Bubble Squids

WIP games, tools & toy projects Archived Projects
#1

http://www.jalex.se/javagaming/bubblesquids3.jpg

http://www.jalex.se/javagaming/bubblesquids1.jpg

How to play
When a squid is hungry a value is shown above it.
The value indicates what “bubble value” (no more, no less) you should feed the squid with.
Each bubble has a value, ranging from 1 to 7.
In order to get high points you should try and squeeze in as many bubbles as possible into a squid.

Exammple
A squid wants bubble value 5.
There are five bubbles left on the screen, of values 1, 1, 2, 1 and 5.
Here you can feed the squid with the 5p-bubble, or you can give it the four other bubbles (1+1+2+1=5).
The first gives you +1 point (1 bubble), and the second +4 points(four bubbles).
A bubble with an orange circle doubles the points.

It is implemented as an applet, using the standard libraries in Java.

Any comments and feedback are welcomed!

Play game!

#2

Ehh… That must be the new math then! ;D

I thought this might be a good idea to let my kids try this, but even I had problems being able to drag 3 bubbles to a squid in time. I will try again using a mouse instead of touch-pad… I think it would be great if you would add a level without time constraint, for kids just learning math (and how to use a mouse).

Well made and good sound and graphics, but you should be able to use anti-aliasing for even smoother graphics.

#3

Thanks, jojoh!

Yeah thats right, it should be 1+1+2+1=5 hehe. Good that you pointed that out.

For playing this game I think a mouse or a drawing pad is the best, otherwise it might get too difficult. I never thought of that it can be used for math education, but its a good idea.

#4

Has anyone else then jojoh tried out my game? Comments?

#5
  • Very nice look and feel.
  • Opening screen is particularly nice.
  • Help screen looks like a little to much text
  • Why does it ask you your name at the start?
  • Perhaps after 2 pints I’m a bit slow but the idea of feeding a squid with 3 numbers seems impossible!
  • What age group are you aiming at? if it’s younger players then they definitely need more time.
  • Could you have a fish that eats your good numbers unless you move them out the way?
  • On harder levels could you have maths operators ie multiply, square etc and use those

Mike

#6

Very nice graphics :). As mike_bike_kite noted, I think the time limit needs to be increased a little bit. Other than that it’s a pretty neat idea and good job implementing it.

#7

@mike_bike_kite
Thanks for the input! Agree that help screen is alot of text… But my experience is that it’s important that the player get the needed info about how to play this game. Maybe put it on two screens though… The name is for the highscore list. The age group is quite big, but it’s not a game for a 3 year old I guess, since you need to have good control of the mouse.

@jimsmi6
Thanks! Well it might be a difficult game in the start, but it requires some practice to get good at it.

#8

Few more points:

  • I always feel uncomfortable entering any details about myself onto a web page. It’s fine if you’ve just got a great score (I didn’t) and it asks for your name to go on the board but if you’re asking before the user has even seen the game then you’ll end up with lots of names like abc.
  • If you gave more time for each level then people could have a bonus for completing the game quickly. The benefit of this would be more people could play the game and still feel as if they were “in with a chance” rather than continually wondering whether they have time to grab 2 numbers to a particular octopus in time and just being eliminated. The good players would just get better scores for being faster.
  • I’m not sure if anyone would read one help page let alone 2 help pages. I once spent some time producing some nice help pages for a system I’d produced at work. Out of interest I logged when a person read the page. The system had 1000’s of users and not one looked at the help page in all the time I was there!
  • Is it necessary to click ok on the score, then click to start at the end of each level?
  • My game was over after a particular level but I wasn’t sure why - perhaps this was explained in the help page:) but it would of been nice to know why I was out.
  • Making the game more educational with different types of problems for different age groups might allow you to sell the game to schools.
  • Games should always have a reasonably easy level to start of with and then ramp up in difficulty otherwise it’s difficult to get new players to play.
#9

I agree about the difficulty . It is way too difficult for me .
I would make things easier at first, and also add an “easy” mode as jojoh suggested . It can really benefit kids in learning while having fun .

#10

I appreciate the feed back!

Ok it might be good to output what the name is used for.

Somehow the player has to learn how to play the game, if the player doesn’t want to read the help page, maybe some kind of interactive tutorial will be better?

It’s hard to give it the right difficulty level, since I have been playing this game over and over, so for me it is quite easy. But I will make the game easier in the beginning, increase the time a bit, both total time and the “squid time”.

Be back with an update soon!

#11

GAME UPDATED!

I have almost doubled the time to feed a squid, and changed the total time for a level from 30 s to 45 s. Also when a level is finished you only need to click OK to get to the next level (I removed the unnecessary “extra click” on the gamefield).

As usual any feedback is welcomed!

Play game

#12

Fun and simple game, nice design :slight_smile:

#13

Nice game ;D

#14

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. :slight_smile:

#15

Totally fun and cute

Kev

#16

Thanks Kev!

#17

Hehe, it’s strangely compelling to play.

When I started I was thinking… ok, its a bit simple, I’m not going to be playing this for more than a minute, and 10 minutes later I was still at it :smiley:

Once I got my head around the scoring system, I was able to get into scoring more points per squid, and that made the game more interesting.

Ditto on the time limit thing. While having a time limit adds pace, I think that it would be to frustrating for a kid to do.

Unfortunately I have no kids available to test this on for you, but it did take me back to the old maths and spelling games on the BBC Basics at school.

Nice job

#18

excellent work! ;D

#19

Thanks for the comments! :smiley: