Astrofix 0.6.5 (Previously "Falling apart")

[yesko]

It’s great to see this come along!
I really don’t have a lot to say, there are just two very nitpicky things:

• For some reason I can only navigate the main menu using keys after closing the options menu, all the other UIs always work fine with keys
• This might just be because of my monitor, but I found it kind of difficult to tell apart the closed holes (dark yellow) and boxes (yellow)

[BFranse]

Thanks for the feedback. That is indeed odd. I’ll make sure to put that on my backlog to look into!

Regarding the boxes, I noticed that too and believe it or not, but I already changed the colours to increase the contrast, but I will up it some more!

[BFranse]

Hi there,

It’s been a while since I had time to work on this project, but I’m glad to have found some today and went straight looking at your feedback @yesko.

So you mean on startup you cannot control the menu with your keyboard? I cannot seem to reproduce the issue, neither from the editor, nor on Itch. Are you sure the iframe/game was clicked/had focus?

[yesko]

Well, back then I could navigate the menu on start up but not after closing the options, and I tested it multiple times to make sure I wasn’t making it up. Now I can’t reproduce it any more… Maybe it had something to do with my browser , sorry

[BFranse]

Not a problem. Glad it’s no longer an issue

[BFranse]

Hi there ,

After a busy period IRL, I managed to spend some time on this project again, and finished up the visuals. I upgraded the UI to fit the theme more, and created a better title screen.
This version also includes a few minor bugfixes, but probably nothing you would notice!

As per usual, the game is updated and available for web play on Itch, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts!

[lZebl]

Fan of the UI. Clean and fit

When I have some downtime I’ll give the game a go and let you know how it goes

[BFranse]

Thanks! I’d love to hear your thoughts

[BFranse]

Hi there ,

I’ve been able to spend quite some time on this project, and I used to to eliminate a few bugs and some nice polishing touches:

• Transparent tile fix - I noticed that when I changed the filled box texture to a darker tone (To increase the visual distinction between filled holes and boxes), I accidentally also lowered the alpha, and therefore added unwanted transparency. That has been fixed.
• Teleport undo bug fix - There was an issue when undoing a teleport move. For teleport moves, I created a CompositeCommand, for the command pattern. Because when you undo a teleport move, not only does it need to teleport you back, but also move you back to the tile you came from. Otherwise, you’d be on the teleport tile again, which would cause you to teleport again directly. Since these are technically 2 moves, there was a small window where this bug could arise when quickly queuing moves when undoing a teleport. That has now been resolved.
• Box undo off grid fix - In the same vein, when quickly undoing multiple box move actions, it could cause the box to end up off grid. This happened because of a desync between the visual and logical position of the boxes. It took me a while, but I was able to resolve it and boxes should now no longer go off grid when spamming undo’s.
• Shadow when teleporting - To really ‘sell’ the idea of depth when teleporting, I added a very small shadow under the player sprite:
  
• Level load animations - The “theme” of the game is a spaceship, hit by a meteor rain and you need to plug the holes (For however much a puzzler needs a theme). Until now, that needed quite some imagination, so I added a small animation on level load. First there’s a bit of a gloss over the tiles, and then meteors crash on your ship creating the holes you need to fill:
  
• Camera improvements - The camera felt a bit static, and while I liked the idea of having the entire level visible, it now has some subtle movements, for some extra flair.
• Rename - I renamed the project to Astrofix. I felt “Falling apart” was more the working name of the project, but it didn’t fully meet the theme. Your spaceship didn’t fall apart, it was hit by a meteor rain:
  
  

Scrolling up to earlier posts, I feel the game made big leaps visually, and I’m really happy where it’s headed. On the backlog now is adding ‘world 3’ (Which adds a new mechanic), but I’m also hoping to “finish” the game this year. At least get it to a state where I can look at my first game and be proud. And then focus on a new project.

I would really, really like some feedback. On gameplay, visuals, feeling, anything. It’ll be much appreciated

The game is hosted on Itch and can be found here, and can be played in your browser.

[yesko]

I really like the teleports and the animation is very satisfying

I like the meteor animation too but to me it doesn’t communicate that the ship is being hit by meteors, instead it feels like the holes plop onto the ship somehow? Maybe you could make the meteors fall from the top of the screen onto the tiles to make it clearer what’s happening?

This last one isn’t really about the new features: if there’s a move counter I think it would be a good idea to add a move limit or target, so the player has a point of reference how good they were.

[BFranse]

Thanks @yesko, this is exactly the type of feedback I’m looking for. I’ll make sure to tweak that in the next build!