Block Insanity (twitch game demo)

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#1

I’m working towards getting this game ready to self publish, but here is a link to the applet demo. I’m interested in feedback on the game.

Requires 1.2 (not that I expect that to be an issue).
Block Insanity

I’m also interested in problems running the applet, seems some people have problems but I haven’t been able to narrow down why.

And, this primary purpose of this applet will be to give people a sample of the game and convince them to move to a downloaded copy of the game which has a lot more features, but also will be time limitted (not 100% sure what kind of time limit to impose, either a 60 minute total time limit or maybe say a 20 minute session limit so that the game is only playable in small spurts). I expect to have everything ready for releasing the full game in about two weeks, I’ll be wanting to stress test the multiplayer server a bit around that time too.

#2

Cool game idea!

I think this is supposed to be the sort of game that actually can sell some. Would be interesting to see how things progress. Hope you let us know.

I found it a bit tricky with numbers. Have you thought about using dots instead of numbers. Either just one dot in different sizes or organized as on dice. Think that would make it more fun. I’d also suggest makeing the time bar bigger and maybe on both sides of the board. As it is now I didn´t even notice that it was there for quite some time.

Enjoyed the game!

#3

Thanks jojoh, I agree that this game should be able to sell, the one publisher that responded at all (realarcade, they’ve always been good about responding) didn’t feel it would do well. And other than that, the only negative responses I’ve gotten was when someone was ‘disinterested’ in the game and another when someone said it was awesome, but wasn’t into playin it haha.

As far as progression goes, the full version is ready to go, it’s just a matter of registering a program that I need before I can distribute the game and getting local business licensing taken care of.

#4

It’s a neat game, but I think it needs more polish.

  • Graphical effects and/or animations of some kind when you select 3 in a row
  • Better sound effects
  • More interesting tiles, like ojbects or symbols instead of numbers
  • Timmer is not obvious (Maybe an hourglass anmiation?)
  • Something more dramatic when you complete a level
  • Somethign more dramatic when you achieve a high scoring selection
  • A pause of some kind between levels (click to continue or a count down so the user can have a small break)
  • Challenge level of some kind - Like get as many as you can in 30 seconds or find the highest scoring combination…something like that.
  • More atmosphere of the board and surroundings, like a theme or multiple themes that change as the user progresses

It sounds like a lot, but if I were you I’d do it because the basic game play is good. IMHO, if you want to sell this yourself or get the portals to pick it up, you will need more then what’s there now. There are tons of 3 in a row games out there, so you need yours to stand out if it’s to compete.

#5

I don’t like the idea of pausing between levels, though there is a pause button on the left if people want to pause. I’ll probably do something to the timer, maybe simply make it wider than it is, but I don’t know for sure what I’ll do with that.

I originally used the sounds I did as something of a joke, but as low quality and corny as they are, I’ve gotten some good feedback on them also, crazy as that sounds.

[quote]More atmosphere of the board and surroundings, like a theme or multiple themes that change as the user progresses
[/quote]
That’s probably the most important thing you said, though I’m not real sure on how to accomplish that, and I’m pretty sure I’d have to sacrifice some screen space to do that (something I hate to do).

This is the demo though, and it’s a pretty chopped down version of the full game. I do plan to have multiple tile sets and stuff for people to choose from, possibly seperately downloaded. The tiles and numbers are all in simple graphical strips, along with the gleam effect. Everything you see in the game is ‘programmer art’ so to speak, with the exception of the bunny rabbit on the nag deal that is, a real artist could probably make things much nicer looking. Maybe I can whip up one of those sparkly burst effects for huge point or long rows of blocks.

#6

Well, I’ve finally got the full version ready for download, I have to admit that not a lot of polish has been added to the game since last time. Anyway, there’s all kinds of other software involved in my game now (some for shareware stuff, some for distribution). There is multiplayer, which I’ll try to hang out in during the weekend as much as I can so if anyone is willing to help test things out show up. I had great responses from people playing the full version and pretty poor responses when I setup the demo version, so I’m curious if any opinions change due to that. Anyway, I’ve set it up so that you can enter a key to play for about 2 weeks as much as you want, it’s posted on the site by the download link.

Block Insanity

#7

[quote]Thanks jojoh, I agree that this game should be able to sell, the one publisher that responded at all (realarcade, they’ve always been good about responding) didn’t feel it would do well.
[/quote]
Whats your target market? I found the game very boring, so I guess I’m not in it :(.

#8

I’m targetting people who like simple to learn games that are hard to master, but I have to admit I’m not exactly a marketting wiz, I don’t know exactly what age group that is, or income bracket, or any of that stuff, but what I do know is for some reason an incredible number of people play the diamond mine/sweet tooth games despite how incredibly boring it seems to me. Playing on frustrating is actually more fun for many people btw (shorter games) and makes me suspect that by default the game should be on hard at least. I don’t know if that would make the game less boring for you though, but I suspect playing multiplayer would… assuming you were lucky enough to find someone else on the server when you went. Calling the game boring has me thinking… I have ideas on ways to spice it up a bit that I’ll have to try out.

#9

It seems both pointless and easy (to me), and making it “harder” is just a case of making it frustrating.

If you’re comparing to Bejewelled etc, they work because they are exploiting patterns that the player has to become good at seeing: because your game is much more random, perhaps, this happens much less?

Note: I’m not saying the concept is bad, just that it doesn’t “click” in any way for me at the moment. There’s too much of a feeling of just “I’ll click lots and strategy is irrelevant”.

#10

Um, start on a higher level? The early levels moves are everywhere, that changes pretty quickly as you get a few levels.

I have to ask, did you download the full version or did you play the applet based demo? I think the applet based demo is necessary because at some point I want to get my game onto a few of the portals and an applet has a better chance of getting there (I think) but so far it seems feedback on the applet version tends to be radically different from the downloaded version (I’m not sure why it’d be so different because the game itself is the same, just trimmed it down a lot). I almost think I should hide the applet version of the game now that the downloadable is available, the primary purpose of the applet is to push people to download the game and if it’s actually preventing that I’ll need to do something…