Release Squared!


Gandi

Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2009
Messages
169
Location
Germany
Hy all!
 

This is "Squared!" - a clone of the "2048 Number Puzzle Game".

I've been working for - well, something like forever (at least since ptitSeb published that fabulous Lazarus.pnd) - on a "Dr. Mario" kind of game.

A while ago my daughter told me of the "2048 Number Puzzle Game" for Android and I found it was very simple, quite fun and addictive.

It looked like something I might actually be able to finish. ;)

Most of the actual hacking was done on my pandora - which worked far better than I thought at first.

It turned out to be the perfect pastime while hanging in front of the TV and watching the soccer world cup when the match wasn't that exciting. :p

Special thanks goes to ptitSeb for the fantastic Lazarus.pnd, to Ziz for the great Fusilli Client and to foxblock for his friendly PNDTools (which made it possible even for me to create a working PND).

Game:

When two tiles with the same value move together a new tile with the summed up value of the original tiles is created.

Official aim of the game ist to build the 2048 tile - or just get as many points as possible.
The game is over, if there are no more possible moves.

Roadmap:
Which only explains, what I plan to do but not when I will be there... :p

- Still some more animations (effects when reaching a new top tile etc)

- Options screen

- Undo function

- More game modes (X-Tile, Survival)

- Sound (at least a little)

- C4A support

Controls:

[D-Pad][ABXY]   Move tiles
[start]         Restart game
[select]['A']   Animations on/off
['C']           C4A on/off
['M]           Toggle this months/all C4A scores

[Esc]           Exit
 

V0.3.1.0 - 23.11.2014

Updated to the latest version of the fusilli client

V0.3.0.0 - 29.10.2014

C4A support
Display of the top 9 scores (C4A or local)
Display of the max. tile for current and best score

V0.2.3.0 - 24.08.2014
Keypresses during animations are now recognized

V0.2.2.0 - 04.08.2014
Bugfix: animations could not be switched off completely

V0.2.1.0 - 04.08.2014
More animations

V0.2.0.0 - 26.07.2014
Animations
Additional controls:
- [ABXY] to move tiles
- [select] to toggle animations
 

V 0.1.1.0 - 04.07.2014
supports tile values up to 65.536

V 0.1.0.0 - 03.07.2014
Initial "official" release
game state is saved between calls

V 0.0.1.0 - 29.06.2014
Initial release (beta)
 
 
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Very good! Despite not really knowing what I was doing, I got 1544 on my first go!


As I say I don't really understand the rules. Once you get a few tiles on the board, it seems as if the d-pad affects which way the blocks fall, with like numbers collapsing into each other. So if you've got two 4's left and right of each other, hit left and all the blocks fall the the left and the 4's combine into an 8. That's except for some 2's which seem to get spontaneously generated via some mechanism I don't understand.


I don't know if internet game 2048 has more comprehensive instructions than this - indeed perhaps the longevity of that game is due to the fact it's hard to understand but easy to apparently get close to the target, or is even implementing the same rules. But this is already very polished for a beta, even more so than a lot of stuff on the repo, which, come to think of it is really where this should go to make it easier to install. Is that the plan once you've got it out of beta?
 
Thanks for the nice response!

Yes, the next version will be uploaded to the repo (at least the feature, that the highscore is saved should be added first ;) ).

if there were animated tiles it would be much clearer what is really happenung:

Every tile moves as far as it can go.

When two tiles withe the same value meet in that process, they "melt together" and form a new tile with the duplicate value of the old ones.

The value of each "molten" tile is added to the score.

after every move a new tile is generated at a random free space (it can be a tile with the value 2 or - seldomly - with the value 4).

(A better readme is on the todo-list, too ;) )
 
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Ah okay, seems like I'd got much of the gist, just didn't understand where the new tiles were coming from, so perhaps some effect on those first would help. Although I'd be mindful of animation slowing the game down too much.
 
Nice, I regularly play 2048 on my android phone and tablet and was looking for this game on the pandora repo a week ago. It is a nice game without the frustration of some other number crunching games - very popular dl on android.

Never reached a 2048 tile, but 1024 pretty often.

Just played a couple of games and works quite well. I agree that for new players of this game animation will certainly help to understand the game and it will also improve the more relaxed 'feel' of the game. 
 
Thanks b_o_b for trying.

Yes, animations and that swiping move on the screen really make the Android game feel more relaxed.

But using the D-Pad makes the Pandora version less tiring für the hand (at least for me).

I plan to make animation speed adjustable in the final Version (just like in the original game).

My top score lies at about 7100 points.

My wife is much better with that - she just managed to get over 12000 points just a few minutes ago :blink: (still no 2048 tile in sight, though).
 
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Just had a very good game and reached 2048 - 21484 points! 

Proof attached ;)

Adjustable animation speed will be very nice, and I also prefer moving with the d-pad. Would be a fun game for c4a.

2048.jpg
 
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Wow!

This is amazing! :eek:

I have just added C4A to the roadmap.

WIll have to investigate how to do this with Lazazrus (or actually how to do this at all ;) ).

Since there may be some guys hanging around who know Linux and the PND system, here's a little question: Where do I have to save my highscore file to so it appears in /appdata/squared ?
 
WIll have to investigate how to do this with Lazazrus (or actually how to do this at all ;) ).
c4a suport doesnt need to be included in the binary. It's easy enougth to add in the launcher script :)
Since there may be some guys hanging around who know Linux and the PND system, here's a little question: Where do I have to save my highscore file to so it appears in /appdata/squared ?
current directory aka "." :)
 
V 0.1.0.0 - 03.07.2014
Initial "official" release
Game state is saved between calls

There even is a first - not very impressive -  "game start" animation  ;)  

And you can finally get it at the repo!
 
As you can see above b_o_b made more than 21.000 points!

That's something for you to go for. :p

I plan to add c4a at some point.

Just don't know yet when.

(I saw your post over at the c4a thread - but this linux shell scripting stuff is still very new to me...)
 
I saw your post over at the c4a thread - but this linux shell scripting stuff is still very new to me...
Come on, shell scripting is not as hard as learning a complex second language such as Germ... Hooo nevermind :D
As I tested your game, here is a few things to do while you watch your team getting kicked out by mine : :D

- I had a few crashes (but nevermind if you cannot reproduces these)

- Here is the bash code for your c4a support (not tested obviously)

SCORE=0
UP=0
CFg=squared.cfg
POSTD=squared.posted
if [ -e $POSTD ];then
UP=$(cat $POSTD)
fi
if [ -e $CFG ];then
SCORE=$(awk -F= '/Best/{print $2;exit}' <$CFG)
fi

if [ $SCORE -gt $UP ];then
./sc so push squared pandora $SCORE
echo $SCORE>$POSTD
fi
I'm willing to help if that's not enough. On a side note that implementation isnt perfect : the sc client doesnt tell if the upload was successfull
- swipe move are'nt mandatory imho d-pad gaming rocks :)

- animation would be more than welcome

- make sure you've at least tiles ready up to 16384

- I wouldnt be against a sligthly increased tile size (so the play area is bigger)

- a top-10 highscore instead of the max one (so you can feel your progression better, it's sometimes hard to fight after a too high score, while targeting #3 can be motivating)

A few comments on what you have already :

- I like the font you choosed, it give personality to the game

- well done so far, congrats :)
 
Very nice... although my instinct was to use the stylus, mainly due to preconditioning of the Android version.

I am glad there is a nice version for Pandora which doesn't have me accepting a list of permissions, etc.

Just had a very good game and reached 2048 - 21484 points! 

Proof attached ;)

Adjustable animation speed will be very nice, and I also prefer moving with the d-pad. Would be a fun game for c4a.

Wow... congrats... My first reaction was "Why are you merging downwards...?" My big numbers are always towards top right... lol
 
Thanks for all the nice feedback and advice! :)

I'll add some of this to the "roadmap" later on.

Next thing will probably be mor animations, since stuff like this is quite new to me - and it's fun! :D

Have you really ever seen anyone reaching a 16384 tile? :eek:

ATM the max tile value is in fact 2048. You can build as many of them as you like - they just won't melt together any more.

Maybe I shold build up some statistics about the relation between move directions and top score. :rolleyes:

I think I won't do any hacking during this evening's game - I'm just to curious if sebt3 (together with Google) is right and the German team is playing its last match during this cup. :huh:
 
Have you really ever seen anyone reaching a 16384 tile? :eek:

ATM the max tile value is in fact 2048.
A 2048 is a granted for all my games nowadays (I havent managed to finish a normal games sadly, just my initial test run yet with your PND). I'm doing a 4096 on a frequent basis (probably every day) and reach the 8192 tile regularly.My current highscore on my phone is with a 4096 tile close to a 8192 so the 16384 was within reach and I'll probably achieve this one day or an other.

I forget to told you : google sfxr for your sounds :)

About football, Algeria team was nearly completly formed with guys having the french-Algerian double nationnality. And they would have gone to the french team if offered. In a way, algeria is just the B-side french team. and seeing how hard that game have been for Germany, I think the French team do have a chance (even if the french team never won the germans)
 
OK. :eek:
*Me makes note to myself*: put a larger tile set on top of the todo-list...

Yes, they didn't do very well against Algeria. Especially the first half was horrible. No Ideas how to get through the defence...

We'll both see how it all ends up tonight...
 
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