I have a playable version of never-ending-work-in-progress up on the site, with four level to play through.

PLAY HERE!

I'm sloooowly but surely making progress on my next game, in fact I beginning to build up a bit of momentum as I start moving over from engine/mechanic creation to level building. I still haven't quite nailed down the main mechanic(s) yet but I want to build some levels first to get some play-test feedback.

Here's a video of the first level I've been playing around with. It is just a simple starter level to introduce some of the main mechanics.



Here is how that level is defined in the level file...

Code:

---

[World|g:Radar|level1|Chapter 1|"a test in the dark..."]
[Layer|w:level1|layer1|0|0]
[Room|l:layer1|room1|0|0|10x5_0001|Outside]
[Room|l:layer1|room2|0|100|10x10_0001|Outside]
[Room|l:layer1|room3a|200|0|5x5_0002|Outside]
[Room|l:layer1|room3|300|0|25x15_0001|Outside]
[Room|l:layer1|room4|800|0|5x5_0001|Outside]
[Waypoint|r:room3|wp7|3.5|6.5]
[Waypoint|r:room3|wp8|11|6.5]
[Waypoint|r:room3|wp9|6.5|13.5]
[Waypoint|r:room3|wp10|22.5|13.5]
[Waypoint|r:room3|wp11|10.5|2.5]
[Waypoint|r:room3|wp12|22.5|2.5]
[Object|r:room2|key1|5|4|Key]
[Object|r:room3a|sign1|2.5|1.5|Sign|Warning]
[Object|r:room3|sign2|2|13.5|Sign|Warning]
[Object|r:room3|sign3|23.5|5.5|Sign|Warning]
[Light|o:key1|key_light|0|0|Light|32|32|32|none|0]
[AI|r:room3|w1|3|6.5|Patrol|E|p:wp7,p:wp8]
[AI|r:room3|w2|6|13.5|Patrol|E|p:wp9,p:wp10]
[AI|r:room3|w3|10|2.5|Patrol|E|p:wp11,p:wp12]
[Light|a:w1|ai_light1|0|0|Light|32|32|32|none|0]
[Light|a:w2|ai_light2|0|0|Light|32|32|32|none|0]
[Light|a:w3|ai_light3|0|0|Light|32|32|32|none|0]
[Door|l:layer1|door1|200|50|r:room1|r:room3|1|o:key1]
[Door|l:layer1|door2|800|50|r:room3|r:room4]
[Spawn|r:room1|player_enter|7|2.5]
[Goal|r:room4|end_level|2.5|2.5]
[Trigger|r:room3a|trig2|0|0|Range|Light|d:door1|o:key_light|PLAYER]
[Trigger|r:room3|trig3|0|0|Range|Active|o:sign1,o:sign2,o:sign3||PLAYER|range:32|OR]
[Trigger|r:room3|trig4|0|0|Active|Light|t:trig3|a:w1,a:w2,a:w3]

---

And here is how it level looks in my javascript world builder...

I'm now over halfway through the second week of my self-imposed two week time limit for creating a flash game. I'm mainly in polishing mode now, making everything look pretty. Apart from the ads, which I have yet to put in, it is probably 90% there.

I've also decided on a name. Pompetaire! I guess I probably have to explain that...
Since the game is basically Spider Solitaire, I decided I'd call it something-taire; it was just a matter of figuring out what the something should be. As things in the game are mostly grouped into lots of five, I thought perhaps Pentaire or Quintaire. Although Pentaire doesn't exist, there is a Pentair, which is a water services equipment supplier, so that was a bit too close. Quintaire appears to be a surname (or sometimes a first name).

I ended up going a bit more obscure and decided to use the oscan word for five, which is pompe, so I end up with Pompetaire. As far as google is concerned this word simply doesn't exist. At all. This has the added benefit of allowing me to be able to track the spread of the game by searching for any mentions of the word used on the net (not that I have high hopes that it will spread far and wide).

So here we have the almost there version...

[edit]
Link to final version
[/edit]

I still have a few questions for myself on the gameplay - as to whether it is perhaps a bit too easy - so again I would greatly appreciate feedback from play experiences at various levels!

In this version the 'strict' and 'non-strict' rules are merged; where a 'strict' move, as indicated by the green placement guide, only costs one point per move, and a 'non-strict' move, as indicated by the red placement guide, costs 5 points per move. I am toying with the idea that I should only allow up to 5 non-strict moves per game, so it would be up to the player to decide when best to use those moves. All assuming the current version doesn't provide enough challenge.

Thanks for your help!

On Monday I started my effort to complete a flash game in two weeks, making a simple Spider-Solitaire-as-a-colour-matching-game... game.
For this project, the intent is not necessarily to make the most engaging play experience ever, but simply to just get a finished, polished game posted on a game portal site. That being said, I'd still like for the game to be somewhat fun to play, so I'd like to get feedback from some play testing, if you would be so kind to give it a shot please?

Below is a working prototype (meaning it won't look like much, as it is all place-holder graphics, but the gameplay is mostly all there) that I've put together in the two and a half days since getting started.





[edit: prototype removed. see post above]
How to play:

• To win a game you need to clear the board of all pieces.
  
• To clear pieces you need to stack shapes of the same colour in increasing 'size' from top to bottom.
  
• Shape 'sizes' in order, ranging from 1 to 5, are circle, oval, triangle, square and pentagon. So you want circles on the top of the stack, pentagons at the bottom.
  (This will hopefully be more intuitive with final graphics)
  
• You can place a shape on top of another shape of the next size up regardless of colour (e.g. triangle on a square, square on a pentagon).
  
• If you disable the 'strict' setting, you can place a shape on top of any larger shape (e.g. circle on a square)
  
• You can only move multiple shapes at the same time (moving one shape and everything above it) if all the shapes are of the same colour and in the correct order.
  
• Not all of the pieces are on the board at the beginning. You need to choose when to 'deal' in these additional pieces, which will be added to the top of each column.
  
• A column cannot go more than 12 pieces high. If a column is 12 high, it will block the next deal.
  
• If you find yourself not able to make a move then you lost that game (no prompt as yet)

That's the basics of it. It's not too hard to understand once you go through it once.

There are three levels: easy with just one colour, medium with two, and hard with four (it starts on medium).
If you have some time to perhaps play through a few games of each, with and without the strict setting, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could give some feedback below. Was it challenging? Was it fun to play? Or only somewhat? Completely boring? I hate these games!

There are likely to be a few bugs floating about, so if you run into any if you could mention them below too would be a great help.

Thanks for your help!

[edit]
updated the graphics a bit to make it a bit easier on the colour blind.