MetalRoll

[NRJ]

Presenting MetalRoll ,a type of puzzle game ,having 60 levels with increasing difficulty.
Position the blocks at the correct positions to make the ball roll.
I hope people will enjoy playing this game .







DOWNLOAD it from the attachment below.
Visit my website to download more games.

nksoftgames.blogspot.com

[iWasAdam]

excellent presentation. It look fab!

[Steve Elliott]

It does, I agree with Adam.  Well done.

[Derron]

Just nitpicking about the screenshots / presentation. Game not played:

@ The text font for the buttons / level-display in game
It looks a bit "dull/boring" - as if you forgot to use a properly themed/suiting font. Maybe there is a slightly "rounder" font? The "Metal Roll"-logo font can of course be and stay a different one - yours seems to be themed according to the "rock n roll"-like fonts (not the neon-glow-diner-fonts but the music-like fonts).

Maybe try a font with slightly more rounded corners on the letters?


@ start menu buttons (and "level selection" / "retry" / "third button"  buttons)
they have sharp corners: all other elements have rounded corners. Maybe make them look consistent.

Also: the level selector border is similar brownish/textured to the background, the game field border is similar colored/textured to the background - but in the start menu it somehow does not fit. You seem to try to make it look similar to the "outline" of the text logo.
Maybe it only looks a bit odd because your text logo uses a horizontal oriented wood texture (and the outline then too) while the buttons use a vertical oriented wood texture with very visible wood grain.

Font alignment: check out how to vertical-center a text. Compare "Levels" and "Play game" (or "Quit game"). The "y" (and g,p,...) cut the baseline of a font. Similar to "d,l, UPPERCASE" letters going beyond another line. You cannot just align a text based on "0.5*buttonheight - 0.5*textheight". To have a proper alignment you should consider storing the height of a text containing "Q,'Ä" or a similar sample text (so something which goes below the baseline and so on). Depending on the situation you might ignore "Ä" or other very tall characters as you might not use them on a screen but still make "space" for them - most important is to properly support the "baseline" as you most propably use a character/letter like p,q,g - or a comma ;-). To align your font then you could use the "max" of textheight() and the precalculated "sample text height".
Using a similar as above described approach will lead to a more pleasing visual alignment of your texts.


@ metal ball
As said I am only judging the screenshots: but except for the text logo you nowhere else seem to use the "grey ball" (or the grey color). Maybe you are able to use some "grey" somewhere else, to "catch" the grey of the logo).
Maybe it also looks nicer if the ball was surrounded by some kind of "hole" - to have a similar effect as with the "tubes" you are laying out in the game. So around the ball you could have a cutout effect + some inner shadow area to create the look of ball caught in a hole.

Now to the final nitpicking: just judging with my eyes but it looks as if the "ball" in the logo is not perfectly centered horizontally (the top outline has a little distance-difference left and rightsided).
I think the vertical misalignment of the text (a bit too far bottomish than centered) is ok as it takes away from the "weight" the ball creates by its "top alignment".


@ level selector bottom buttons
They have a shadow around them which is smaller than the one of the leve selection-"window". Is that intended?
Also the arrows / triangles have a very visible wood texture on it. The "stars" (also a rounded button) and the "retry/..."-button-symbols do not have such a texture.


As said: it is just my usual nitpicking and you should not take it too serious. Aside of that the game looks polished by a huge amount already.


@ Download / play options
While one screenshot has a blogspot-url on it you might consider adding some links to your initial post too.


bye
Ron

[NRJ]

( I can't explain too much to you because of my weak English.)
Thank you Derron for the review of my game. 

First of all I haven't done any course on game development, graphic designing, creating those game graphics remained very challenging.

Also I am not a professional like you.... 

I have created my website using blogger, so my website url is very long (as blogspot is added by default) 

After creating few more games I will purchase a custom domain name for my website. 

[Derron]

I am not a professional either.

@graphics:
I am self-teaching every single day. And you already did a great job - I just noted down what I've seen and found "not perfect yet".


@ website url
Nah, it is not about the url or its length. Just write in your inital post of this thread, where people could download/buy/checkout/... the game.


bye
Ron

[col]

Good, well presented game.
Well done!

These are type of games that I play in my lunch time at work hehe.

Just one thing that I'd suggest is that multiple solutions could be allowed?
If you have trouble coding it then one easy method is this:

[Pseudo code]
Each tile has 2 edges marked that signify that the ball can go in or out of that edge
Starting at where the ball is to enter the 'play area':
    For a tile that is next to an edge that is flagged for 'in or out'
        check the surrounding tiles of its edges that are flagged for 'in or out'
        If 'in out' edges are next to an 'in out' edge then 'this next tile' is the 'active' tile than can be checked for its surrounding edges
       
        Repeat above
             Until either an 'in out' edge is not adjacent to another tile whos edge is flagged
        Or
            The last edge to check is next to the 'exit'
[/Pseudo code]
   

Reason being is that I first experienced this on Level8 ( see the pics )

Overall a cool and pleasing little game! Thank you 

[NRJ]

@col

That's the main problem with this game, some levels can have multiple solutions, that's why I have added this button.

To show the correct path for the ball.
so that only one path to follow to clear the level else it will be too easy to clear some of the levels.

[col]

Yeah It was just an idea.
You could add a rule that the ball MUST travel over all tiles? Would that keep the difficulty level up? ( It sounds like you've play tested more than enough to know already )

[NRJ]

@Derron

You mean this, right....

[NRJ]

@col

I will take a look at the pseudo code that you have provided,whether it will be implementable Or not.

Thank you.

You could add a rule that the ball MUST travel
over all tiles? Would that keep the difficulty level
up?

Then it will be very very very difficult to solve...........

[col]

Then it will be very very very difficult to solve

Sorry, I feel I may have not have been clear with what I meant...
I mean the ball must travel over all tiles that have the 'ball track' on them - In other words: As it is now.

Maybe things are different on the later levels? Are there 'spare' tiles that have the 'ball track' on them?
Actually don't answer that as I'd like to discover that as part of the game

I will take a look at the pseudo code that you have provided,whether it will be implementable Or not.

That's cool. It was only an idea for you take it or leave it.
It's your game and I *do* like it as it is

[degac]

Nice game, simple but well designed.
My compliments

[Qube]

Lol, only Derron could post an essay about improving a game he's not even played - Can we trend #ClassicDerron

Ahem, well I have played the game and I think it's a great twist on the sliding puzzle genre and one that works really well. It's a pretty cool game and I have swore at it a few times due to my errors

I like that there can be multiple solutions but you have to do the one designated to that level.

Nice nice. Well done

Make it random levels and enter the competition under puzzle / endless

[NRJ]

@Qube

Thanks Qube and all, for playing and enjoying the game.

I wonder how Derron writes such long reviews of games. 

I am working on this game since November last year. (because of some reasons it took me such a long time to complete this game)

So, it is not fair to enter in the current competition as the other participants only got 56 days of time.