Nibble

[Ugotsta]

Hi all you retro gaming geeks like me! Just in time for this awesome HBGames contest, here's a bit of a futuristic update to the venerable classic that is Nibbles. It's a relatively simple game with some smooth visuals and electronic ambiance, sporting a rotary playfield that follows the player on an animated grid that can be zoomed in/out.

I'm really hoping to get some feedback on gameplay, as it's quite lackluster currently, following the very basic Nibbles convention of eating...Nibbles...at which point, another Nibble spawns in.

I've actually already fleshed out ideas for some major enhancements, but I'm having a bit of a tough time keeping within Construct 2 free version constraints. Thus, any ideas that might take a bit less code/events to implement would help greatly.

That said, here's a quick screen grab:

And to help explain things a bit more for those unfamiliar with classic Nibbles, a help screen grab:

And of course, I've got a demonstration of the game in its current state available through Dropbox, for those wishing to give it a go!

Check it out here: PLAY

Feedback, positive and negative, is more than welcomed!

Thanks!
DavidM

 

 

[rosareven]

This is a really revolutionary version of snake. Great job! I made it to score 31 XD should have taken a screenshot before I died just to show how long I've gotten.

I actually didn't aware that I could control with keyboards and went ahead to control with mouse. It works just fine. At first I felt that the rotation speed may be a bit too fast but when I'm in a desperate moment to avoid obstacles the fast rotation actually comes in handy.

I like being able to zoom in and out, although zooming in feels a bit useless when you're moving non-stop at a steady speed and hard to see ahead. I played that playthrough zooming out. May be have a hotkey that let us pause and allow us to rotate so that we can make use of the zoom-in to micro-adjust our angle to aim for the nibble?

 

[valkyriegames]

Cool game. I like the feel and the effects! It all works well together. What other ideas are you planning for the game? I can't wait to see them.

 

[RadethDart]

Oh my gosh! The sounds, the effects, the amazing breakthrough using construct! Wow, you really had everything put together really well here. Congrats on this amazing game! I think a few levels with mazes and puzzles would make this worthy of any mobile gaming system! The crashing into the wall made me jump, lol.

 

[Toams]

woo i got 30

and yeah the crash was scary

also you have this zooming system that doesnt really make sense
i suggest giving the player the option to accelerate, and have it slightly zoom out when you go faster

either that or go slightly faster with every nibble you've eaten, and zoom out a bit every time

 

[MarioSuperStar]

I really liked this, even if I didn't get too far. The zooming is a little bit pointless, because I usually used
the smallest zoom so I could see everything, and when I used a considerable amount of zoom, it gave me the right feeling
that I didn't know what was going to happen. I love the way you changed the snake concept overall, letting the snake
completely move at all angles, unlike the old snake game that it is good, but you could just move left/right/up/down/etc.
I really look forward to this game and how it will turn out to be. Good job!

 

[Jason]

This was actually really fun to play, and I must say I LOVED the background too, how it all moves and stuff, I wish I could put something like that into my game, but then I'd feel as if I'm copying you and I don't want others to think that too, lol.

I managed to get to 23 without dying, and have a couple of things to say... which have already been mentioned:

1: As it's been said before, the zooming doesn't really make sense, you should try and get it working automatically, like, for each nibble you eat, it zooms out a little more, just an idea...

2: Each nibble should make you go faster, as it felt too slow later on, and adding more speed would also add to the challenge

Good luck with this, I'd love to see you add more cool features and such to it!

 

[Venetia]

I have the same issues as what's been said by the others above, but I just wanted to mention that I am in love with your effort in the visuals and sounds. Definitely beats the poop out of the Snake game I coded for myself in BASIC many years ago, haha!

This is going to sound like a silly idea maybe, but what if the snake and/or everything else shifted through the spectrum as you got more nibbles? So like you start as blue but you have "completed" a level once you get to red? (Just an idea :P)

 

[CrayFlail]

So far I think everyone's said they liked it, and I do as well for most of the same reasons mentioned, but it just screams full-screen game to me. Have you considered it? Because everything else is fun, for sure.

CF

 

[Ugotsta]

Thanks so much everyone for all the feedback and I do apologize for the response time here, I've been working at various things to try and improve this alongside setting up promotional stuff.

@rosareven, I forgot to mention mouse controls! I'll work on updating this version to mention that. Meanwhile, I've been working to try and bring the version 2 I'm toiling with down to contest specs. I'll link to that momentarily, as it deals with the zoom feature. Oh, and I've scored up to 50 myself.

@valkyriegames, my further ideas currently surround various types of Nibbles that when missed, cause bad side effects. I'll post a link to that version below, though it's outside of contest specs (lots of events) so I won't mention it in the original post unless I can get it within specs.

@RadethDart, thanks much for the compliments on the audio. I generally create my sounds from scratch, as I have here. Audio's such a big thing to me, though I'm a bit weaker in the music department. I tried a lot of my music tracks to see how they fit and couldn't seem to find something I was happy with, so I settled with the ambiance.

@CrayFlail, I didn't even think about full-screen! Can't believe I didn't think that through too because that's one of the cool things about the following video I posted to Youtube a year ago (the inspiration behind this game):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRTKCCdDhpY

I'll see what I can do about full-screen for this game.

@Tomas, MarioSuperStar, Jason, Venetia, thanks so much for all the feedback! As mentioned above, I've been working on a version 2 that addresses the zooming/speed.

Good idea too, Venetia, about the progressive changing of colors. I'm thinking through how that can be done apart from using a progressive sprite animation, which I tend to try and avoid for sake of loading time.

That said, for those interested, I'm posting a link to the version 2 I've been working at. The trick really is to now get this version within Construct 2 free version parameters! :D

Version 2: PLAY

 

[BlueScope]

It's an interesting concept, but I'm really too slow for this kind of game, I suppose (always sucked at snake as well :/ )... can barely make it past the first orb.
As an interesting discovery, I started a game in your v2 and actually had the very first orb appear pretty much exactly in a corner... not a lot I can do to grab it there, and something I'd consider a flaw in game design.

That being said, I like the basic idea. It's a lot more dynamic than the Snake concept, and I'd say it's pretty original even considering it's inspiration. It might be a bit too seizure-inducing when you die (though prove for a realistic fear of death simulation for affected people :devil: ), but the design concept in general is very straight-forward and not clashing anywhere.

Good luck getting it to work the way you planned it to! :D

 

[rosareven]

Interestingly, I feel that I have an easier time playing this version of snake than the classic version. My brick wall with the classic version is that if I move one pixel wrong (which is usually a square block) I'm screwed. In this one if I make a wrong turn I can recover really flexibly.

 

[Ugotsta]

@BlueScope, you're completely right about any Nibbles spawning in a corner being a game design flaw. It's so odd because I've gone through the math a few times over and couldn't see how it could spawn exactly in a corner. I'm sure I've missed something though, thanks for reporting it.

@rosareven, I feel the same way. There's no way to adjust the turn radius in the original version. At this point, I'm trying to keep the original version simple enough that new players will be more comfortable.

 

[Bob Thulfram]

Very, very nice game. Others have said good things. I'll just say it would be nice to have more things to nibble on the screen and keep them away from the edges.

How do you get the cool glowing effects and trails? Definitely drool-worthy!

This gives a whole new life to the classic game, and shows off how cool Construct is at using rotation.

 

[Ugotsta]

@Bob Thulfram, thanks for the feedback. I've made some fine-tuning adjustments, one of which keeps the Nibbles from spawning near the corners. However, I don't really want to keep the Nibbles away from the walls themselves, as that's one of the key difficulties behind the classic Nibbles game, something I think really adds to the game.

I've thus far been unable to bring the second version within the Free edition specs of Construct 2 so I'll have to settle at this point for the original version from the original post. I'll continue further development of the second version after the contest though.

And that said, as mentioned, I've made some fine-tuning adjustments, though I couldn't add a progressive color change given the event limitation and I also couldn't add a full-screen mode that would be easy to include in an existing site.

But I do have a downloadable version of the game, in WordPress plugin format, that anyone could use on an existing site, should they want.

WordPress version: ugotsta-nibble.zip

And if anyone's interested, that's achieved using the following plugin maker I created that'll help you convert your existing Construct 2 projects to a plugin format.

More info on that at my blog as follows: Construct 2 projects in WordPress

With that, you can make WordPress-compatible versions of your game, and even allow others to use it on their WordPress-based sites!

 

[Wink]

Cool game Ugotsta :D The graphics, music, and sound effects flow very well together with your game. I like how you used the rotation effect. I haven't made it past 21 yet but I will keep trying. Also thank you for sharing your WordPress, Construct 2 plugin with us this will definitely come in useful for me :D

Good luck with the contest

 

[joannesalfa]

Cool game! it seems likely well done. I love how it looks like a fusion between geometry wars effect and snake, i may give you my feedback i think color cycle would be awesome and some special may work.


Also, nice plugin you made it for C2, i love wordpress and i downloaded your plugin, thanks for sharing!

 

[Ugotsta]

@Wink, @joannesalfa, thanks for your kindly words! Please feel free to use the plugin maker I linked to as well. With it, you can make your own game into a WordPress plugin.

@Bob Thulfram, I totally missed responding to one of your questions, sorry for that! The glow affect is mostly just a matter of contrasts. The shade of blue I used, when on a dark background, tends to yield that affect. It also helps a lot to use opacity, shades of that same color, surrounding it, as is done with the grid. That generally lends to a "glow" type of appearance.

 

[Bob Thulfram]

@Bob Thulfram, I totally missed responding to one of your questions, sorry for that! The glow affect is mostly just a matter of contrasts. The shade of blue I used, when on a dark background, tends to yield that affect. It also helps a lot to use opacity, shades of that same color, surrounding it, as is done with the grid. That generally lends to a "glow" type of appearance.

Wow, thanks. I've seen a few cool "glow" type games on Android and PS3. It's magic!

I wish I knew more about art, but you've just added a quantum of things to think about. Again, thanks!

 

[Venetia]

Hey Ugotsta, please check your inbox and reply to my PM so we can send out all the prizes! Waiting on you, hon <3