Voting time for Mixed Genre theme game competition - Jun 30th 2018

Started by Qube, July 01, 2018, 20:42:25

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Qube

It's time to vote in the Mixed Genre theme game competition - May 4th - Jun 30th 2018

8 brand new games await for you to play and vote on ;D

If you are voting then please do take the time to play each game in order to keep the voting fair and in the good spirit of the gaming comps.

Voting rules :

1.. State your favourite three games in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.
2.. State the game you think is the most original and complete game.
3.. You are not allow to submit any updates to your game until after voting has closed except for bug fixes. No feature updates.
4.. Voting must only be done in this thread.
5.. You can not vote for your own game.
6.. Members with less than 10 posts can not vote unless they themselves have submitted a game for the comp.

* For this completion there is an additional £250 prize for the most original and complete game. *

Vote Example :

1st Game A
2nd Game B
3rd Game C
Most original / complete : Game B

Prize Fund Allocation

1st = £250
2nd = £150
3rd = £100
Most original / complete = £250

Voting time :

Voting takes place from now and will close on July 10th @ 23:59:59 GMT.

The games ( in order of submission ) :

PuzzPair by Holzchopf
Link : https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,4503.msg17802.html#msg17802

A Knight's War by Matty
Link : https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,4503.msg17841.html#msg17841

Bug Hunter: Annihilation Complex by freeman69
Link : https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,4756.0.html

Tiny Pixel Wars by PixelPaladin
Link : https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,4503.msg17925.html#msg17925

SacredLands by iWasAdam
Link : https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,4503.msg17939.html#msg17939

Redshirt Fodder by therevills
Link : https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,4765.0.html

Triss by Morpheus
Link : https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,4768.msg17982.html

Tower Swap by curtastic
https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,4503.msg17991.html#msg17991
Mac Studio M1 Max ( 10 core CPU - 24 core GPU ), 32GB LPDDR5, 512GB SSD,
Beelink SER7 Mini Gaming PC, Ryzen 7 7840HS 8-Core 16-Thread 5.1GHz Processor, 32G DDR5 RAM 1T PCIe 4.0 SSD
MSI MEG 342C 34" QD-OLED Monitor

Until the next time.

Xerra

Qube, change the closing date of voting to 10th of July. I don't have a time machine :-)
M2 Pro Mac mini - 16GB 512 SSD
ACER Nitro 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop - Intel® Core™ i7, RTX 3050, 1 TB SSD
Vic 20 - 3.5k 1mhz 6502

Latest game - https://xerra.itch.io/Gridrunner
Blog: http://xerra.co.uk
Itch.IO: https://xerra.itch.io/

Qube

Quote from: Xerra on July 01, 2018, 22:30:01
Qube, change the closing date of voting to 10th of July. I don't have a time machine :-)
Ok, I've changed it to July 10th just for those who don't have a time machine :P
Mac Studio M1 Max ( 10 core CPU - 24 core GPU ), 32GB LPDDR5, 512GB SSD,
Beelink SER7 Mini Gaming PC, Ryzen 7 7840HS 8-Core 16-Thread 5.1GHz Processor, 32G DDR5 RAM 1T PCIe 4.0 SSD
MSI MEG 342C 34" QD-OLED Monitor

Until the next time.

Steve Elliott

Win11 64Gb 12th Gen Intel i9 12900K 3.2Ghz Nvidia RTX 3070Ti 8Gb
Win11 16Gb 12th Gen Intel i5 12450H 2Ghz Nvidia RTX 2050 8Gb
Win11  Pro 8Gb Celeron Intel UHD Graphics 600
Win10/Linux Mint 16Gb 4th Gen Intel i5 4570 3.2GHz, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 2Gb
macOS 32Gb Apple M2Max
pi5 8Gb
Spectrum Next 2Mb

Xerra

Quote from: Steve Elliott on July 01, 2018, 23:09:49
Doesn't everybody have a Time Machine?

I'm the 14th Doctor so I don't exist yet. Some other bugger has got my Tardis right now :-)
M2 Pro Mac mini - 16GB 512 SSD
ACER Nitro 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop - Intel® Core™ i7, RTX 3050, 1 TB SSD
Vic 20 - 3.5k 1mhz 6502

Latest game - https://xerra.itch.io/Gridrunner
Blog: http://xerra.co.uk
Itch.IO: https://xerra.itch.io/

Holzchopf

So far I managed to play all entries. Every single one kept me entertained for quite a while :) that's good. But on the other hand this means it will take me a lot of time to play them until I can judge fair.

therevills

I've downloaded all the downloadable ones and going to play them over the next few days... then the web games!

So much variety this time - Good Luck All!

Cheers,
Steve

Matty

Greetings Peoples...

I've played all the games now, and think they are all quite highly polished.  First my votes then some feedback:

Top 3 Favourite Games:
1 - Tiny Pixel Wars
2 - Redshirt Fodder
3 - Puzz Pair (mobile version)
Most Complete/Original
Sacred Lands

------
Comments
I liked Bug Hunter but think what would have really made it shine even more was the ability to strafe (fire in one direction and move in another) - that seemed the most obvious feature that was missing from it. The concept is pretty good and I've played (and made) similar games many times before - I liked it, but the polish wasn't quite up there with the others

Puzz Pair was excellent - polished and simple - although it would have been better to have had some in game instructions of some kind (although it was easy enough to work out - and the instructions on the forum were good enough).  With some more refinement (instructions, maximum level greater than 11) it would deserve to do well on the mobile market.

RedShirt Fodder - loved the little intro, and the theme, I'm terrible at this game - I couldn't work out the best strategy for not losing a redshirt every time I got close to an enemy...it's hard - I know some found it easy, but I didn't. But I liked the look and feel of the game, it just looked so right.

Sacred Lands - beautiful game. Absolutely beautiful. Challenging to play. I played the tutorial and the first level (easy) - couldn't get very far - I learned *how* to fly the ship but did not master it yet.  Love the video game box screen at the beginning. Very complete though.

Tiny Pixel Wars - my sort of game, hence it was first on the list for me. A true strategy game. Commanding little soldiers, moving them around, shooting stuff - perfect. Exactly what I like to play. It's not easy though. As soon as you make contact with the enemy they seem to send everything they have at you.  Once again - I'm not good at this game, and it runs a bit quick, but I think it's excellent.

Triss - sorry - even with instructions I couldn't work out how to play this. I didn't manage to twist or turn any of the pieces and on clicking one of the grid squares in the multi coloured grid arrangement the game crashed with an error and had to be closed with the task manager.  It looked good, colourful, neat and quality looking but I just couldn't work out what to do and how to move the pieces.

Tower Swap - I like the look of this and played a little but I've never been good at match three games. I can match three in a row and make the things disappear but don't really understand what the objective is other than clearing groups of three. It was very consistent in its graphics style and looked quite good and the sound worked well too - but match three games are rarely my favourite style of game.

Additional comment about Puzz Pair - this one I rated highly (2) which is unusual for a puzzle game, they're not normally my interest in games but the ease of play and the speed and simplicity of it put it up there for me.  It was either Puzz Pair or Sacred Lands in third place for me in my voting but I preferred playing Puzz Pair over Sacred Lands (too hard for me) so Puzz Pair won out third place for me although Sacred Lands was easily the most original/complete of the games on offer.

Thanks.
Matt.


curtastic

Yep I'll have to vote like this:
1 - Tiny Pixel Wars
2 - Puzz Pair (mobile version)
3 - Redshirt Fodder
Most Complete/Original
Sacred Lands

Xerra

Ok, my turn to vote. I'm swinging differently from the votes so far. Votes first then the notes I made about each one.

1 - Triss
2 - Tower Swap
3 - Bug Hunter

Most complete/Presented/Original etc: Sacred lands, no question. An incredible effort I was well impressed with.


Triss
---——
This is a really clever take on Tetris. Maybe, as someone suggested, being able to drag the lines to make shapes by using right button and then left button to draw a shape would make it a bit easier but it's perfectly playable as is. Graphic style is very good and consistent here as well. Music is a bit short and has to be turned off after a while if you play for a fair bit, as I did. Certainly never played any other game which works like this and it's done in Gamemaker 2 which shows what can be done with the package. The drawing a shape out on the grid to remove shapes from the board is a brilliant idea and brought something completely new to a familiar game idea which is what this is all about. That's mainly why I'm voting this top - along with it also being very impressive for a debut to the SyntaxBomb competitions.

Tower swap
—————
Plus points for being written in a different language and source code being available.

No sound was a bit disappointing.

Once played for a while you realise there's more than just a match 3 element as you need to position the
weapons to the best squares to defend against increased Dragon attacks.

Made it to day 21 instead of day 4 once I worked out how to play it properly. MANY DRAGONS!

What I most liked about playing this wasn't the basic match 3 element itself, but the fact that you use that to build the elements that you need to control the waves of dragons which I felt gave this a very good strategic element. Not to mention bringing in a tower defence feel to the game too. When I started playing it I think I'd played about 15 minutes and had almost written it off before I started figuring out how to play it properly. I really hope that other people give it the time to see it's rather clever in what it does when they play too. It was a tough call to vote Triss above this in the end.

Bug Hunter
—————
Very basic title screen - lets the game down a bit compared to the others presentation wise.
Hard game but I feel this should be. It makes it more fun to play.
Game definitely grows on you as you play it.
Even small mazes are big enough to be a pain to move through to get back into the game when you die.
Some clever use of sound effects.
Liked the graphic effects for blowing up, bombs and other events.
Nice little game that does the important thing - makes you want to play it again.

Almost wrote this one off too early on but I had read it was quite tough from someone elses comments in the worklog so persevered. This game grows on you rapidly, despite the niggles I mentioned above. I really enjoy playing it now but would have to steal the laptop back off the missus to play again - which is annoying. Want me to build it on Mac for you? :-)


PuzzPair
——
Not a fan of memory games as mine is poor.
Presented well enough with nice graphic effects.
Don't like small window and only four blocks per row and six going up. Games going well and suddenly insta-death.
Gameplay appeal fades pretty quick as there's no variety apart from clicking two squares hitting matches.
Nothing wrong with the game but I just didn't like it as much as my votes.


Knights War
————————
I struggled with this one in all honesty. Played a few games but not really a fan of this type of turn based game, so that doesn't help.

Plus points for being browser based and having source code viewable.

Liked the music even if it does cut off abruptly - presumably because of the demo mode.

No diagonal movement was a bit annoying.

Playing a game just takes so long - i found it frustrating. Especially as I lost every game anyway.

Just wasn't my taste - probably more a reflection of me than the game, to be honest.


Sacred Lands
———————
Was confused as hell at first but then found what keys did from options menu.

Love that the game has a tutorial and saves progress.

Reminds me of both Virus on the Archimedes and Sentinel - both great games for inspiration.

Presentation of this game is excellent. Background graphics, menu's etc. Feels like a commercial game. You want to play it as soon as the title screen kicks in with all the funky displays. Love the Atari VCS box cover.

Seems very hard to play with keys but again I wasn't very good at it so no complaints.

Easily the most complete game for me. I kept wanting to play it even though I was rubbish at it.

On a side note, in case it seems odd that I voted this most complete game and state that it is my favourite of the competition, I didn't vote it in with the other games because it stands out so much from the rest, and I want the other games to have a chance. If there hadn't been two options for winners this competition then I would have put it as number one, of course.


Tiny Pixel wars
—————
Couldn't get full screen. Just a window in the middle of a huge black border when i pressed f11.
Music too twee for a battle game.
Not a big fan of RTS games apart from original Dune II.
Couldn't get into the game - again, a reflection more on me than the game itself.


Red Shirt fodder
—————————
Like the credits scene with the excellent star field.

Movement of player is annoying. getting trapped against cliffs and not moving round them.

Nice cannon fodder feel. Because you had different graphics on the men it felt bad when you lost one.

Use of ships and squads was a nice touch. Made you feel like you could have had a lot more levels given the time.

Music and theme of the game had a very Star Trek feel.

Completed first go so game felt a bit like a demo in some ways. Maybe should be made into a full size game.

With this game I struggled when it came to picking my third vote because I liked it as much as I liked Bug Hunter but you can't have two thirds. In the end I just felt the gameplay of Bug hunter just pipped this one, even though Red shirt was so much better presented.



On a side note it's a shame not everyone can win a prize but it's good to see new people entering the competition and it going strong after five runs now. We had two more games this time than in Competition 4 so it's plain to see the interest is there. I think this competition is fantastic for pushing people to get games out there and work at deadlines and should only be encouraged. I'm sad I didn't get Ram finished in time as I won't be able to enter it into a competition in future once it's finished. But, on the other hand, the entries here were so good that I suspect I wouldn't have made the vote anyway. Well done everyone who's had a go this time round and got a game out there.

M2 Pro Mac mini - 16GB 512 SSD
ACER Nitro 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop - Intel® Core™ i7, RTX 3050, 1 TB SSD
Vic 20 - 3.5k 1mhz 6502

Latest game - https://xerra.itch.io/Gridrunner
Blog: http://xerra.co.uk
Itch.IO: https://xerra.itch.io/

Derron

Quote from: Xerra
I didn't vote it in with the other games because it stands out so much from the rest, and I want the other games to have a chance. If there hadn't been two options for winners this competition then I would have put it as number one, of course.

That's not fair for the game then.
A girl can be smart and sexy at the same time. So why can a game not get your votes in both aspects (not categories!). Guess how people react if Oscars were given with comments like "normally we would give you 'best movie' too but you already got the 'best actor' one...".


Nonetheless thanks for your short-reviews. Will try to find some time to play them too before voting deadline ...but 4 hrs left until I have to stand up again, going on a short trip with the son.


bye
Ron

chalky

Top 3:
  1. Sacred Lands
  2. Tiny Pixel Wars
  3. Puzz Pair

Most Complete/Original:
  Sacred Lands - stunning piece of work - even though I'm absolutely pants at playing it, I just cannot stop coming back for more...

PixelPaladin

For all those having problems with Tiny Pixel Wars running too fast: I fixed this bug – the game should now (hopefully) run at the same speed for everyone.

therevills

Quote from: Xerra on July 02, 2018, 22:59:11
Red Shirt fodder
—————————
Like the credits scene with the excellent star field.
Thanks for the feedback :)
Quote
Movement of player is annoying. getting trapped against cliffs and not moving round them.
This was done on purpose to copy Cannon Fodder, I could have done A* path finding but that would totally change how the game played and would lose the "cannon fodder feel".

Quote
Use of ships and squads was a nice touch. Made you feel like you could have had a lot more levels given the time.
Yeah I really wanted to add more, the shuttle was a last minute addition.

Quote
Completed first go so game felt a bit like a demo in some ways. Maybe should be made into a full size game.
I've had a range of different feedback this time about the difficulty level, some found it too easy whilst some too hard...  ???

Steve Elliott

Quote
For all those having problems with Tiny Pixel Wars running too fast: I fixed this bug – the game should now (hopefully) run at the same speed for everyone.

Yes bug fixed (at least under Linux) I'll try Windows tomorrow.

So many good games too test!
Win11 64Gb 12th Gen Intel i9 12900K 3.2Ghz Nvidia RTX 3070Ti 8Gb
Win11 16Gb 12th Gen Intel i5 12450H 2Ghz Nvidia RTX 2050 8Gb
Win11  Pro 8Gb Celeron Intel UHD Graphics 600
Win10/Linux Mint 16Gb 4th Gen Intel i5 4570 3.2GHz, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 2Gb
macOS 32Gb Apple M2Max
pi5 8Gb
Spectrum Next 2Mb