basic mode at least has a nice slow pace. Since you're looking for feedback though, I have a few suggestions.

* It would be nice to disable sound in the game. I don't know if that's in the Options menus since that's apparently a full game feature.

* I read the instructions, and I was playing fine, but I didn't realize that you could place a tile without removing others. I thought I had to remove some tiles with every move. This doesn't detract from the game, just from the instructions (unless I'm a total idiot here).

* It's really annoying that the site resizes my browser window. (Using Firefox 1.0, Windows XP.) It does this even if I have other tabs open...it resizes the entire window. And I can still resize it afterwards and it doesn't affect the game at all...so I have no idea why this is forced upon us.

I'll probably play more in the future, but those were my first impressions.

Game on,

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"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

maksum
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 11
Registered: 02-02-2005
IP: Logged

Oneiromancer wrote:
* It would be nice to disable sound in the game. I don't know if that's in the Options menus since that's apparently a full game feature.

Yeah, I was wanting to implement that and finally gave up as I was very eager to release it. Good idea though. I probably won't implement that for this one, but definitely on my next game.

Oneiromancer wrote:
* I read the instructions, and I was playing fine, but I didn't realize that you could place a tile without removing others. I thought I had to remove some tiles with every move. This doesn't detract from the game, just from the instructions (unless I'm a total idiot here).

Hmmm, interesting. I had personally just always assumed that, but haven't heard from someone that assumed the other way. I'll think about that one.

Oneiromancer wrote:
* It's really annoying that the site resizes my browser window. (Using Firefox 1.0, Windows XP.) It does this even if I have other tabs open...it resizes the entire window. And I can still resize it afterwards and it doesn't affect the game at all...so I have no idea why this is forced upon us.

Well, there is a reason... it does have a history. It was not originally meant to be linked to directly, but rather was opened as a spawn from my ... you know what, who cares what the history is. I'll get rid of the resizing thing tonight.

THANKS!

Any other feedback is most welcome.

Mike

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2936
Registered: 03-29-2003
IP: Logged

maksum wrote:

Oneiromancer wrote:
* I read the instructions, and I was playing fine, but I didn't realize that you could place a tile without removing others. I thought I had to remove some tiles with every move. This doesn't detract from the game, just from the instructions (unless I'm a total idiot here).

Hmmm, interesting. I had personally just always assumed that, but haven't heard from someone that assumed the other way. I'll think about that one.

Well, I'm not surprised you assumed that, since it's your game, hehe. The thing was, the way the game looks made me think of Minesweeper. And for some reason it made me not want to place a number unless I could remove other numbers. I thought I would lose instantly if I guessed wrong or something. It makes more sense now.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2708
Registered: 02-05-2003
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It's a fun diversion, and well-implemented, but basically classic mode devolves into a very easy early game of "remove as much stuff as possible" and then the end is more-or-less totally random when you're down to 3-4 squares and it's more or less down to luck.

This is sort of the equivalent of a solitaire game - if you're bad at it, you'll constantly lose, but if you're good at it, it's up to the luck of the draw.

(note - I just noticed the bomb, which means that the classic game is basically unlosable. The above pertains to playing without it).

To be honest, while I can see myself playing this game occasionally online, I wouldn't pay for it.

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stigant
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1182
Registered: 08-19-2004
IP: Logged

Maybe I'm moving slowly tonight, but it seems like I spent quite a bit of time going "hmmm, I can't put a 7 there, there, there, ah, here's a square that adds up to 7. Ok next piece"

I enjoy thinking about strategy and tactics etc, but most of my energy in this game is spent doing mental arithmetic. Which, though I like to think I'm pretty good at, is really quite tedious when playing a game.

Perhaps (at least in classic mode) you could display the sum (mod 10) of the 3x3 window somewhere convenient. That would at least let me go a little bit more quickly. I would understand if you didn't want to do that in the speed based games.

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Progress Quest Progress

maksum
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 11
Registered: 02-02-2005
IP: Logged

eytanz wrote:
This is sort of the equivalent of a solitaire game - if you're bad at it, you'll constantly lose, but if you're good at it, it's up to the luck of the draw.

(note - I just noticed the bomb, which means that the classic game is basically unlosable. The above pertains to playing without it).

I actually had it at one point where it had no power moves, and no move count. Basically it just dragged on and on at the end. I wanted some way to let the users decide when to use these special moves to either help them out in the middle somewhere, or at the end. This difficulty level is fairly easy to complete the board, so it becomes a game of beating your score or time, rather than clearing the board or not. The different difficulty levels in the full game make it a bit more challenging.

Thank you for your comments!

DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1181
Registered: 09-13-2003
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Alright, I've spent some time playing this in classic mode. I think the bonus for sweet moves should have more of a parabolic increase. I set up a spot for myself to clear 9 tiles at once, and the bonus was 800. I may as well have cleared 5 tiles twice. I think the value per tile of the bonus really has to go up in a non-scalar way as the number of tiles increases.

I also think it's a neat little game, I like it, but I wouldn't pay for it. Also, I found a bug:

finish bonus: 2000

sweet moves bonus: 4300

unused power moves: 3
x 2 = 600

remaining moves: 13
x 50 = 650

your final score: 4914

At this point the game froze, and I couldn't navigate naturally to anywhere. It looks like your game can't handle big scores.

Feature request: I think it would be nice if some eye-catching animation played as you cleared the last tiles off the board. I've been able to clear the board naturally both times I played, and at least the second time the tiles didn't noticably disappear on my last move, it just went straight to the point tally.

Edit: another bug: on puzzle mode, in level 4, place a tile that doesn't remove anything, then hit undo. The bottom-left 8 will disappear from the board completely.

Now, in a less long-winded way:

I liked the game, it could be better with a few tweaks/features, but I wouldn't pay to play it.

[Edited by DiMono at Local Time:02-03-2005 at 09:43 PM]

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Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

maksum
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 11
Registered: 02-02-2005
IP: Logged

DiMono wrote:
At this point the game froze, and I couldn't navigate naturally to anywhere. It looks like your game can't handle big scores.

Hmm, interesting. I don't think it's related to big scores, as I've had people score over 9k, 10k, and even over 11k without problems. Still, I wish I could figure this one out. Perhaps if I took the "count up" animation out it would solve problems. Such a bummer when you can't get something to happen consistently.

DiMono wrote:
Edit: another bug: on puzzle mode, in level 4, place a tile that doesn't remove anything, then hit undo. The bottom-left 8 will disappear from the board completely.

Yes, this one I do know about, and for sure can't get it to happen consistently. If you reload the game, you will find that it no longer does that... then after you play a few times, one day you'll notice it again with a completely different number on a different puzzle. ugh.

Thanks for the comments!