Author Topic: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?  (Read 2995 times)

Eerongal

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Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« on: August 26, 2009, 09:40:41 PM »
Anyone?

I've been working on a bit of a simple puzzler, based off of Conway's game of life in my spare time. It's a bit bare-bones at the moment, i've just been working on it off and on as I get free time. The basics are it's going to have a sandbox mode and a puzzle mode, sandbox is obviously "do what you want" mode, puzzles have objectives to be completed.

Each cell in the game is also going to be tied to music notes, so generations of life produce music. Note that I know NOTHING about music theory, so my music stuff is trial and error (currently, it sounds terrible. I just put 1 of each note from and octave looped over each column. This sounds horrendous.), though any suggestions are certainly welcome.

The graphics are currently just a "place holder" one day to hopefully be placed with nice looking graphics.

I plan on adding "special" cells that each serve a function, which can aid and hinder in the completion of puzzles (or just fun to jack around with in sandbox mode)

Ideas for special cells thusfar include:

*Poisonous cell - Dies 1 or 2 generations after its creation, regardless of population. Spread its poison to nearby cells.

*Perma-life cell - A cell that lives permanently, regardless of population density.

*Disease cell - A "perma-life" cell that also makes each neighboring cell a poisonous cell

*Sleeper cell - a cell that remains "Dormant" in certain spots for either a set amount of time, or until a cell gets close to it (not sure which yet) at which point it springs to life, regardless of population density

Once again, any suggestions are MORE than welcome. Currently, the game has the grid, regular cells, (crappy) music, and space reserved for a "tool box" and is basically only sandbox mode at the moment.

Note that it requires .net architecture to be installed (it will install it when you install the game if you don't have it. Not a big deal), and I'm gonna go ahead and say it only runs on windows, but I haven't tried on any other environment (it's a normal windows .exe, dunno if it'll work like on WINE In linux or anything)

Currently, there isn't really much to test, and to me so far seems pretty solid, but as I start getting more features in, I'm gonna need some help finding issues, so this is more preemptive than anything.

If in the end it turns out well, I may end up entering it in the inde games festival, though I have no delusions of winning or anything. Like i said, this is just a simple side project to fill time i'm working on.

I may end up stopping if the game proves to be too difficult for your average person to play (which I think *MAY* be a strong possiblity)

Edit: Also, i suppose i should mention, it currently uses the "standard" rules for life (sustain if 2 or 3 cells, birth if 3, else die), though I plan on (sandbox mode, at least) have options to change the birth, death, and sustain rules.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2009, 09:46:09 PM by Eerongal »
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The Jade Knight

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Re: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« Reply #1 on: August 31, 2009, 07:01:45 AM »
What do you want testers to do?
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Eerongal

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Re: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« Reply #2 on: August 31, 2009, 12:50:16 PM »
What do you want testers to do?

Just play around with it on occasion, see if they find any problems, give any feedback, etc. Right now it's pretty solid and stable, but i expect that to change as I make it more complex.

The way i see it, the more eyes i have look at it, the better the final product will turn out.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2009, 12:55:19 PM by Eerongal »
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Eerongal

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Re: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2010, 05:13:37 AM »
Sorry for the double post, but just in case anyone cares or is curious, i posted a youtube video about my current progress, because ive had a few people asking to see some stuff on this game, so I made a quick intro, just thought i'd post on here for anyone who's curious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5bYDPQP-yY

Questions/comments/whatever let me know!
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Miyabi

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Re: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2010, 08:05:56 AM »

That looks quite entertaining.

What platform is it for?

What language is it written in?

Sorry I didn't read first post. tl;dr.
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Eerongal

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Re: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« Reply #5 on: April 08, 2010, 02:19:37 PM »

That looks quite entertaining.

What platform is it for?

What language is it written in?

Sorry I didn't read first post. tl;dr.


Well, it's for windows, because i'm using microsoft XNA, an extension of .net. I don't know if it will work on other systems, like linux running WINE or anything like that. Haven't tried. If anyone wants to give another system a shot and let me know how it works for 'em, that's cool, but OFFICIALLY it only supports windows, i'm gonna say.

Edit: Also, language is C#. Which is what can be seen in the background before I start it up.

Also, as another side note, interest in this thing seems to be picking up a bit of steam. I've been asked in the past week like 4 or 5 times if someone who i've shown it to at some point could "send it to a friend".
« Last Edit: April 08, 2010, 02:21:42 PM by Eerongal »
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Miyabi

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Re: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« Reply #6 on: April 09, 2010, 12:29:02 AM »

Sad, no portability then. :(

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Eerongal

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Re: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« Reply #7 on: April 09, 2010, 12:39:08 AM »

Sad, no portability then. :(


Hrm.....Quick google search says you can DEVELOP in xna on a mac.....not sure about RUNNING games....

http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/3694/66936.aspx
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Miyabi

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Re: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« Reply #8 on: April 09, 2010, 01:03:10 AM »

It doesn't natively run on Mac though, you have to go through bootcamp or parallels.  I've been using parallels, it's nice, but I'm thinking of going to to bootcamp for  a while and see how it works.
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Eerongal

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Re: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« Reply #9 on: April 09, 2010, 03:42:29 PM »

It doesn't natively run on Mac though, you have to go through bootcamp or parallels.  I've been using parallels, it's nice, but I'm thinking of going to to bootcamp for  a while and see how it works.


Hrm....when i get a chance, i think i might play around with this, see what i can do for a mac compatible version.
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Miyabi

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Re: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« Reply #10 on: April 09, 2010, 09:10:01 PM »

You ever get it ported I'll totally play around with it. =D
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Eerongal

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Re: Who wants to help me test a game i've been working on?
« Reply #11 on: April 20, 2010, 01:06:32 AM »
ok, anyone who wants to vote, what version of moonlight sonata that i whipped up should i use as the titular theme for this game?

http://mrvbaddin.com/1.mp3
http://mrvbaddin.com/2.mp3
http://mrvbaddin.com/3.mp3
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