Release Slabs


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Slabs alpha version 0.1.1 (updated 2012-08-06)


Download Here


You can also download a Windows port of version 0.1 here.


This is a game I've been gradually working on since getting my Pandora a few months ago. It's basically a match-three game in which you are also given a quota of three-block combinations that must be accomplished in order to proceed to the next level.


There's an instructions screen in the main menu that explains how to play. (Esc quits)


2012-08-06


- Fixed the game over. You now Lose The Game if a column fills up.


- Adjusted the speed at which slabs and combo missions appear. Testing the PND I noticed it was a lot faster than I thought, probably due to testing being done from the terminal with a lot of text output. But at least this should give you an idea of how the difficulty can ramp up as a result of the game speed.


But changes in speed are not going to be enough to make it truly fun, so the next step is to start adding in slabs that will affect the board in different ways and start exploring other functionality such as those suggested by _wb_ below.


2012-08-02


It only has a few levels, but it's very easy to add more. Before I do that, I need some feedback on these points:


- Too hard/too easy?


- Are the graphics visible enough?


- Are the touchscreen and gamepad controls comfortable?


- Do you find the gameplay itself engaging?


slabs-0.1.png
 
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It only has a few levels, but it's very easy to add more. Before I do that, I need some feedback on these points:


- Too hard/too easy?
It's kind of easy, at least levels 0 and 1. Just 4 kinds of items, and 9 stacks plus a buffer of size 5, that's like towers of hanoi without the constraint that bigger rings cannot go on top of smaller ones, and with 9 stacks instead of 3.

- Are the graphics visible enough?

Yes, but why not use a bigger game area? Move the score counter to the right and use all 480 pixels vertically.

- Are the touchscreen and gamepad controls comfortable?

Only tried gamepad, works fine for me. Flickering mouse cursor is a bit annoying.

- Do you find the gameplay itself engaging?

It's a start, but at the moment it's a bit tedious: you just have to be fast enough, there's not a lot of strategy required.


The stacks are growing much faster than the "quota" tasks, so after a while, the stacks become full. At least a new task should appear immediately when you cleared the last one, instead of having to wait for a new task.


Some more gameplay elements are needed to make this interesting. E.g. make you lose when a stack becomes full, and have an additional mechanism to get rid of blocks: e.g. if you clear a 3-block combo, all such combos on the playing field also get removed. Or if you make a horizontal line of 5 or more of the same block, they get cleared (why horizontal? because for making quota combos, one strategy would be to make vertical piles of each block type so you can easily create any combo; this nicely conflicts with having to make horizontal lines).


Or you could add Towers of Hanoi stuff: make the blocks have a different size and allow only smaller blocks on top of bigger ones when you want to drop a block. The blocks that appear automatically would still be random.
 
It's kind of easy, at least levels 0 and 1. Just 4 kinds of items, and 9 stacks plus a buffer of size 5, that's like towers of hanoi without the constraint that bigger rings cannot go on top of smaller ones, and with 9 stacks instead of 3.
Excellent. It was originally a lot faster and I found it quite playable myself, but I majorly slowed everything down for the first external test.

Yes, but why not use a bigger game area? Move the score counter to the right and use all 480 pixels vertically.
Definitely something I'm considering in the next version. Just wanted to make sure the slabs themselves weren't too small for now.

Some more gameplay elements are needed to make this interesting. E.g. make you lose when a stack becomes full
You already should lose when a stack fills up... oops, looks like I've broken something there :0 I'll fix that tomorrow, along with the mouse cursor thing. The main idea at the moment is meant to be about keeping the board clear by matching 3 of a kind while lining up the combos.


Now that the basic gameplay is in place, I'll experiment with ideas like this to keep things moving. The Towers of Hanoi train of thought is something I hadn't considered that would mix things up a bit. There'll be slabs with specialised properties coming as well. The mass-combo-erase effect could be one of these, requiring it to be lined up under the main combo to take effect.


Very useful feedback, cheers.
 
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