Burokku Demo

[Orkie]

I have just uploaded to the file archive a playable demo of my upcoming commercial game Burokku, which should hopefully be available for purchase 'soon' for a price of about £3 as a download.

The game itself is a puzzle game, which has a similar format to Panel de Pon, but with very different rules. You are presented with a game area, which contains a number of coloured blocks and the aim of the game is to break as many of these blocks as possible. You can break the blocks by swapping any two horizontally adjacent blocks, making chains of four or more of same coloured block. Points are awarded as block are broken and extra points are given for a 'combo' (more than four blocks in the chain).
However, as you are breaking the blocks, more are slowly creeping up from the bottom and if the stack of blocks hits the spikes at the top of the game area, you lose. The more blocks you break, the faster new ones appear.[cut]

This demo version only contains one game mode - endless mode, where you play until you lose - and the speed is capped at (a rather high) 20. There is also only one level: the 'wood' level.
The full version will have several other levels, translations (the demo has English and German language support) and another game mode.

The game has not seen widespread testing before, so please be prepared to encounter one or two minor bugs. If you encounter any, or have a suggestion for how the gameplay can be improved, please don't hesitate to post here!

Controls:
Joystick - Change selected menu item / Move cursor
B - Activate menu item / Swap blocks
Start - Pause an in-progress game
L or R - Make the next row of blocks appear straight away in a game



Download: http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,22,1788[/cut]

 

[DJWillis]

Orkie,

Nice looking game, I'll go and have a play with this over some coffee . Love block shifters.

 

[Sonistar]

very good, very professionally styled and good gameplay, ill be buying this.

 

[xythen]

I Have to say, this is a really nice game. It could become quite addictive!

I've come across a few small problems so far. One is that the writing on the "How To Play" menu writes off the screen at the end of some sentences. Also, the controls feel a bit unresponsive/slow, especially in the menus. Another small bug is that if a block falls onto a stack and makes a 4, it doesn't disappear until it is moved (eg pushing a green block off an edge so that it falls onto a stack of 3 green blocks).

Finally I noticed that after quitting out of the game, some other applications (like Beat2x) fail to load until the unit is reset. It seems like the game isn't quitting out "fully" or something.

Hope that helps! And keep up the good work, I look forward to buying this game once it's released!

 

[Alex.]

I gave it a try, and I must say it has the making of a great game. Here's some points I came up with while playing it:

1. I launched the game, then pressed the quit menu. I was unable to relaunch the application afterwards - do you use SDL_Quit() at the end of your program?

2. I found it odd to have the text rows in the credits and how to play sections as menu items. Some text in those sections goes beyond the right border of the screen, you may also want to check into that.

3. The yellow text (menu highlight) is very hard to read against the light-coloured background.

4. The menu controls seemed unresponsive at times, that seemed to be random. Look further into your input routines.

5. The menu overall looks unpolished compared to the rest of the game. I suggest making it in the same slick manner as the game itself (use more graphics maybe).

6. My hiscore (3rd or 2nd try i think) was 760 points, at speed 5. The game gets fairly hard quicker than i expected. Whether that is a good or a bad thing is really up to each player, but I'd enjoy a super-easy option.

7. Your use of alpha blending in the blocks is very skilful, and it gives the game a detailed, professional feel.

I know that there may seem to be more negative points than positive, but they're only suggestions and observations. I am very impressed with this game and am looking forward for the next release, keep up the good work Very addictive!

- Alex

 

[baalim]

looks like it plays like yoshi's attack on snes, am i wrong ?

well, i'm downloading it right now and i certainly consider buying it when it will be released.

 

[bacteria]

looks like it plays like yoshi's attack on snes, am i wrong ?

well, i'm downloading it right now and i certainly consider buying it when it will be released.

...or Tetris Attack on the Gameboy - which plays on the GP2x full speed. Tetris Attack on Snes on GP2x runs fairly quick, not full speed.

 

[Orkie]

looks like it plays like yoshi's attack on snes, am i wrong ?

It is similar, but the rules are quite different (see my first post for more information).

...or Tetris Attack on the Gameboy - which plays on the GP2x full speed. Tetris Attack on Snes on GP2x runs fairly quick, not full speed.

Thanks for that...

To everybody else, thanks for the feedback (sorry, there is too much to cover each point individually, but I will look into it all )

 

[Alex.]

I played it some more this morning, and the more I do, the more I like it. One thing that came to mind is, will there be hiscore saving in the final release?

Thanks for the game Orkie, much appreciated

- Alex

 

[Orkie]

I played it some more this morning, and the more I do, the more I like it. One thing that came to mind is, will there be hiscore saving in the final release?

Thanks for the game Orkie, much appreciated

I'm glad you like it
I hadn't really thought about a high score table, but it wouldn't be hard to add, so I'll put it on my todo list

 

[icurafu]

Suggestion would be to remember the difficulty level.

At this point, it's hard for me to want to play again as I feel that when I lose, its because the blocks are appearing faster then anyone could possibly remove them. I'd be interested to know what the highest speed is anyone has archived.

I don't think increasing the speed constantly is a perfect way to increase difficulty. Maybe you could increase the variety of coloured blocks, and introduce special blocks that have to be managed.

Or maybe this is what we expect from constant mode, and in the final product there will be other modes to challenge us.

EDIT: I got speed 8 as well.

 

[Huxley]

Yeah, I enjoyed this quite a lot but agree with icurafu's comments.

 

[Alex.]

The highest speed I reached was 8.

- Alex