Elementalist

tomcat94 2018-12-03 04:08

Hi there! Is there any chance you could tell me what the rules of the game are? I don't see any instructions either on the ludum dare page or itch.io page. I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do, or how the elements of the board interact with each other. Thank you!

rmiranda 2018-12-03 05:06

Hey, @tomcat94! Thanks for telling me that... sorry, my bad. I will update the page for the instructions.

So, these are the rules:

Everytime you press a direction, the elements will try to move into that direction, unless it has reached the edge or is blocked by another element.

Whenever an element is blocked by another, the elements will try to interact with each other; such interaction can happen in 2 ways:

1 - You will merge 2 elements if they have the same color and level (number).

2- You will destroy an element if the incoming one has elemental strength (as shown on right panel) against the destination element, as long as the incoming one has a higher level.

I hope that helps clarify the rules. If it doesn't, please let me know. Thanks!

justalocalhero 2018-12-03 05:28

Neat little puzzle. It would be great to have a little more feedback when the orbs are consumed or combined. Great way to implement the theme.

rmiranda 2018-12-03 05:43

Thanks, @justalocalhero! I'll see to get some animations running later, would indeed help a lot not to miss what is going on. =)

theseusinabottle 2018-12-03 07:40

I wish this game had a tutorial button in it. I will admit its mostly my fault for skipping past the description to get to playing the game, and I fully understood what was going on once I stopped being an idiot and read your discription and realized what the color orbs and arrows in the corner where trying to tell me, but still just to make it idiot proof I wish there was a tutorial.

rmiranda 2018-12-03 13:59

Hey, @theseusinabottle, thanks for the feedback! Although I do understand how an ingame tutorial button/page could help, I'm confident that all information that I could write there can be conveyed through more subtile ways, without deviating the player from the game itself. I'm also confident it would make for a better game design.

Of course, it seems like I've failed in doing that, but I still think it can be achievable by adding some animations. Still, I'll keep it in mind, case everything else fails. =)

tomcat94 2018-12-03 22:29

I replayed it again and landed a score of 35. Reading the instructions helped a lot; once I knew what to do it was actually pretty fun!

I had a hard time remembering which elements would overtake the other elements. I think the only thing that could improve that is some visual feedback on which elements are being consumed and maybe an indicator of which element can take over adjacent elements. That, or if the number of elements were reduced to three instead of four. Three elements would help reinforce the common "rock-paper-scissors" dynamic we're already used to, but I'm sure if I spent more time remembering it I wouldn't need one less element anyway.

Thanks for updating the instructions, and congrats on finishing in time for compo! Good luck!

rmiranda 2018-12-04 00:44

@tomcat94 thanks for the reply!! =)

Yeah, I'll work on some visual improvements, including better cues of which element is which and some anymations to tell both what is happening and what might happen if you choose a certain direction. That's a lot of work to do as it requires a lot of polishing to get them to the level that instructions are unnecessary, though, and I'm not very comfortable with animations on Unity yet (which will make it fun to learn).

About making it a 3-element game, it sounds like a really nice idea, which a friend had suggested and I had implemented before publishing. The thing is, if I change no other rule, the game kind of never ends, as every element is almost always vulnerable and there's always a move to make. If you wish to see what I'm talking about, I'll gladly upload an additional build for you.

Thanks again, for the great feedback!

levidsmith 2018-12-25 13:20

Neat puzzle game. I like that it is something different, and the rules weren't too complex. I'm not sure if I fully understood the element priorities, since it seems like the element preceeding the arrow wouldn't always destroy the one following it. I also kept wanting to merge orbs of the same color, but I kept forgetting that they have to be the same value as well.