Please help test my game =)

Hey C2'ers,

Just uploaded my first game (Hexzul), to the Arcade play here.

It's an 80's styled shape matching puzzle game. I've always loved Tetris and other similar shape manipulation puzzles, and I wanted to create my own. I wanted to give it a retro style/feel, as an homage to all of those games I loved so much.

It would be really fantastic if some of you could help me to test it, and iron out any bugs. I'd also appreciate any constructive criticism you may be able to offer, as this will help me to improve the game.

Thanks for taking a look at this, and I hope you enjoy the game!

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Bump, anyone please?

We realize the importance of user opinions when trying to develop / improve gameplay. So we'd really appreciate any constructive feedback you might be able to offer.

Thanks again to anyone who takes the time to read this, or offer some constructive feedback.

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Hey there, I tried it out and have two suggestions.

First is technical: your thumpin' background track is very crackly in chrome.

Second is I seem to be TERRIBLE at your game. Perhaps a ramping up of difficulty would be helpful. The first thing I was faced with looked like it needed 3 irregular shapes to make it, and my mind just froze.

Third: I couldn't find a way to un-place a shape. So I had to suicide anytime I messed up at all.

I suppose I can't count.

Good luck, and the concept looks great!

That type of games likes me so much, and the idea and concept are great...   but on easy is difficult has hell!!!

Maybe you will make more adjusted difficult levels, with more simple forms, less speed of the bottom of the hole, and a grid for your pieces compared with the grid of the bottom (exactly, because with the actual grid on the walls, calculate the exact place for pieces is so hard) will be very helpfull.

By now, the game looks great, and the idea is very nice. <img src="smileys/smiley20.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Thanks cincipon, Kuso, your comments are very useful.

cincipon, I've also had some concerns about the sound. But I've found it very difficult to find the right kind of music for free. When trying to remove a shape, you must slide it into the trash bin (at the top of the screen), hope that helps!

Kuso, I'll try to work out a way to make the easy level a bit easier (perhaps I could increase the opacity of the colours on the holes).

Thank you both again for your comments, I think they'll really help me to improve the game.

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Blacksmith,

I'm not a big fan of the mono beat background track, however I really like your graphics. I want to learn more about this so I'll ask you. Do the controls need to be that large? I was thinking about trying out a game for mobile, yet I'm not really sure how large the touch sprites need to be etc. Your game looks so cool but the controls seem to dominate a large portion of the screen. Is this relevant for touch accessibility?

Hi — Val,

Thanks for your comment. Sorry to hear that you didn't like the sound track, we thought it would add to the games 80's arcade feel. Glad to hear you liked the graphics though.

To answer your question, we decided to make the buttons big, as we're hoping to eventually release the game for mobile devices. We've found (from experience) that using smaller sprites can make touch controls difficult to use on mobiles.

Hope that helps. Good luck, and let me know when you create something. It's always fun to check out new games and ideas.

Blacksmith

I love the game tetris and thought i would do well. But found it hard to match any shape.. (maybe i was doing it wrong?)

like the look and the controls worked well.

Thanks mineet,

It does take a little while to get used to recognising the shape combinations, but you're certainly not the first to mention how difficult it is.

I suppose I'll need to find a way to make the easy level a little bit easier. We have colour coded each hole so that it gives you a clue on which shapes to use. But we made the holes 50% transparent, so that it wouldn't be too easy. Perhaps I need to make the colour less transparent?

Thanks again for the helpful feedback.

or maybe code a moving tutorial that picks and flips the proper shapes for a hole to give a general idea of what you're looking for from the player.

Thanks cincipon,

I had considered making an interactive tutorial, or possibly just making a video to show how the game works. I was leaning towards the video option, as this can be hosted on youtube, and so won't add any extra weight directly to the game.

But I'll give both ideas some more thought.

Thanks to everyone who has offered us some constructive feedback so far. We greatly value all of the help we've received, and any further opinions would be very welcome.

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Hi All,

Just wanted to let you know that we've now updated the game to include an interactive tutorial. We're hoping this will make the game a little easier for first timers.

It would be great to hear what you think of it.

Thanks, for your help    <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Simply great. The tutorial is perfect, now is no excuses to not learn how play. <img src="smileys/smiley32.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Now is time to make a difficult level to clumsy like me <img src="smileys/smiley36.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

That games likes me so much, but Hexzrul is very hard to me, just give me time to think for the first piece to put.

Nice job!

Hi Kuso,

Glad you liked the tutorial, we're hoping it'll help to get people started.

The game does have Easy, Hard and Insane levels (options found on the settings screen). Do you think the "Easy" level is still too difficult? We've been trying to work out if this is the case, but we need more people to test it, so that we get a wider range of general feedback on how easy we should make it!

Thanks again for your comment    <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />