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Ancient Mystery III: The lost symbols

By redien

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Innovation583.29
Overall1042.94
Theme1103.11
Audio1352.13
Humor1481.95
Graphics1492.56
Coolness1502
Community1552.32
Fun1572.49

Comments

club559 2010-12-20 03:19

It's a nice game that fits the theme and you should try it out. It gets real challenging!

stevejohnson 2010-12-20 05:21

I couldn't get very far in this. There is no forgiveness if you can't catch the one you need when it flashes by.

increpare 2010-12-20 20:40

Oh, once I figured this one out I quite liked it - good work (though, I think I might have misunderstood it - I seem to be guessing shapes, whereas others seem to indicate that the target shape flashes up occasionally - ah well).

sfernald 2010-12-20 21:27

I didn't get it. I thought I was just picking random ones to create the alien. Did I miss something?

elegwa 2010-12-21 05:44

Interesting concept, you had me for quite a few levels :P

redien 2010-12-21 14:41

Heh, I see I have yet again failed to provide sufficient instructions. The goal is to discover the hidden aliens. There are a set of predetermined aliens and each level you get a new one where the blocks are changed around a bit. You finish a level by moving the blocks back in order so that the alien reveals itself.

The bar at the bottom hints as to how close you are to the original alien. When a block is moved to the correct location the bar fills up. The aliens also flash by in the beginning to give a bit of an idea as to what they're supposed to look like. You aren't really supposed to memorise them.

Thanks for all the feedback! I'm sorry for the confusion. :)

cosmologicon 2010-12-21 16:38

I enjoyed this! I would not even flash the solutions on the screen to begin with. It makes people think you need to see them in order to complete the puzzles, and you don't. I think you should not have the progress bar pulse like that. It's essential for making deductions in the later levels, and if you happen to glance at it when it's "off", you can really wind up going down the wrong path.

pentadact 2010-12-22 00:17

I like the idea of trying to make a sort of creature, but for a long time it feels like the rules are totally random, so there's a lot of trial and error. If there is a set of rigid rules for what makes 'an alien' I didn't figure it out, but the few times when I intentionally made a kind of face and it was right were satisfying.

brighterorange 2010-12-22 00:53

This is an interesting idea. At first I had no idea what I wa supposed to do, even with the instructions. Then I enjoyed it when I figured out I was creating an image by shuffling the tiles around. I thought the point was just to make a symmetric image, which is challenging and objective. But then I got to level 4, I made a symmetric one and it was rejected. Am I really supposed to keep reloading the game in another window and hope to spot the target graphic for half a second? Or is there something I'm missing?

plams 2010-12-22 01:10

Interesting. But I feel compelled to "cheat" (watch the sequence again and again in another window) because there some symmetric, alien-looking shapes you can make that don't solve the puzzle.

tonic 2010-12-23 19:57

I like the idea, although it took a while to figure it out. Also it became a bit annoying after there were many moves to be done.. :)

endurion 2010-12-25 06:58

The overall idea is good.
I managed to reassemble a few aliens but at the first stage with four moves the bar on the bottom doesn't show anything. I could not assemble that stage.

_wdh 2010-12-26 22:15

Bloody hell this is hard (or maybe I'm just thick) Can't get past the flat one. I'm enjoying it however.

I agree with Cosmologicon in that the progress bar shouldn't flash because it makes it hard to read and can make the link between the the user's actions and the bar unclear. Also, there should be an undo button.

Icebone1000 2011-01-04 03:59

Theres one who doesnt fill the bar with any movie..I cant figure out whats going on

jagttt 2011-01-07 05:27

Stuck at the one with 6 steps. But really a original and fun concept!

mjau 2011-01-08 13:51

This was much more enjoyable when I started paying attention to the bar at the bottom rather than trying to memorize everything that flashed by at the start. Fits the theme better that way, too. Would've been better if the bar didn't flash all the way to black though, it can look empty sometimes when it shouldn't be.

martoon 2011-01-09 19:06

Very original! I like this. Like others said, I'd get rid of flashing all the solutions at the beginning. I think it's better if you're just discovering them. I also think it'd be better to not pulse the progress bar. Sometimes I'd glance down and think I'd made no progress, when it just happened to be black at that instant.

redien 2011-01-11 02:18

Thanks for all the great feedback! The pulse animations were something I added before submitting just for the sake of adding animations, shouldn't have done that. Also the same with showing the solutions in the beginning, shouldn't have added that but instead tried to improve the feedback you got from the bar.