Maze 4K

[me]

Hello all,

Latest on Java4K

Screens:
 

Original Start of post:

It is still under development but I want some feedback
on the controls. I am making a prototype of a multi-user game
where I want to have users co-operate through a maze.
Since the 4k footprint is too small for a real multi-user game
it is only a prototype for one player who can manipulate
different board-pieces. (pawns)

I need some feedback on the lines and order of the moves.
For now I have a dragging mechanism but I fear that it
is too frustrated in difficult levels. (try level 2 for instance)

Any thoughts on different mechanisms are appreciated!

Until I have a final version I am hosting the game here:

Maze 4K



It is mouse controlled!

Again, any feedback is appreciated!


Best regards from

M.E.

Edit: latest 4k entry on java4k

[Eli Delventhal]

Hello all,

It is still under development but I want some feedback
on the controls. I am making a prototype of a multi-user game
where I want to have users co-operate through a maze.
Since the 4k footprint is too small for a real multi-user game
it is only a prototype for one player who can manipulate
different board-pieces. (pawns)

I need some feedback on the lines and order of the moves.
For now I have a dragging mechanism but I fear that it
is too frustrated in difficult levels. (try level 2 for instance)

Any thoughts on different mechanisms are appreciated!

Until I have a final version I am hosting the game here:

Maze 4K




It is mouse controlled!

Again, any feedback is appreciated!


Best regards from

M.E.

Hm, seems like the dragging to move mechanic doesn't quite work, because you can accidentally drag. Also, I didn't really know what I was supposed to do. Instructions somewhere?

The amount you're getting into 4k is really impressive, though, that's for sure. This could turn out to be great.

[davidc]

What's the significance of the numbers? Is there a limit to how far each piece can move per turn?

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Mickelukas]

Figured out how it worked, the pieces you can move might be a bit more clear, first level was a bit confusing at first

There was only two levels, right? After the second level it kept resetting to the second level when I completed it

It would be good to have a bit of information how it works and also make it possible to change the route from a step on the way if you drag wrong (for example, if you accidentally drag wrong on the 26th step you need to start from 0 again instead of holding the mouse down on the 25th step and dragging a new 26th step.

Mike

[me]

Hi All,

Thanks for the feedback!

Well .. I thought so myself! It is not sure how to
play the game.

I am going back to the drawingboard and will
probably try something with a single click and
get a line of direction going on.

That will remove the numbers and when moving
the mouse it would take care of too much of the
irritant behaviour we see at the moment.

I hope the logic will keep it below 4k .. we will
see......


Thanks a bunch for testing, much appreciated!


Best regards from

M.E.

[me]

Hi All,


A new version is up :   MAZE4K

Changed
 - the line of movement
 - Add a menu button

You click on pawn and you don't have to drag.
Click once more for final destination or on the
pawn again to reset the line.

Todo:

- More Levels
- Clean up sprites
- Maybe add another object


Thanks in advance for some feedback.
Especially again on the line-mechanism.

Best regards from

M.E.

[Mickelukas]

It's better but I still have four comments

1. It's difficult (impossible?) to see the cursor when you hover over the start button.
2. When moving the mouse quickly it doesn't register the steps you want to move.
3. It would be nice to have a way to deselect the current pawn so you can move the mouse around without creating a path.
4. When you have several pawns and you move one in the incorrect way (over a lake that hasn't been removed) and you click on start you have no idea where the error is (neither pawn nor where), a highlight of either the whole path or the step on the path that isn't possible would be nice.

[Alan_W]

I've got the idea of filling in the lakes by pushing the blocks into them.  It's similar to those sliding block puzzles you get in adventure games from time to time.  I recall some in Zelda Twilight Princess (I think). I have a slight problem with the UI where I often select squares I hadn't intended to and have to restart.  Perhaps clicking on the pawn to select and then once on each waypoint and then clicking on start.  Waypoints have to be horizontally or vertically oriented from the last waypoint.

Overall the game idea looks great, I love those sliding block puzzles.

[pjt33]

I managed to figure out the first level (took me a few minutes) and the second level, but I haven't a clue what's going on in the third level. Could you provide a key so I know what the different images represent?

[me]

Hi All,

Thanks a lot for the comments.
I will see what I can do!

Best regards from

M.E.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[me]

Hello All,

So this weekends programming is at an end.

Update    [MAZE4K]

- Mouse control is changed so to click on the pawn you
  want to move and click another time for the destination

- You can delete previous steps by going back when drawing  the path.

- Hopefully the bug of moving too fast is removed by this change
  as well. Please let me know if there are still paths created that
  are not in sequence of a 'real' path ie. no jumping!!

- Graphics updated

- When a path is taken that is obstructed the line turns to red.
 (Thanks to Mickelukas for the comment!)

Changed the levels as to get hopefully a better learning
curve. If you still need more help in the earlier levels, please
say so and I see what I can do.

Unfortunately I couldn't upload to java4k yet, so I'm still
hosting this on my site.

There are a few bytes left for some more levels.......
(Currently 2 real levels and 1 very basic instruction level)


Best regards from

M.E.

[Mickelukas]

Starting to look really nice Another couple of levels and it's great.

Level 3 and 4 are quite difficult at the moment

[Alan_W]

The game's looking very promising now and much easier to draw the path 

[Morre]

I quite like this! The gameplay mechanics are quite nice, and levels 2 and 3 gave me just about the right level of challenge. Some additional polish would be nice; in particular, if you move the mouse too fast, the lines don't always seem to keep up.

The game isn't always entirely intuitive; there are different blocks you can push, and two kinds of holes, but it seems any block fits into any hole? Perhaps the game could use some work in this area.

I'd love to see some more levels!

[me]

Hello All,

First of all: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The new version is up on JAVA4k

It is getting near to its final release as I am on 4081 bytes in pack200 format.
Maybe I can squeeze something more in.

The first levels are for instructional purposes and hopefully it is enough to
get you started. I have play-tested on some of my friends as well and it was a bit
fifty-fifty on the additional help that they required.

I still love to get some feedback even I haven't much more room,
but maybe one or two things can be changed.

I have a bit of a low-score list:

Level	Steps
1	11
2	6
3	11
4	16
5	29
6	52
7	56
8	46
9	64
10	95
11	105

Enjoy!

Best regards from

M.E.

[Mickelukas]

Finally more levels

New record streak!

1   11
2   6
3   11
4   16
5   29
6   33 instead of 52
7   46 instead of 56
8   27 instead of 46
9   64
10   95 (I only managed it in 97  )
11   102 (instead of 105)


Four suggestions (not sure it fits though )
1. When dragging the line wrong and going back it counts it as two steps, this makes it quite frustrating when trying to count number of steps
2. A message that you completed the last level
3. A message after each level how many steps you completed it in
4. When removing all the steps a person took the number of stpes stay the same. if you want to count steps you need to restart the whole level then.

[davidc]

I like the new graphics, they are much clearer now. One thing I would suggest is that the lakes could look a little more blue. It took me a while to figure out that it was water as the grey color looked more like stones. Apart from that, nice work.

[me]

Updated the game once more to get some of the
requests in.

- Score list is on the screen so you can see
  previous scores.
- Changed counting of the steps and removed
  penalty for going back. I previously counted
  each step and removing a step counted for two
  steps!
- Increased blue on the water - sprite.

 
Removed level 11 to get above in the game

 
I am now on 4043 with proguard/pack/gz combination

Current low-score list:

level 1      11
level 2      6
level 3      11
level 4      16
level 5      29
level 6      33
level 7      46
level 8      23
level 9      64
level 10    89


Thanks to Mickelukas for setting the higher=lower standard!
But can you beat level 10 now

Best regards from

M.E.


Edit: Changed scorelist for level 8 (23)

[Mickelukas]

Love the new changes, makes it so easy to work for the highscore, was a bit of a hair puller before

There is only one more thing that makes me have to restart the levels sometimes. when having activated a person and then chose not to move him, the dot that still is on him counts as one step.

Score for level 10: 78! Beat that!

(still need to figure out how you did level 8... I managed to improve my score from 27 to 26 but 23??)

Mike

EDIT: Ha! managed 23 as well. I had to do something that seems like a bug though or I only came to 24 I had to push an item into the square where another person had stopped (and still stood).

[Mickelukas]

Score for level 10: 77

Found an optimization

The current high(low) score:
level 1      11
level 2      6
level 3      11
level 4      16
level 5      29
level 6      33
level 7      46
level 8      23
level 9      64
level 10    77

Mike

[me]

Hi Mike,

 
I had made the 77 while you made that post!
Congrats to you, you beat me to it.

I've updated the game once more and now
it doesn't count the dot when you remove
the line.

Best regards from

M.E.

[Mickelukas]

If I click a person and then click him again the dot stays and it counts as one still. Not sure what you changed.

Also, what about this one:

EDIT: Ha! managed 23 as well. I had to do something that seems like a bug though or I only came to 24 Wink I had to push an item into the square where another person had stopped (and still stood).

Other than that. Nice game, hope you do good

[pjt33]

If I click a person and then click him again the dot stays and it counts as one still. Not sure what you changed.

You must have the old one cached. I played it yesterday and it counted as 0.

[Mickelukas]

Cleared the cache, didn't change. Ah, well not a biggie as long as it works for new people

[me]

Hi All,

First, I wish everybody a very happy new year!

New version is on java4k.com.

Due to the fix of the push-to-player bug I changed
the walking behaviour. In fact this behaviour was
something that I intended at first but it costed too
many bytes.
I made a decision to drop some colors in favor of
the walking change AND ... TADA .. a new level !!!!

EDIT:

And when removing drawRect and replaced it with
fillRect (I used drawRect only once!) I saved some
more and could squeeze one more level in  ....

So ...
there are now 12 LEVELS and I'm at 4095 bytes
at the moment!

The current high(low) score:
level 1      11
level 2      6
level 3      11
level 4      16
level 5      29
level 6      33
level 7      46
level 8      23
level 9      64
level 10    77
level 11    82
level 12    97



Have fun!

Best regards from

M.E.

[me]

How addictive this is.

Further optimization got me some bytes.

- repetitive str=str+"blah"; combined into one
  final string str="....";
- Each level had its own data that was assigned
based on a switch/case. Combining all data in one
string and indexed based on the level number
saved a LOT!


Now I'm on 15 levels.


level 1      11
level 2      6
level 3      11
level 4      16
level 5      29
level 6      33
level 7      46
level 8      23
level 9      64
level 10    77
level 11    82
level 12    97
level 13   121
level 14    88
level 15    86

If no bugs are found and I can optimize some
more the graphics will be getting some attention
back. I liked the previous graphics better.


Best regards from

M.E.

[Mickelukas]

Ah, you fixed so you can't push items into where people stopped moving. is it then still possible for you to get 23 on level 8? I can then only get to 24.

Level 14 is a bit buggy, it either needs an explanation (only one person of each color can move and the rest will disappear but you cannot plan a route through a person that you know will disappear).

level 1      11
level 2      6
level 3      11
level 4      16
level 5      29
level 6      33
level 7      46
level 8      23 (I only manage 24)
level 9      64
level 10    71 (was 77)
level 11    82 (I only managed 84)
level 12    97
level 13   105 (was 121)
level 14    88 (only managed 100, need to try more )
level 15    86 (didn't have time to test it yet, will come later)

Mike

[me]

Hi Mike,

In fact I used the unintended behaviour of the pawns to
create level 14. You have to make a selection between
the pawns that are given. Only one unique color can be active.
I agree that it could use some explenation but I could not
find the right words to explain it. (At least not with a couple
of words!)


Level 8 can still be done in 23 steps 

Kudos on level 13 .. I still haven't figured it out how you
managed it !

Level 10 took me some time to find as well. Nice catch!

I'm still struggeling to get a 16x16 sprite going on
(I now use 12x12 that gets stretched on the canvas)

Encoding two small ints into one byte still gives me more
overhead than using a single String with all the data
in it.


Best regards from

M.E.

[Mickelukas]

Managed the 23 pointer on lvl 8 finally, always moved the blue peon two/three steps as well but didn't see the easy way to do it

Also did 86 on lvl 15 so I agree to that.

level 1      11
level 2      6
level 3      11
level 4      16
level 5      29
level 6      33
level 7      46
level 8      23
level 9      64
level 10    71
level 11    82
level 12    97
level 13   105
level 14    76 (was 88)
level 15    86

[Mickelukas]

Love your game, keep finding new ways to solve the puzzles:

level 1      11
level 2      6
level 3      11
level 4      16
level 5      29
level 6      33
level 7      46
level 8      23
level 9      64
level 10    71
level 11    82
level 12    97
level 13   103 (was 105)
level 14    76
level 15    86