New Screenshots – Normal Mode

Hey PreAnimals

We are at the point in our development cycle where we can take loads of screenshots and videos.  So for all the loyal followers and the new Preanimals we have taken some lovely screenshots.  This is a quick post.

 

As always feedback is welcome.

The Final Tweaks.

We have had some really good feedback the last time the game was shown to a group of people, which makes us feel even more confident we are on the correct path to creating a game you guys will totally enjoy.

So here is a quick list of what has been happening over the last couple of months.

• Updated all the songs so “Normal Mode” works and it is fun to play.
• Tweaked the difficulties so 3 / 4 / 5 cubes are balanced.
• Adjusted the scores so the stars can be achieved by others (rather than just the robots at Preanima, who were getting incredible scores).
• We included a new tutorial for both modes, which fully teaches the controls and mechanics.

There are loads more but typing up a huge list would be a boring post, so we will capture some normal gameplay footage and create a cool video for you guys.

So here is a screenshot to show you PreAnimals how it looks.

 

Feedback is always welcome.

Challenge vs. Fun

I remember reading an article a while back talking about making a game for the public and not for your self, which was the hardest thing to overcome when balancing the game.  As a designer who has played loads of games, I have always wanted to make a game which will challenge me everytime I play, but by doing this Perplex Beats became hard for a new user to get into, but once players understood the game they seemed to love it.

With this idea of “making a game others would like to play” rather than a game which “we would like to play”, has taken the game in a slightly new direction which has helped make the game easier to understand while remaining fun to play.

Today after two months of not playing the original version, I took a screenshot of the game in its current state and put it next to the original version, and I can now truly understand why new players seemed daunted at first glance.

Well here are the two versions of the game and don’t worry PreAnimals it has not vanished; it is still in Perplex Beats; it just requires some unlocking which the core gamers will love.

 

Star Tracker (Meta-game).

We added another feature to the game based on some more feedback. One thing that other music games have which we never had was more user feedback. So we decided to implement a star tracker system…. This system is always visible and flashes when the user reaches the requirement to make the star(s) fill up.

We don’t really wanted to go into depth about this feature because this is one of the Meta games within Perplex and explaining how this works would spoil the fun for you PreAnimals. Just wanted to let you guys know about this.

Silence is Golden

If you have been following us from the start then you will have noticed we have been silent for the last month or so, sorry guys.  But don’t worry we have been so busy getting the game up to speed, the way it looks and plays now; we are so proud of Perplex Beats.  From the changes of the symbols, the new look of the game, the trance system and everything else that has changed and I have forgotten about.

A few changes listed here.

• The new trance system – The user builds up the trance meter at the top of the screen and this can be activated to double the score multiplier.  Once in a trance state the user can fill this bar up again to double that multiplier from x2 to x4 etc…  As the user increases the multiplier the length of time in trance mode is reduced.  We thought this was really good since we noticed once the player became really good at the game the score were pretty much the same.  Then an idea was triggered and we started to think of ways in which the user can control the multipliers.  With this implemented the scores became spaced out a lot more and also the control makes the game feel a lot more arcade which is always a plus in our books.

• The rotate note has been changed so the user can clearly tell which cube needs to be rotated and for how long.  This was such a simple thing to work into the game which was really needed.  I got stuck into playing this game a certain way that I forgot this was even a problem.  This is why play-testing is so important.

• The feedback sounds you get when the user makes a match has been lowered so it enough so you know you made a match but not enough to effect the gameplay.  This was something that bothered me a lot after watching someone else play it.  It is really funny having something put in place at the start of the development process and just becoming use to it.  Then when day finally taking a step back and noticing how annoying something so small can be after.

• But the largest change of is the amount of symbols running along the bars.  This has been reduced because EVERYTIME the game was shown to people they never got how to play it, they always asked “how do you play this?”  So reducing the amount of extra noise given to the user has solved this problem.  A classic example of design choices made at the start of a project which you later become attached.

After all the changes implemented from the feedback given to us we then begun to show the game to some local people we know such as friends, family, pets, babies you know the normal crowd.  The response has been really positive and has given us the belief that we are in the right direction.  With that short speech out of the way here is a HIGH-RES video which is long overdue; this is our first high res video so rate, comment and all the other stuff please.

Thanks for your support guys, it has taking us a while but we will get there in the end.

 

Next Page »