Comments on blog posts

[AndiKeymaster]

I thought it might be a good idea to open up a thread in case you want to discuss some of the blog entries. Feel free to use it.

[ZuelParticipant]

Problems:

• Energy too abundant.
• it’s a height race now leaving us with practically straight towers rocketign towards the sky
• Not enough small blocks to fill gaps in
• Lost creative outlet due to new heights, lack of blocks, to many large blocks
• Missing having floating blocks in my inventory, now they are built into the level
• lacks an infinite mode allowing you to just create(keeping game mechanics as is)
• Your examples of letting physics do the work creating curvy walls from stacked bricks are beautiful, however this is not something I have done in practice

Let’s solve some of this..

• bring back unlimited blocks – this brings back the creativity and perfecting of your levels giving you the opportunity to back-fill
• Give all blocks in inventory but charge energy for blocks otherthan the default two. – This solves alot of creativity issues and brings more energy management into the equation
• Create an infinite mode – could implement pagination every 20 levels or something of that nature.

you have done a fantastic job, I’ve paid at least once if not twice. It has kept be happy for spurts every now and again, thank you!

[AndiKeymaster]

First of all, thanks for the compliment you made at the end – criticism is always welcome but paired with appreciative elements it’s easier to take and this keeps my motivation up 🙂 Thank you also for paying for the game!

Now to the points you mentioned. I know that the changes I’m making won’t be well received by all long-time players, like yourself, that already enjoyed the game before. Also, I do understand your points because I also enjoyed the original version. Nonetheless, changes were needed and I hope that in the end the game turns out enjoyable for everybody.

Why the changes? I’ve done a lot of testing during the last months and something that most players wished for was a limited amount of blocks so that they get challenged a little more. To be honest, a sensible approach in the game up until now was building massive towers with a huge amount of the small infinite blocks. Many people did this, although they didn’t even enjoy it. That’s why I decided to limit all blocks and at the same time provide more tall ones so that everybody should be able to complete levels. I also thought about letting players pay for more blocks with crystals, as you suggested, but the problem is that it’s really hard to get the balancing right for everybody. There’s such a wide range of building skills – the extensive testing was a real eye-opener for me. Especially the players who are already having difficulties would be punished with fewer blocks because they also have difficulties collecting enough crystals. That’s why I decided to provide a fixed amount of blocks per level.

All that said, I want to give you a little more info on some important upcoming changes.
First, balancing is not quite finished yet. It will get harder to remove roofs/obstacles and you’ll have to pay more for flying blocks, also, there’ll be different types of obstacles. This will prevent you from going upwards in a straight line.
Second, I’m planning on making a sharp distinction between this “challenge mode” (with a block limit, crystals, and obstacles) and a future “creative mode” where you’ll be able to build whatever you want (without block limits, and you’ll also get back the floating blocks).
Additionally I’m also reworking the tutorial and all in all I hope that the game is now more accessible to a broader range of players. After all I do have to make a living from the game. I really hope it works out with the iOS launch, as then I can continue improving the game and implement for example the mentioned full featured “creative mode”.

I hope you’ll be happy with the result once I’ve released the new iOS version and re-released it for Android! In case you want to help me along – or help to speed up the path to the creative mode 😉 – it would be great if you could send me some pictures of towers you created (either per mail or here) so that I’ve something to show around (I would post them on social media, put them on the homepage and use them on fairs). User traffic would be really helpful. There’s a difference between “Look, I made this” and “Look, a player built this”!

[ZuelParticipant]

I would like to see more obstacles too. Also, maybe the goal is not height based but object, so like as collecting energy, a pink bubble is the target allowing a more variable zig zag.

Your point about stacking tons of bricks and not liking it is well taken and 100% understood. And in fact makes sense for a competitive based player. There being two player types. on one side, you have that creative mindset, those that want to create a virtual Lego block tower. The other mindset is the competitive aspect.. Trying to please both sides of the house will be hard or impossible. I presume you have played 99 bricks? Similar games but different objectives. Always considered this the creative game while 99 the competitive game.

Another creative addition would be to snap to adjacent bricks instead of the grid based snapping.

Well I hope your changes are successful and bring in a new player base for you.

[AndiKeymaster]

Thanks again for your feedback! I especially like the idea of a bubble being the target area, maybe I’ll be able to use it in a future world. I hope that the obstacles will also force the players to branch out a little more.

Yeah, I played 99 Bricks. As you mentioned, making the game appeal to competitive and creative players won’t be easy. That’s why I’m planning on providing the two distinct modes – and because I’m looking forward to the creative mode myself 😉 We’ll see how this turns out.

[Author]

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