Code a game competition - May 4th to June 30th - £750 worth of prizes

[Holzchopf]

@TomToad: Just take satellite images from the earth (e.g. from https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov), write an algorithm that cuts out "100x100 km" jigsaw puzzle pieces, which should give you around 50'000 pieces, shuffle them and you're almost good to go. ALMOST. To comply with the endless spec, you just let all the pieces on the globe's side facing away from you fall down again

[Holzchopf]

So after ~26h of work the game is pretty well playable. Which is bad because I now spend much more time playing than adding stuff.

[Xerra]

So after ~26h of work the game is pretty well playable. Which is bad because I now spend much more time playing than adding stuff.

This is a good sign. Judging will be more about gameplay than anything else - certainly that's how I look at it anyway.

Mine's not even quite playable yet and I've been working on it for six weeks so don't panic

[iWasAdam]

oh lordy... Just a week to go... 
Where are those graphics ?
Why doesn't this work?
That doesn't sound right!
What was THAT!
....

[Xerra]

oh lordy... Just a week to go... 
Where are those graphics ?
Why doesn't this work?
That doesn't sound right!
What was THAT!
....

I know what you mean. I'm away until Monday on a stag do from tomorrow morning.

I've taken the week off but have to be done with my game by Thursday as I'm away next weekend as well. Still have so much to stitch together and a story to finish but I've not chopped out too much as yet. Hope I can make it :-/

[Holzchopf]

I'm done!


PuzzPair - an endless pairs action puzzle

(I went for Option 2 : Puzzle / Endless )

You can download the Windows version or the Android version.


The goal of the game is to... well it's an endless game, let me restart my sentence: You play the game by revealing matching pairs of symbols to make them disappear.² The twist is that the symbols on the cards are initially only visible while in free fall plus a short time after while fading out. So you click/tap the cards to reveal the symbol. If you reveal two identical symbols, they disappear. Your motivation to do so? Well first you get points for doing so and second this makes room for new cards that fall in from top periodically.

Every 1000 points you're rewarded with an item. When used, they will randomly
- reveal all cards
- stop new ones from coming
- make them drop slower
- make them fade out slower
- let you pop one
- let you pop all of a kind
- or keep the top row clear

When you manage to clear all cards you're rewarded a little bonus score and you proceed to the next stage. The higher the stage, the faster the pace of the game.

You can't win the game, but you can lose: That's when a card covers any spot in the top row.³

Since my last compo entry was criticised for not having sounds, I even made some sound effects this time! I couldn't get the play-sounds-only-over-earplugs method to work so let's just hope everyone who plays the mobile version knows how to mute their phone The Android version offers the possibility to make a donation (directly to my piggybank), that's why it asks for in-app-purchase permission. If it works out, I'll let you know.




²) That pretty much sounds like the Wikipedia article on tile-matching puzzle games, so I'm convinced it's a qualified puzzle game.
³) The you-can't-win-but-lose mechanics applies to Flappy Bird, one of the examples of endless games the contest creator mentioned. I think I can't get any more spot-on. I guess a "game over" can be considered "not a true ending".

[Matty]

Played it.  Excellent.  Rated on play store too.

I think there's a maximum level you can reach where all the blocks auto fill the level.

[Qube]

@Holzchopf - PuzzPair is a cool little game and like Matty, I got to stage 10 and it was like zip zap Game Over

Perhaps you could issue a quick tweak and ease the difficulty progression? as it seems a big jump from stage 9 to stage 10. I assume at some point the games difficulty doesn't get any harder? or else that would mean at some point it becomes impossible

Overall though, you've a nice little time wasting puzzle game here, me like

[Derron]

Another way to increase difficulty in such games is:
- introduce more colors/symbols (so more harder to find "pairs")
- decrease tile size / increase game area

You might consider adding "malus"-blocks. So instead of helping the player, they create some chaos. Eg. a "Mix tile" could fall down and on landing it shuffles some tiles on the game board.
Or consider adding some "stone blocks". They need to get paired multiple times to crack their stone-border. Eg. 3 times paired = done.

In 2007 or 2008 I created a prototype of a similar "match 3 endless puzzler" (with elements of "Dr. Mario"). And I also had other blocks like "swords" (vertical clear), "axes" (diagonal clear), "sand clocks" (time givers), "bombs" (clear surrounding) ...  And spawns were based on difficulty and progress.


(Man, I am really surprised how well some effects in that game looked ... will have to write an thread about it to convince me on finishing it somewhen.). Think many of us did such match-3-thingies and might come in with handy ideas for your game.


Nonetheless: you have enough time to update your game. Eg. I think it could benefit of some polishing in the top area on the phone. Make it look a bit more "candy", "child friendly", "cheering". For now it looks "plain and clean" which can attract certain people - but for Android games I think you need to find either a very individual look or follow the masses and create some polished-to-perfection-stuff. So if you did the "candy" way, you could have all blocks be a bit like "jelly" and when they land they wobble a bit (simple animation). Just use a base sprite (grey) animate it a bit, and when using them in the game, use a simple "setcolor" before to tint it to the desired block color.

Without having it tried: it sounds like a fun little time waster!


@ headphones
I would rate your game down if you _enforced_ wearing headphones when playing with my phone. My headphones were never pulled out of the original enclosure/foil. Some people play it at home - let them use their speakers.


bye
Ron

[Matty]

[SUBMISSION]

"A Knight's War" - Retro/Strategy
http://www.mattiesgames.com/retrostrategy/
Best to use Desktop browser but can be played with mobile and tablet browser as well.
No required dependencies
"A Knight's War" is a strategy game allowing players to fight as the forces of 'order' against the hordes of 'chaos'.  There are three modes of gameplay available. Campaign (1 player), 2 Player (hotseat) and Online (multiplayer). 
It is a turn based strategy which was inspired by games I played as a kid such as Defender of the Crown, Lords of Conquest, Ancient Art of War and a few others. The retro component (probably not as interpreted by anyone else here) mainly referred for me to the style of the gameplay more than the graphics (- yes I know...not what it turned out was intended by the word 'retro' ).
Help is available in the battle mode through the 'advisor' as context sensitive text displays when he is clicked on.
There was a lot of helpful feedback from Derron and IWasAdam which was integrated into this - and I wouldn't have achieved what I have achieved here without their help.
There are loads of comments I've made throughout development in the worklogs area.
Oh....if you do end up playing it then I recommend at least once sitting through the 'demo mode' that occurs after about 20-30 seconds delay at the title screen....


Note.....there is a hidden mode in the Online game that allows the AI to control your forces....it was good for debugging and I've left it in....if you were to start the game, set this mode, and leave it run - you'd probably win the campaign while away from your desktop for several hours! I'll leave it for you who are programmers to find this mode if you choose.

Derron - I know you gave me some more feedback a few days ago about changes..it's late enough in the comp that I'm happy enough with it....not making any more changes from this point on...

Need to start thinking about my next game for my own purposes.

All Media apart from music created by myself. Most graphics drawn using references of online images found or images I have in books. Music purchased from shockwave-sound.com.
Source available as it is a web page, the only source I'm not providing is the php and sql code (which is minor and only applies to the multiplayer mode)

[iWasAdam]

@ PuzzPair. Superb visuals and logos - really well done there

[freeman69]

Competition Entry: BUG HUNTER Annihilation Complex

Showcase link: https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,4756.0.html

Arcade / Open World (as in a large maze)

Okay - so it was also inspired by Aliens, a little.
It ran faster than expected but is limited to 70 bees plus a few ants & beetles with a top limit of 100 critters active at any time. Plus shrapnel.
The gameplay was a little experimental: given the proximity of the hives to each other, 'tile' scale and max path finding distance (v.short). The ants can only be destroyed by bomb shrapnel, because they absorb the robot's bolts, like the beetles do.
The eggs ejected from destroyed hives also have 'behaviours' if not collected.

[PixelPaladin]

Hello everyone! I'm new to the forums. HikeHeart linked to your coding competitions on the Cerberus-X forum, this is how I found this place  . I used Cerberus-X and Monkey-X a lot  for my previous projects but in the last days and weeks I wrote a retro style strategy game in Monkey2. I didn't know if I could even finish it but somehow I did it ... at least most of it . So here is a screenshot:



As soon as it is completely finished I will upload it on itch.io.

[Qube]

@PixelPaladin - Looks really cool, love the pixel work

Welcome to Syntaxbomb

[Steve Elliott]

Yep love that pixel art, and welcome.