lynx 2020 programming competition Asteroids Chasers - Lynx 2020 Programming Competition entry

[Fadest]

"Stupid is as stupid does" would be useless as a non secret achievement in my opinion, and I quite like it...

"The Big Thing" should probably be public and not secret.

 

[KevinMos3]

20 hours ago, Fadest said:

...right now, there are 9 votes on itch.io (considering the fact that probably some of the other participants have vote, that leads to probably less players than developpers who voted), and notes on Atari Gamer are not so good (but going up slowly), so is there really a need for enhancement / new version ?

I hope no one is discouraged.  I have not voted yet, as I've been waiting until I feel I can give all the games more playtime.  I misplaced my Lynx SD cart and haven't wanted to take the time to re-set up my Agacart, so I've not given equal time to each (I put a few on carts and just re-flashed with different entries so far... except this one because I didn't want to lose my achievements progress).  Today, my BenVenn carts arrived, so I look forward to playing them more easily.  Maybe there are more out there like me who are just waiting to spend more time with them, or maybe many just don't like to vote.

 

16 hours ago, karri said:

Yep. Exactly my thoughts also. At least I did vote for all games except Titan as I am not allowed to vote for my own games...

Again, I hope no one is discouraged.  I'm sure there are many, many players who like to play, but just don't make the effort to vote.  We'll see when the deadline gets closer.  And, people might need some continued reminding as that time approaches.

 

16 hours ago, Fadest said:

...I'd love to see an expanded version of SillySis (definitively did not deserve the last place) with more levels, but I guess I must be the only one (or one of the few  )

Seconded on more SillySis!... and to the 2nd part, surely not, good sir!    Lot's of love for SillySis around these parts.   I played through all the levels on the first day it was released, if I remember correctly.  It's a very cool game.

 

9 hours ago, Fadest said:

"Stupid is as stupid does" would be useless as a non secret achievement in my opinion, and I quite like it...

Agreed.  That one is hilarious as-is in my opinion.

 

9 hours ago, Fadest said:

..."The Big Thing" should probably be public and not secret.

I might just be really dense... or just bad at doing the thing that leads to this achievement. 

 

Edited September 4, 2020 by KevinMos3

[+karri]

In addition to the puzzle game I have a 2nd game mechanics for SillySis arcade game. Hmm. Perhaps I compete with the arcade version this year ?

[Fadest]

2 hours ago, KevinMos3 said:

Maybe there are more out there like me who are just waiting to spend more time with them, or maybe many just don't like to vote.

In fact, more than number of voters (or final result), what is really important for me is feedback.

Working alone on a game implies you don't see some broken features or flaws in game design. Having feedback is really important, as you and some others gave here or via PM.

[LordKraken]

To be fair, I don't think we should look at the voting count to extrapolate the popularity of a game. The simple fact that you need an itch.io account, while a good thing to restrain cheating, definitely cut a lot of people from voting.

 

Now we can look at itch.io data and especially download number, but keep in mind that people probably just play the game on project argon or atari gamer.... By the way @Igor, would it be possible to add a visitor count on the playing page?

[Fadest]

FYI, itch.io tells that this is my most downloaded game, but not the most seen (C37 had many updates, this must explain this) :

Ynxa and both Yastuna were widely available before I went to itch.io so that's why the donlad number is low.

Fun to see that Raid on TriCity has more views than A Bug's Lynx, but less downloads.

[+karri]

That is a great number of downloads. I am at 45 with Titan.

[LordKraken]

So you see, 107 download in just a week or so, not counting atarigamer and argon players is really not that bad!

[Fadest]

2 weeks, not 1, but yes, this is quite good. C37 had a boost due to @Clint Thompson tweet and youtube video.

21 minutes ago, karri said:

That is a great number of downloads. I am at 45 with Titan.

Strange, as most of the traffic came from other itch.io contestants download pages during the 1st week, I thought we had all the same range of downloads.

 

[Igor]

On 9/4/2020 at 7:06 PM, LordKraken said:

To be fair, I don't think we should look at the voting count to extrapolate the popularity of a game. The simple fact that you need an itch.io account, while a good thing to restrain cheating, definitely cut a lot of people from voting.

 

Now we can look at itch.io data and especially download number, but keep in mind that people probably just play the game on project argon or atari gamer.... By the way @Igor, would it be possible to add a visitor count on the playing page?

Won't be counting download or voting counts, just the final ratings. The number of ratings per game is about equal anyway so I'm happy with that.

 

I'll see what I can do about visit and play counts, though the reason I've not included those so far is due to how Google AppEngine caches (and ultimately bills for) data. I might need to add a delayed download/play count to reduce the number of I/Os that I get charged for. It's not as simple as reading a counter unfortunately as counter data needs to be sharded and each shard becomes its own set of I/Os, which quickly add up for the purpose of billing. That's the fun of running a site in a no-SQL cloud environment ?

[Igor]

Started to put together the play count functionality, will see about finishing it off tonight/tomorrow. It will be displayed as "# plays" under the rating. It will have a 24 hour delay as I said. I'll add the same thing to the game information page.

 

[drludos]

Sorry for being a bit late to the party, but I finally had the time to finish playing the all the games and sending my votes.

 

Congratulations Fadest for this great game! This is my favorite one of all the entries, and I really hope it will be ranked in the #1 spot!

 

I really love the board game style (I love Shangai on the Lynx, and I'm huge fan of the Carcassone board game). The game rules are simple, but they do create a lot of interesting gameplay situations. Of course luck play a big part, but that's also part of the fun. As the game are short, even if you had bad luck you'll hit the "retry" button and play another round

The game is heavily polished too, I love the achievements thing, it's a "first" on the Lynx AFAIK!

Really I had a great time with this one, and I hope it'll get a physical release!

 

Regarding feedback / improvement, here are the 3 little things that come to my mind :

 

- No disrespect to the artist, but I'm not a big fan of the default music track you chose (cornemuse). It's very loud and quite intense, so I think it doesn't fit well with a rather calm and "thinking based" game, especially for the first time you play. Of all the music, I think that Space Dance Music #A fits the game best, and should be the new default music IMHO. In any case, you should also had a "no music" option in the menu (for thinking game, no music is often the best option)

 

- You should display the rule right after players start their first game. On my first try, I went without rules as they didn't show up, thinking I could figure the game on my own. I was absolutely honestly clueless about how the game played. So I found that you can read rules in the menu, and then I started to have fun. The rules are well explained and short enough, so you should definitively force displaying them on the first game (or even until a player have won a game, since you use EEPROM to track stuff)

 

- This is a detail, but with time, I found a bit annoying that you have to press and release the D-Pad to move. I would have preferred the game to move right after the key is pressed, not wait that I release key (it sound like UX nitpicking, and it is, but for a highly polished game like yours I think such details matter).

 

This is maybe a silly idea, but you should think of making a physical release of the game with a "board game" version too (print a set of tile in addition to the Lynx cart, so you can either play on Lynx, or play with real cards), that could be a nice "deluxe edition".

[Fadest]

Thanks you.

Did you try the lastest version ?

The tutorial is display before the game start unless you switch the tutorial option to Off in the menu (in a previous one, tutorial was only display via option menu or in game).

 

I agree 100% with you for the No music option (Lynx output is allways on mute on my Lynx :D).

The game is only a 2 week effort (in fact, a bit less I guess). So as said before, I didn't want to release it with no music at all, but achievements that unlock new music that are not in the game

So I took 2 simple tracks from Rygar's first tries with ABC Music, the track I made for Space Lock, and the 3 tracks TurboLaserLynx was kind anough to send me for Space Dance. For an hypothetical physical release, I will need other music (if someone want to make ABCMusic, please send me a mail or PM).

 

Yes, I have already thought of a deluxe edition (with cards or tiles), but as this is not my game and I have not been able to get in touch with the boardgame author (the game is a free print & play but I guess the license does not give the right to sell it)...

[drludos]

I used the version released on day one of the compo, and wasn't aware of the updated one, thanks for the tip!

(so yes, I used the version that doesn't display tutorial on startup, it's great that you modified it already)

 

And don't get me wrong, this is a very impressive result for only 2 weeks of work! (I think I spent about 6-7 weeks to make Timeloop!)

I was only offering honest and subjective feedback for the hopefully upcoming cartridge version of the game!

[Fadest]

10 hours ago, drludos said:

And don't get me wrong,

No offense

But I guess I could spend 2 years trying to learn music that I wound not be able to produce an entertaining song

But maybe I'm wrong as I have never really tried...