BallSwitch

[jonbro]

Hey folks, I have this little prototype, and I need some help deciding on where to take it next if I take it anywhere at all. The issue that I am having is that the core of the gameplay seems to be minutely tweaking the positions of objects until you get everything working. I don't know that the interaction is fun, and I don't know how to make it better.

I wanted to make a game that at its core is ball droppings (http://balldroppings.com/) or that one level from electroplankton with the leaves and the water. A friend pointed out to me that this is also effectively enigmo. I am currently playing that one through to remind me what put me off of that game. I think it was just the puzzle complexity at a certain point.

anyways, without further ado:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43672/bdrop_webPlayer/BDropflash.html (unity flash export).

You will know when a level is complete because it says "level complete".

hint for all:
The green balls are goals
hint 2 for all:
Change the red to green to close a goal

hint for L3/L4:
The purple and blue balls are two separate items
hint 2 for L3/L4:
Watch what happens to the big one when the small one is hit

[Draknek]

Took me a while to work out how the purple sphere worked.

Then on level 4 my immediate reaction to a blue sphere was "oh, I wonder what this colour does" not "oh, this is a different colour to show which spheres are connected".

Once you've solved a level it takes longer than it should for the level to tell you this. You can see it's going to work but you have to wait for the bars to fill up: for no good reason.

It wasn't dull, but I wouldn't want to play a large number of levels unless they were more interesting than what's here already.

I've played Flash games very similar to this, don't remember any names though.

[jonbro]

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, I am not sure of the depth of the switching mechanics. There are some flash games that go pretty in depth with it, or to a certain extent space chem has the whole "read/write/turing machine" thing already packed up. Will probably shelve it for the time being.

[OnslaughtNick]

I thought it was fun. It has potential in my opinion but you will need to add other obstacles to get enough levels made. The core mechanic though is solid. You make it something fun like a trampoline and cats bouncing on it and you got a winner! Maybe the cats bounce on the trampoline and grab on to a tree branch. Object is to get to a certain height. There are a ton of ways to go with this.