Astrofix 0.6.5 (Previously "Falling apart")

[BFranse]

What started as a small challenge to myself (Build a game, with a certain theme and restrictions and do so in a few hours), has slowly started growing into something I want to sink a bit more time in.

Before I do that, I want to sit and think on it, and for that I would really appreciate your honest feedback. Given, it’s still a rough WIP / proof of concept, but enough to get a feel for where I’m going I think.

The game is a grid based puzzler, themed around “falling apart”, and the original vision I had for it, is that it’s a spacecraft, struck by a meteor rain that needs repairs (Read: Plug the holes). But I guess that could be flexible as development continues.

I drafted my own grid system and levels are parsed from simple images, (Each cell represented by a pixel). Afterwards I check where I need to draw the walls. Currently there’s 10 levels. I hope to introduce some more mechanics in the next few weeks, although time will be sparse, and it’s challenging to come up with something unique, given the limitations of a grid.

I’d love for you to give it a shot and share your honest feedback. I know it’s still pretty bare, but I hope with this topic, and the game in front of you, you see where I want to go with this. If not, that’s also honest feedback .

The game can be played on Itch.

[yesko]

Gameplay

The puzzles are mostly very well thought out and you learn very easily and slowly how the game works.

• At the start of the game, I didn’t immediately know what the player was, what I was supposed to do and how I could do that. Maybe a small pop-up showing the controls would be helpful.
• The different parts of the levels sometimes didn’t feel connected, for example there were a few boxes that were just placed in the corner somewhere and that you needed to push into a hole directly next to them. I think it would improve the game feel if the whole level was one big puzzle rather than multiple small ones.

Graphics

The graphics are obviously quite minimal, but for such a simple premise it actually doesn’t negatively affect the game all that much other than signalling that it’s not finished yet.
Some movement animations for the player and the boxes would add a lot though.

Quality of life

• I like that you have to tap the movement key every time you move a square; it prevents you from accidentally moving too far.
• Just having to press a single key to restart the level is really nice.

The critique is probably things that you are already aware of but I’m just going to list them anyway:

• Sounds
• A main menu will eventually be important, ideally including a level selection and some settings like sound volume.
• I’m still not quite sure if I actually beat the game or if I just experienced a bug because after completing a certain level I wasn’t teleported to the next one and when restarting, the screen went black… so in case that was intended, I would definitely suggest adding a game over screen.

Conclusion

Overall, the game seems really promising. I think it could use some features distinguishing it from other similar games but this version was actually fun to play through and with some more/longer gameplay it could absolutely become a good full game

[BFranse]

@yesko Wow, thanks. This is more than I had hoped for making this topic. You’ve provided me with some good feedback and some things to think about.

Some of the suggestions you mentioned are indeed on my mind, but others weren’t yet, and for that, thank you.

One clarifying question I have, is about the sounds. There are sounds when moving and plugging a hole. Did these not work for you, or did you mean more sound effects and background music?

Edit: Oh and currently there is indeed no end screen. So if you’ve finished level 10, it just stays there for now.

[yesko]

Oh, that’s interesting that there are actually sounds, when I played the game for the second time I wasn’t hearing any anymore so I assumed I’d just “hallucinated” them the first time around…
In that case, as far as I remember, the sounds were really nice but some music might be nice

[grulps]

Gameplay

• Queueing inputs would make the movement easier. If I press left and up too quickly, the second input is ignored and the character only moves left.
• I was expecting to be able to undo my moves in a game like this. If the player makes a tiny mistake at the end, they might have to restart the level and do everything twice.

Camera

If the player moves to the edge of the level, a lot of the screen space is unused and wasted. Adding limits around the level would make it easier to see the important stuff.

Level Design

The solutions are too obvious for my taste. A good puzzle should be something that looks simple, but when you try to solve it, it appears to be impossible, until you figure out a clever trick or a different point of view.

Sokoban

Your game is almost identical to a classic puzzle game, Sokoban. It’s one of the most influential puzzle games of all time, but it has a huge design flaw; it’s nearly impossible to create interesting levels with its game mechanics. The levels increase in difficulty, like you’d expect, but it’s achieved by making them bigger and more chaotic rather than introducing some cool new ideas. Solving complex problems is more frustrating than fun, so it would be better to add new game mechanics and interesting interactions while keeping the levels small.

In my opinion the purpose of puzzle games is to make the player feel like they did something clever without it being too tedious.

Also, designing a good puzzle game is very difficult, so you’ll have to try a whole bunch of ideas and scrap most of them, if you want to find good ones.

[BFranse]

@grulps Thank you for the in-depth feedback. It’s very much appreciated !

I was wondering if roughly 10 levels per new mechanic would be too much. I’d expect it would be fine if the mechanic has a bit more depth (pun intended), than filling a hole. But your feedback is valid. You know you need to push the boxes in the holes, I don’t need to make the player do that specifically 8 or 9 more times.

The restart/undo is on purpose. Given, I have not played much puzzle games like this, so perhaps it’s more common to have an undo, rather than a restart. I have toyed with the idea of having a limited number of undo’s per level, what are your thoughts on that? It’s a bit more forgiving, which probably better suits the relaxed atmosphere I’m going for.

I will definitely implement a queueing system. Thanks for the tip, that was not on my to-do list yet!

And another thank you for introducing me to Sokoban. I will do some research into it, and will take your feedback on level design in mind.

[BFranse]

I haven’t been able to implement all the feedback yet, but I was able to chip away at quite some this evening:

• Added background music
• Added end game screen
• Added movement queueing (And slowed the movement a little bit)

I was trying to get the camera to better position the map, but it seems I’m in for a slightly larger rework than I was hoping for. I’ll have another go at it later.

I’ve uploaded a new version to Itch.

P.s. I’ve noticed a bug where the movement sound becomes quieter until it’s no longer audible. I started noticing it around level 1-7, and in 1-10 you don’t hear any movement sounds anymore. Curiously I’m not able to recreate it 100% of the time.

[BFranse]

Hi there ,

I’ve been able to make some progress on the feedback and have made the following changes:

• Maps improved - No more loose corner holes that need to be filled. All is connected. Currently level 1-10 are available, and while there are no other mechanics yet, they slightly increase complexity by adding the addition to get into a deadlock.
• Fixed the camera - The map will now always be centred but still move slightly with the player.

I’ve tried to upgrade the background animation, but I’ve been running into some issues I’ve not been able to overcome yet.

Also dabbled some with and undo method, and while I got it working technically, I’d rather redo it properly, now that I had an MVP working. So after I clean up some code, that’s coming up next.

As previously, I’ve updated the Itch.io build.

[BFranse]

Hi there

Some new updates that are now on Itch.io:

• New background - While it’s not quite what I want eventually, it’s what’ll have to do for now, until I figure out how to make vortex like effect with GPUParticles2D. Right now it swirls stars into the middle of the screen, where they disappear.
• Undo - A player now has 3 undo moves per level, as suggested by @grulps. There’s an indicator in the top right corner, and sounds effects when using an undo, or when trying to use one when you’re out of undo’s.
• Audio bug - I was able to fix the audio bug that made movement sound disappear after moving a lot.
• Code clean up - Nothing a player will notice, but I cleaned up a lot of the code, dividing it in smaller methods, defining regions, etc. This should make it more manageable.

Here’s some screenshots of the improved levels:

Next up I want to work on a simple menu, where audio settings can be tweaked, before I move on to other worlds, which will introduce abilities or skills. If you have suggestions for that, they’re more than welcome

[yesko]

Wow this is polished now!

The one (somewhat nitpicky) thing (that doesn’t really have anything to do with the actual game) I would like to mention is that because of the formatting of the website it’s very difficult to scroll up or down; I have to do it while reloading the website because otherwise the game consumes the scroll input.

Maybe you could make the embedded game window a bit smaller with the option to toggle fullscreen? (I’ve never published on Itch before so I don’t know how easy that is)

[BFranse]

Thanks! Yes, I noticed this when my wife did a playtest too. I’m on 3440x1440 monitor, so it wasn’t an issue for me, but it’s troublesome on 1920x1080 monitors. I’ll give that some time soon!

[BFranse]

Hi there ,

Thanks for the continued feedback! I’ve been struggling with this next update a bit, but therefore it makes it all the more satisfying to share this update.

I’ve decided on a name; Falling apart, but it will probably be temporary until the game is more fleshed out and I properly dedicate some time to think what I would like to call it.

V0.1.6 introduces the following changes:

• Changed resolution - Based on the feedback of my wife’s playtest, and @yesko, the 1920x1080 resolution was annoying on Itch.io on 1920x1080 monitors. I tried a few different solutions (Like adding the fullscreen button), but that also didn’t feel like an optimal solution. So while the full screen button remains on Itch, I have also lowered the resolution to 1280x720, which should still work fine for this type of game. I am assuming (And perhaps jinxing) this will bite me in the butt later, with bigger levels and when I have to play with zoom levels, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
• Introduced a menu - The first feedback I received, also by @yesko, and one that was on my to-do list for sure. But this update adds a menu with options for the sound volume, and a very basic title screen.

In addition I’ve done quite some cleanup of positioning of scenes, which I understand much better now and was giving me some issues with the menu before.

Now that the “basics” are done, I will start working on world 2, which I want to introduce a new mechanic to the player.

I’m curious about your thoughts and honest feedback. Feel free to provide it here or on Itch.

[BFranse]

Hi there ,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about this project, but that doesn’t mean I have been idle. After all the changes and improvements I had made, based on player feedback, I felt confident to tackle a new challenge: Add a new world and new features. Boy, that was an experience.

I decided I was going to go for a ‘simple’ teleporter first. How hard can it be right? 2 tiles, that move a player to the other one when stepped on?

Well you’d be right. It’s fairly simple. Unbeknownst to me though, was that I had dug myself a big hole prior.

You see, I am very new to game design and Godot, and I figured, if I can use very simple images to draw my levels, that’ll speed up creating levels. Which it did, when levels are simple. I created a parser, that was able to populate the levels, but how would one make that work with teleporters? One teleporter could be straight forward, just 2 different coloured blocks.

But then imagine having multiple teleporters. How would the parser know which teleporters to link up? That wasn’t going to go, and after good feedback from @mrcdk in this topic, I figured other mechanics would be even harder to implement. This wasn’t going to work.

So at that stage, I decided to rebuild my game. After I implemented undo in the first version, I know it wasn’t an ideal setup. I had worked with the command design pattern and knew it was a good fit for this use case.

So that’s what I did in the past weeks. I rebuild my game in 4.4 (previous version was 4.3. I doubt it’ll make much difference on such a simple game, but it couldn’t hurt either). I build the logic more robust with a command pattern, use tilemaps now to build the levels, and overall feel much more confident I can expand this into something more. Something better.

So as a player, you probably don’t notice much difference. The resolution has been bumped up to 1920x1080, the font is different, there’s a working menu with credits and options now, some more animations, transitions and better sound effects, but in essence, it’s the same game.

For now. Now I feel I have a foundation to expand upon. Something sturdy that won’t collapse at the first sliver of wind.

Anyhow, if anyone has some insight on how to create a space vortex as a background, I’d be happy to hear from you in this topic.

You can play the game on Falling apart V0.3.0 by BFranse.

In the meantime, I’ll be working on some new mechanics !

[BFranse]

Hi there ,

Another quick small update to put my money where my mouth is. I claimed it’d be easier to add new mechanics, and alas, here is the first version of a teleporter.

It did unfortunately introduce a bug into the movement queueing system, but I’ll have to leave that for another day.

The new version (And new screenshots) are up on Itch.io, and I’d be delighted if you could give it a try!

[BFranse]

Hi there ,

I have just uploaded V0.3.2 to Itch. Included in this update:

• Added levels 12-20 - I have build “world 2” so the game now features 20 levels. The first 10 are for the basic mechanics, 11-20 are featuring teleporter worlds.
• Fixed player movement queueing - Last time, when introducing teleporters I had accidentally broken the player movement queue mechanic. That is now back and working smoothly.
• Fixed an undo bug - When spamming undo’s that included boxes, it could get the boxes (visually) off grid, because the animation would play before the first one was finished. That’s no longer the case.
• Fixed a visual bug with teleports - I had a nasty bug that messed up the landing part animation for teleports. It so happened to sometimes not make you appear to come from the top and “land”, but from below where you were suppose to land. It took me a while to figure it out, but I managed to squash it.
• Tilemap and sprites - I smoothed the corners of the tilemap inner corners, and the player and box sprite. I also added a teleport destination tile. I figured at some point I will have to make the visuals somewhat more appealing (Although I’m not looking forward to that, I’m not an artist), but this should at least be a bit easier on the eyes.

I feel the levels in world 2 are more challenging and therefore more fun than level 1, but I’m curious what you think. Please share your experiences, what did you like? What did you dislike? Any suggestions moving forward?

For a glimpse of what is already on the backlog:

• In-game menu (For audio controls and to go back to the main menu).
• Going full screen on Itch kinda cuts off the background on a resolution wider that 1920.
• Make a visuals distinction between worlds (I’m thinking different backgrounds)
• Add a shadow to the player when to the teleport animation, to better simulate the “beam up” and “beam down” animation.
• Upgrade the visuals (Any tips or suggestions are very welcome!)

[BFranse]

Hi there ,

A quick update since I’m proud of the result. After the last update I gave the background another shot, and while it’s not fully ‘there’ yet, I think it’s already much better.

The swirling background now has ‘arms’ and they have a different look per world (10 levels each, 2 worlds currently).

Besides that I also fixed the full screen bug on Itch, and some other unimportant bug fixes.

In the meantime I’ve been researching how to make the visuals more appealing, but I’m having a hard time. I guess it shows that I come from a backend background, and never had to worry about making things look and feel good.
If you have any tips or suggestions, I’m all ears!

Alright then. Onto the next things on my backlog. As always, the Itch page is updated!

[BFranse]

Hi there ,

I’m unsure how many people are actually reading this or following along, but it’s keeping me accountable to myself to write updates here when I update the game.

Version 0.4.2 offers one change; An in-game menu.

You can now adjust your audio levels or go back to main menu from in-game.

Next on the backlog is the visuals. It’s time to lock in and learn how to make this game look better. Any tips, guides, tutorials are very welcome. I’d also really appreciate if some of you could run through the 20 levels and share your general feelings and thoughts about the game.

Thanks in advance, and I’ll be back soon™.

[BFranse]

Hi all ,

I just wanted to share a quick WIP update on the visuals:

There’s quite a bit more I want to do before releasing this update, but I’m excited where this is heading!

[ComicallyUnfunny]

Some glassy effects or shaders on those tiles would look very nice. Perhaps they could be transparent too?

[BFranse]

Hi there ,

Quite a big visual update here, and while it’s not fully done (more on that later), I wanted to share the progress with you all.
So what’s changed?

• New Tilemap - I have updated the tilemap to make the game look better. Again, I come from a backend background. So if you see anything wrong, I’d appreciate the feedback. Regardless, I’m pretty proud of where it’s at right now. Especially the animated teleporter tiles.
• Fixed a bug regarding teleports - I fixed an issue where you could push a box to a landing pad of a teleporter. That caused all funny situations, and luckily was an easy fix with custom data set to the tile, which I then check for, before pushing the boxes.
• Box fill particle updated - Very minor change, but I noticed the particles always looked the same, so I made them generate randomly.
• Fixed a bug regarding the in-game menu - I hadn’t thought of trying to open the in-game menu when the “next level” popup was shown, which resulted in 2 windows open, overlaying each other. That was never intended and again, an easy fix to solve. Now, when the next level popup is visible, the in-game menu is inaccessible.
• UI update - I’ve added icons to the undo and move counters, increased the size and weight of the font to increase readability, and added 2 more labels. One for the current level, and one for the amount of holes that are left to be sealed.
• Tiny background tweak - I intended to change a bit more (For example, I tried to make Nebula swirl, but couldn’t get that to work yet), but in the end I just changed the static colour background to a soft gradient.
• Border glow - I initially wanted to just make the border of my levels glow a little, but then stumbled upon the WorldEnviroment node and played around with that. I feel the game ‘pops’ more now, for lack of better words, but again, feedback is much appreciated.
• Screenshake - I added a very subtle screenshake when sealing holes, to give it a bit more ‘oompf’.

Next in my backlog are some tiny bugs (Undo a box move can sometimes get the box off grid somehow, and there’s a rare bug sometimes when undoing a teleport move where something goes wrong), and some quality updates (Add a little shadow when teleporting to really hit home the fake depth, and some subtle camera movement following the player), but most of all I want to update the theme (Godot theme, for control nodes). With the new visuals they feel outdated.

I have updated the game on Itch, and would love your feedback!

@ComicallyUnfunny

Some glassy effects or shaders on those tiles would look very nice. Perhaps they could be transparent too?

@ComicallyUnfunny Thanks for the suggestion! I tried playing around with transparency, but that seems to kill clarity/visibility too much unfortunately.

P.S. If anyone can suggest a good tool to easily record gifs, that’d be great!