Wind and Weapons
Sailing has come a long way very quickly, we (Russ) started from scratch again, but with a better understanding of how we wanted the game to feel and the features we wanted to build in. With all our foundation work on Hydronautics it became the first puzzle to be brought on using all the prior work we had put in.
There were growing pains, and a lot of deep discussions about what should be done within each individual puzzle and what should be done in a universal code block. It can seem straightforward, rating each puzzle by a scoring rubric. In reality, none of them play the same way, so scoring and rating how skill is measured can be tricky!
This brings to mind how important it will be for all of you to let us know what is working for you and what is holding you back. As we develop variations on the puzzles, it`ll be the best way to guide our design process. While it’s unrealistic to expect everyone to love at least one variant of each puzzle, the goal is to make it so you don’t hate playing one so much you`ll avoid it at all costs.
For all you converts, you`ll see many similarities to ye ole’ sailing. However we’ve added a few new moves. First you can snag a piece on a platform vertically!
So if you get the piece to set up your combo, but don’t have the targets lined up just yet, you can have it drop down below! This’ll also allow you to operate in narrow areas without completely blocking yourself in.
Next our powerups will be fantastic for both old pros and newbies alike! Being able to clear a single piece would’ve saved my board so many times. And things like clearing a row, dropping a wild-piece, and adding platforms will be important as we build our complexity upon the puzzle.
Hot on the heels of our progress on one of the first sailing puzzle games, still looking for a more specific name for it, is getting the weapons going!
Yes, that’s right, everyone’s favorite/hated puzzle, poker cannons! This is one we’ve done a lot to. Instead of tiles on the board, you`ll be moving the boxes! You`ll have a lot more of them to play with as well! Which is good because you can have a LOT of cannons to load on a single board. The biggest ones can have up to eight cannons, including two chase cannons.
Now just load them all in 24 seconds... |
In this tight environment, you`ll need all the help you can get. Which is where our power-ups will come into play. From being able to move a single piece manually, to locking down board pieces so they don’t shift with the ship, to the pipe (not a warp-pipe, please don’t sue us Nintendo). These will be massive tools so you can sustain maximum firepower quickly. One of our goals is to have the plundering go faster, so your speed will have to improve as well!
These are not some aspiring ambitions either, every item talked about here is something we have code and work on. Something you will see soon!
Until then Sky Raiders!
I am so excited to see you are still working on this! I have really missed having an MMO puzzle game with so much co-op potential. Thanks for sharing the updates!
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