Oddictive Freeware
by Garrett Brown · in Torque Game Builder · 10/16/2006 (11:02 am) · 6 replies
Hey guys!
Thanks everyone for the feedback! It's been great seeing what people think about my game. I've actually pulled it from the server however and I intend to further it for release. So consider what you got a free beta, and be looking for the full version soon. Thanks again!
G
Thanks everyone for the feedback! It's been great seeing what people think about my game. I've actually pulled it from the server however and I intend to further it for release. So consider what you got a free beta, and be looking for the full version soon. Thanks again!
G
About the author
I work at n-Space, located in Orlando, FL as a designer. When I'm not there, I work on side projects, generally using TGB. Side projects I've finished are Oddictive, Klockotock, and AstroDriller3020
#2
Garrett
10/18/2006 (7:45 am)
Wow, I really like your input. And you also echo what I'm quickly finding out: That this game maybe too hard for the casual gamer market. I totally lost sight of that, having played it a ridiculous amount, as you can imagine. At one point, I started playing it with only a touch-pad, or with my left hand controlling the mouse (i'm right-handed). But in the end, I'm still getting feedback that it is too hard, at least for my target audience. Thanks for the feedback!Garrett
#3
There are plenty of ways to make this game easier without sacrificing the fun. Some examples of that would be:
* a border on the left and right side of the screen to make only the bottom of the screen dangerous. alternatively, do this for the top portion of the screen where the player may have difficulty coping when he's new.
* a better ramp up in level difficulty (it's a bit all over the place at the moment). Get your friends to rank levels from low to high difficulty for you - it can be difficult to do yourself.
* maybe change the dispenser to a canon with a connecting tube. the turret would indicate the direction of fire and it could blink when it's about to shoot. the canon would shoot the objects upwards in a slight arc before they fall down - giving the player more time to react. another benefit would be for the player to plan ahead if he could see the colors in the tube (IE. you see 10 objects ahead or something).
* make the colored containers bigger and put them closer together on early levels so that players can focus on just getting the objects to the center in the beginning. later on they can be unevenly distributed.
The rest of the stuff is simply stability and cosmetic issues (don't like the green to red lines or it's cyan "draw mode" color. transparency, art and thinner lines might look better for example). When I say stability I just mean that the balls jazz out a bit and get stuck depending on how you draw your lines - hopefully you can find a way to fix this (if all else fails, maybe recognize when the ball is stuck, start spinning it like crazy and explode it or something).
My point is that you have a fun game and I'm sure you can come up with ways to tweak it so that it's stable and a lot easier. Make the learning curve less steep, get the people into the fun of the game and add complexity and speed later.
10/19/2006 (11:16 am)
I think the game shows promise (my girlfriend likes it too). With Roberts suggestion you totally change the real game mechanics of the game which, to me, makes it fun: guiding the objects using a linedraw function.There are plenty of ways to make this game easier without sacrificing the fun. Some examples of that would be:
* a border on the left and right side of the screen to make only the bottom of the screen dangerous. alternatively, do this for the top portion of the screen where the player may have difficulty coping when he's new.
* a better ramp up in level difficulty (it's a bit all over the place at the moment). Get your friends to rank levels from low to high difficulty for you - it can be difficult to do yourself.
* maybe change the dispenser to a canon with a connecting tube. the turret would indicate the direction of fire and it could blink when it's about to shoot. the canon would shoot the objects upwards in a slight arc before they fall down - giving the player more time to react. another benefit would be for the player to plan ahead if he could see the colors in the tube (IE. you see 10 objects ahead or something).
* make the colored containers bigger and put them closer together on early levels so that players can focus on just getting the objects to the center in the beginning. later on they can be unevenly distributed.
The rest of the stuff is simply stability and cosmetic issues (don't like the green to red lines or it's cyan "draw mode" color. transparency, art and thinner lines might look better for example). When I say stability I just mean that the balls jazz out a bit and get stuck depending on how you draw your lines - hopefully you can find a way to fix this (if all else fails, maybe recognize when the ball is stuck, start spinning it like crazy and explode it or something).
My point is that you have a fun game and I'm sure you can come up with ways to tweak it so that it's stable and a lot easier. Make the learning curve less steep, get the people into the fun of the game and add complexity and speed later.
#4
A couple things I thought of to help it could be walls on the sides, or perhaps increasing the number of misses you can get. Maybe the lower the difficulty the more misses you're allowed.
There was an exploit I found in which you could get the ball to land on the edge of the container's rim and just let it sit there an build up points. Then you just needed to draw a small line or two to nudge it into the container.
Other than that the game's fun to play, I really like the music in it.
10/19/2006 (11:35 am)
I've been playing it over the past couple days and I've gotten better at it. I was able to get to the 4th level today, course I've been playing it on Relaxing. The game's pretty fun once you can get past the learning curve. I haven't really ventured into the higher difficulties yet.A couple things I thought of to help it could be walls on the sides, or perhaps increasing the number of misses you can get. Maybe the lower the difficulty the more misses you're allowed.
There was an exploit I found in which you could get the ball to land on the edge of the container's rim and just let it sit there an build up points. Then you just needed to draw a small line or two to nudge it into the container.
Other than that the game's fun to play, I really like the music in it.
#5
10/19/2006 (4:14 pm)
I love this game the way it is. Of course there is always room for tweaking, but I find the basic line-draw gameplay to be quite sweet. It's a little hard...but I think it's hard in a good way. Not hard to learn; just hard to master. Kind of like an old arcade game, where the first time you played it you'd drop in a quarter and die in 30 seconds. But you'd like the experience so much, and you'd learn just a little bit of strategy in that 30 seconds...that you wouldn't hesitate to drop in that second quarter. And die in 35 seconds this time :)
#6
Maybe some AI as well - to help the balls drop at least relatively close to their tube.
10/20/2006 (12:38 am)
I got to level 6/7 - but it is definitely hard... maybe removing the "end level" for to many balls missed. I am loving the game, but I simple can't keep up - even while dumping non-matching colors in the wrong tubes.Maybe some AI as well - to help the balls drop at least relatively close to their tube.
Torque Owner Robert Nash
Keeping the same formula that you have now but instead of letting the gamer draw there own lines have a preset of lines and the player controls the buckets on the bottom of the screen. So this way you can have like 6-7 buckets that you have to pan trough to catch the gems that fall out of the sky.
this is what i am talking about. Remeber this is your game and i like it, but if you are trying to sell it this is what i would do.