The concept Recently I read an old article on Gamasutra about a small team of students that decided to do a game prototype project. They each created one prototype per week. That inspired me to create a fast prototype of a small idea I've been playing with recently. And with fast prototype I mean a sort of half text-based approach to a tile-based level. Anyway, the idea was to have a player-controlled ball that can be changed through use of ball-changer. Think of normal balls, fire balls or rock balls. Throughout the levels several obstacles are placed. Each ball can resist or overcome specific obstacles but is vulnerable to others. Think of fire (normal ball burns) or water (fire ball gets extuinguished and rock ball gets drowned). Additional objects like buttons and crates would provide more interesting options. The prototype itself Here is an informative screenshot of the prototype: and here is the download: Fryball prototype (96 KB) (Please note that the readme file only contains information about the level sripting, not about how to play - playing is done using the W, A, S and D key for movement, R for resetting the level). The question My question is: what do you find interesting about this concept and what bugs you about it? What would you add, change or remove? Did you find this fun to play or was it rather standard? (In case you want to experiment with this, it's possible to change the current levels or write your own, the scripting system's abilities are documented in the readme). I have idea's about additions like a metal ball that is capable of charging up at charging stations, with metal crates that can be used to move additional charges around used for machinery. Or items like buckets to extuingish fire with or generally keys to unlock doors (though that basically just means you need to walk around some more so they're quite similar to buttons). I'm also thinking about moveable platforms to get across depths or such, or to transport crates with and what-not. I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks in advance. :)

Sounds like a solid concept. I had a little trouble figuring out how things are supposed to work from the prototype (what elements are deadly in combination, etc.) but it plays fairly well and definitely has potential to make some interesting puzzles. Obviously with full graphics/color/etc. it should be much more clear what elements play nicely together; after reading the "manual" graphic carefully, I was able to solve it easily. I'm a fairly big fan of puzzle games, and this sounds like it has all the hallmarks of a good concept.

The overall notion of elements like this is a solid core to many puzzle games. For instance, Switchball is a physics-centered ball/puzzle game that is loosely similar and plays very well. In a tile environment, you don't have physics to play with, so usually one will compensate with other features, like dynamic environments.

I didn't poke your script system too deeply, but it looks like it probably has the basis for a great dynamic-environment system. Switches that rotate walls and open alternate paths, moving areas (like water with currents that sweep balls away if you aren't careful), and other such elements can give you a very rich toolbox for building truly devious puzzles.

One thing I'd suggest is to try and minimize the "push crates around" mechanic - crate puzzles are very easy to design, but personally I think they're getting a bit old. It's high time somebody did something inventive and came up with some new concepts. One thing that might change the gameplay a lot, but with interesting effects, is to use a "tag-team" system instead of a "changer" system - instead of your ball being magically transformed into another type, you have holders scattered around the level, where you can "swap" your current type with the type in the holder. This is a subtle design tweak but requires the player to pay careful attention or they might trap themselves - I like puzzles that not only let me fail in traditional and boring ways, but actively encourage me to screw myself over [smile]

Ah, I really like the tag-team idea. That one didn't cross my mind yet so far. I'll look into it. :)

As for crate puzzles, I agree they're old and done. I've been thinking about multiple purposes for these buggers, like creating a crossable path across water (which has been done before as well) but also making crates vulnerable to, for example, fire. Crates could contain items like keys, for example. Result would be to get a crate to a fire and change to a ball-type immune to fire to pick up the item. Would that be a fresh use of crates or do you find the weak thing here the crate concept itself?

Hmm... pushable holders, combined with holder access direction...

Making crates more "interactive" than just blobs to push around would definitely be cool. You could have some ice crates, some metal crates, etc. that have to be used along the elemental theme to achieve different goals. One possibility would be to let certain types of crates neutralize certain "terrain types" that are not easily (or readily) countered in other ways. Filling in waterways, extinguishing fires, etc. could all be interesting and useful concepts.

The real evil IMHO is the "push mysterious crates around to create an escape path" and not necessarily crates in and of themselves.


That said, you might still be able to get some interesting stuff done with the "push things around" concept - rock slides that have to be cleared, etc. Just don't make it too central to the gameplay concept [wink]

I think its pretty cool idea, but it does sound something like Chips Challenge. Might want to expand to four ball types. Also, better graphics, but i guess this is a prototype and will get better as it goes on. Explain what a 'normal' ball is, like is it a rubber ball? This is my opinion, but use the arrow keys instead of w,a,s,d, because they are easier to find. Also, create enemies.

I like the different crate materials idea, these could have similar properties to the ball materials. The gameplay is meant to evolve around these material properties, not so much about moving things (though perhaps this one level had a bit too much crate ;)).

I'm thinking about more balltypes, yes. One of them being a metal ball which is chargeable with electricity, another could be a floating gas bubble or such. The normal ball is sort of rubber, not very bouncy though.

I've also been thinking about currents (in any shape, as in water currents, wind blows or conveyor belts, the effect is the same except for that I could filter the types they work on). I'm going to try them. I'm also thinking about moveable platforms, by which you could travel over water as a rock ball, or which you could load a 'crate' or so on.

As for enemies, crossed my mind too and the way I see it now is as a sort of dynamic obstacle. Ball types could have influence on your enemies: a sword wouldn't do much to rock or fire but ice and rubber won't take it too well. A rock ball could crush and a fire ball could burn, an ice ball could freeze and a rubber ball is just plain vulnerable (though faster?). I'm going to give it a try.

Thanks for the feedback so far. :)

For the love of god - BUFFER!!!

If you don't know how to do it, it's very simple - you make a char 2D array in the size of your screen, instead of printing on the screen, you print on that array. After all the drawing is done, you print the array to the screen, without clrscr().

It will make your game easier to the eyes.


Now, about the game:
In this type of games, level design is everything, and your levels could be designed so much better. What you did is just a series of single ball puzzles, in which you have to choose the right ball and push a create to clear the path. There is no change of ball in the middle of the puzzle(in which there is no direct path for chaning back).

I also have an object suggestion. What about an tile that pushes each ball to a different direction? For example, you will enter the tile from west. If you are a fire ball, you will be pushed norh. If you are a normal ball, you will be pushed east. And if you are a rock ball, you will be pushed south.

I attempted a buffer but decided it was too much work for now, as it's a prototype after all. I guess the flickering is worse at your system than on mine?
What's probably best is being able to print to specific character locations on the screen but I couldn't figure that out so far. Not using clearscreen causes some horrible screen bobbing so that'd take you even further from home...

Anyway, you're right, it's quite linear at it's core. This is what bugs me the most about this idea, somehow I find it hard to create really non-linear levels here. Perhaps allowing different paths to be taken, some being optional while others being necessary, but their order being free?

Ball-type specific push looks natural to me, as in wind blowing rubber but not rock and metal. I can see some use for it in combination with the multiple paths idea. Thanks. :)

Quote:

Original post by Captain P Not using clearscreen causes some horrible screen bobbing so that'd take you even further from home...

gotoxy

Ah, thanks. Took some time to figure it out - it's not available with my compiler libraries so I had to scrounge up a definition of it, but it does the job. Much easier on the eyes now. :)