It’s sort of a puzzle game and sort of a game about having quick fingers and well timed movement. But the really unique part of it is that all of the puzzles are user created. In this regard, the game is sort of like Super Mario Maker. You either play puzzles created by other players, or create your own and publish them for everyone to play!
As you can imagine there’s a fair amount of backend server work going on here, and so far I’ve only had a few people other than myself play the game. So like the title says… play it and see if you can break it! Please report any bugs or crashes here as I hope to have things as polished as possible when I finally release.
As far as the game itself, it’s still missing sound effects and there are a lot of junk levels and such from the testing I’ve done, so sorry about that. If you happen to make a level that you think is especially cool feel free to post the ID here, I’ll check it out and maybe put it in the featured section when the game is actually released. Other than the levels I specifically decide to keep for the launch of the game, everything will be cleared when the game is released.
Thanks to anyone willing to help, I’m open to any feedback.
No it doesn’t require a game remote, and yes it should work with all models. I still have some quirks to work out in SD mode and older/lower powered devices in general might not play so smooth, but officially all Roku devices are supported.
Nice work on the name input screen - pause, then slide when holding direction, or hit one at a time, perfect. Nice handling of the space bar and Done button navigation too. I would like it scroll around to the other side though.
Hurray for SFX volume! and Music toggle. I have the same in my game
The level select page works well. I don’t like the blink that happens though, hurts my eyes. Can it just change instead of clear then change? Aww man, doing it some more (scrolling up and down the list) just really kills my eyes!
It looks like a genious auto-sizing preview of the level, well done!
Looks like the preview is actually drawing each sprite? Interesting. The levels with a lot of tiles take longer to draw.
What’s the Level ID? I tried “12”, didn’t work.
Wow, nice mini replay after finishing a level (or failing)!
Would be nice if Resize Mode allowed for press-and-hold
I had to pay attention to figure out the controls, but it only took a couple seconds. Good job with on-screen cues and graphics.
Good work making the player finish a level before it’s publishable, and cancelling the publishableness if any changes are made!
I made a level, ID 1126, but it’s not listed in my levels or on the main list, but putting in the ID worked. Oops, I had it still on Featured - putting on Browse and there it is, the one level from the past 24 hours
I’m impressed, overall everything seems pretty professional and clean, well done, nice presentation, smooth, playable, pretty fun trying to get the best time in a few levels.
(I played on Roku 3 4200)
On point number 3, what do you mean by blinking? Are you talking about the level preview and details along the right hand side?
And yes the level preview is drawing the sprite, the level is just a two dimensional array of integers. The game is what handles actually drawing everything.
And did you say the level you published isn’t listed under “my levels”, because it should be. Or did you end up getting that figured out?
I’m glad you enjoyed the game, and again, thanks for the detailed feedback. Always good to get feedback from other developers who really pay attention to details.
I concur, this is really fun (and challenging!) May I ask, did you build this using SceneGraph?
I played around with it for a while and the only issue I came across was that after I created a couple levels (1127 & 1128) they didn’t show up on the “published in the past 24 hours” list (nothing did) although I was able to find them at the bottom of the “Published - Any Time” list.
Great job!
And I see your two levels under published in the past 24 hours, are you sure you had it on the browse tab? And that you didn’t have any other filters active. Maybe I should switch back to defaulting to the “browse” list instead of “featured”. Because I’ve done it a couple times myself where I am looking for something and am momentarily confused why I can’t find it, only to remember I’m looking at the featured section.
No, I didn’t use scene graph. I used BrightScript, but I also recently created a game engine of sorts for the Roku. So that made making this game easier. You can find it here if you’re interested… https://github.com/Romans-I-XVI/Roku-gameEngine
Please note though, I’m still coming across bugs occasionally with the engine, there are some core elements I’m thinking of changing, and after working with it I realize there are some things I need to cut out and put in separate helper objects instead (such as the “camera” following an object feature).
So the level details were in fact an object that I was deleting and recreating with new details when the user scrolls through the list, and I guess there might have been a frame in between where nothing was getting drawn? Either way, I switched it to just update the details in the existing object so it won’t flicker like it was. If you’re experiencing flickering on the rest of the screen though (I do on lower powered devices such as Roku stick) that is the Roku being quirky and tearing. I think it’s mad that I’m creating bitmaps for the preview image. But it doesn’t happen on my Roku 3.
And by the way, I like your level. I’m glad to see you had no problem figuring out how to utilize the different tile types to make an interesting level.
Also, I pushed an update with the changes mentioned as well as fixing SD mode issues.
“Romans_I_XVI” wrote:
And did you say the level you published isn’t listed under “my levels”, because it should be. Or did you end up getting that figured out?
I see it in “My Levels”, but not on the main build screen - the big blue box just says “No Levels”
Hmm, just trying again now - I see that that space seems to hold temporary levels that haven’t been published yet. Maybe add a title bar to the top “Unpublished”.
Now when fast-scrolling up and down in the choose level menu, no more blinking of all the white letters/words, good! The actual level design preview still blinks, but that part makes sense. Actually, when the scrolling happens really fast, it ends up just black, no time to draw each one!
The level editor is pretty intuitive, good choice of controls I think, and good idea to have the timed tiles work by adding up multiple clicks 1-10, very simple and straightforward.
Somewhere shows how many levels I’ve played, how many I’ve rated, how many I’ve ranked difficulty on, how many I’ve favorited.
Some sort of incentive to play more levels and rate them, and rank difficulty (there shouldn’t be any incentive to favorite more levels). Maybe a user rank system, where I try to earn badges or ranks or achievements or something.
Some ranking or recognition of who has the fastest times overall, top leaderboards, highest percentage of fastest times, speedy user titles, or something like that. Only the player’s best time for any given level should count as well, all the slower times should be ignored (and maybe even have that rule for the top ten listings, so one person can’t fill up half or all of it)
Sorry, but an online game requires you to log in in some way. I figured I made it about as easy as possible. I asked Roku if there is a way to get an account ID (because I just need something unique to identify the user) but they said it’s not possible.
I have to store a large amount of user data; levels you’ve published, highscore/rating/difficulty vote for every level you play, all your work in progress editor levels, etc. It exceeds the amount of storage that we’re allowed to use on an individual Roku. Plus this makes it so even if you get a new Roku you don’t lose all your data, and it can sync between multiple devices in your house. And as far as someone changing their email, well I guess they will start with a new account, but I doubt that happens often.
If hundreds of thousands of people are willing to share their email with PBS Kids for no apparent reason, I’m sure the majority of people will have no problem clicking a button that instantly takes care of the hassle of going to a separate website to create an account… where they would also enter their email to create said account…
It’s essentially the same as OAuth, people love OAuth. I’m sorry you can’t enjoy my game.
Those are a lot of good ideas! Some are more extensive than others, and you’re really dabbling in the area that I never initially intended to venture (but seem to keep getting closer too), and that is having solid user interaction where each player is uniquely identified to the other players in the game. For instance right now I can set my name to Joe, I can publish levels as Joe and get highscores as Joe. And nobody will ever know anything other than Joe is doing these things. Right now I have it very ambiguous, one of the reasons is so that a family can share the same Roku, but if somebody different is playing they can change their name so that their highscores and such refer to them.
Essentially what I’m getting at is, everything you said sounds awesome, and some of it I’ve already considered before. However, I never originally wanted to go that far down the rabbit’s hole. It still might happen someday, but for now I like that there’s no sense of the players having an “in game persona” if that makes sense. You just get the satisfaction of seeing your own name on the leaderboards or next to the level you created.
Also, you are correct on how the editor list works. In the builder you no longer have access to a level after you publish it, and it gets removed from your list of WIP levels. i’m going to consider a few of the other things you said, and possibly implement/change accordingly.
I “wasted” last night kicking tires and - my reservations re email indiscretion aside - this is phenomenal work! I mean the attention to detail, the consideration put into it - the preview when choosing level, the replay after level end, the level editor which is hard to out-wit (trying to put 2 green or red tiles - or no such tiles at all), the multi-step undo. Outstanding like all your previous work, Romans_I_XVI! I am awestruck.
In fairness, this kind of game (button mash) is not my cup of tea, i am more puzzler kind of guy. E.g. it would been to my taste if i were to “program” the walk, e.g. for “Stair Steps” #1039 to say “repeat 8 times (right, up) - then right” and then run it. Though i can imagine a macro facility added for “pro” gamers like say so: punching “AAAAr” instead of “rurururururururur” saves 6 keys (this format i just made-up as i go, “<<” to start recording macro, followed by Right-Up-Right-Up, followed by “>>” end macro, followed by game button “A” to assign to and then 3 invocations of A, followed by Right).
I noticed something that might be a bug: on multiple occasions my results were not added to the highscore table, even as the number was within the top 10. So, server-side trouble perhaps?
“joetesta” wrote:
I concur, this is really fun (and challenging!) May I ask, did you build this using SceneGraph?
Alas, the only one rumored to be built with RSG is the utter embarrassment of a “game”, one “Tic Tac Toe Free” - as well as the other crapola shoveled by “StuffWeLike”, made literally by replacing couple of images and publishing under new name (WTF?! Who approves such shovelware? No one in RokuCo to say “We Don’t Need Any More Fart Apps”??)
Oh, well you see I have anti cheat code that silently doesn’t post your score if it thinks you’re using a macro to play the game… Which is what you are clearly doing lol. Me and you both know about the ECP of course, so I assumed people would figure out that you can use that to complete a level as fast as possible. However, I recently made it really slack because if I tried really hard I could still trigger a false positive by actually playing the game. Although, looking at how easy it was for you to post ridiculous scores I think I’ll have to tighten the bolts on it again.
I just wish there was a way to definitively tell if someone was using the ECP, and that problem would be solved.
Either way, I’m glad to see you are enjoying your own unique style of play
I just updated the game, the change came somewhere out of inspiration from your wishlist. Now when you are browsing through the levels, levels that you’ve completed will be darkened slightly and your best time will be displayed below.
When you mentioned stats and such I realized there was no way to really see what levels you’ve completed and the scores you got, that is, without actually beating the level again and seeing your previous highscore lol.
“Romans_I_XVI” wrote:
Oh, well you see I have anti cheat code that silently doesn’t post your score if it thinks you’re using a macro to play the game… I think I’ll have to tighten the bolts on it again.
Then i am extra impressed, if that was at all possible. And I seriously doubt if Bender B. Rodriguez will be playing again.
I just wish there was a way to definitively tell if someone was using the ECP, and that problem would be solved.
There is a proposal to that extent https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f … 13#p536689
and you can help to make it through by supporting/keeping it alive, so that roWanda does not forget :mrgreen:
“Romans_I_XVI” wrote:
When you mentioned stats and such I realized there was no way to really see what levels you’ve completed and the scores you got, that is, without actually beating the level again and seeing your previous highscore lol.
i was going for “failing” instead - lots of it - to check for each level. Differentiating the played from unplayed in the list is a useful addition! Bonus idea: << and >> for PgUp/PgDn
