I like it! I also got the same bug @britzl got where no new tile was spawned.
I played it on the web and didn’t get a tutorial but I figured it out eventually.
2 Likes
Thank you very much Fuscy for this detailed feedback.
All of this will be fixed within a week.
It’s a raw version because I made this game for games jam and yesterday was the last day for submission so I submitted it as is.
2 Likes
You need to SEO your Google Play description a bit more so it shows up in search. Here is a suggestion you can use if you would like:
Pips often describe dots on dominoes or dice. In the new game Pipler, you will find an enjoyable, additive puzzle gameplay experience which is easy to quickly learn, and will test your wits as you play toward mastery. The goal of Pipler is simple: combine pip tiles together in order to create 9x pip tiles, which, once formed, clear themselves along with areas of the active game board layout. Once you clear all of the area of a game board, you will advance to even more challenging layouts.
Remember these simple allowed formulas:
1 + 1 = 2
2 + 2 = 4 (2 pips are allowed to overlap, but produce different 4 pip results)
4 + 4 = 8 (4 pips are not allowed to overlap)
1 + 8 = 9
The first 160 characters of your Google Play description are very important. You should use your primary keyword multiple times. I also put dice and dominoes at the very beginning to both explain pips and also for SEO reasons as people looking for dice or dominoes games may be attracted to this one and will be able to find it via search thanks to the terms. Search rank is based on terms used + people actually playing the game so the more people playing the better the ranking…
8 Likes
Thank you very much Pkeod. I’m not a native speaker and don’t have experience in game publishing. With defold community support I can focus on development and it’s just awesome.
Thanks to everyone in this thread who supporting me by this useful info!
7 Likes
Great work, couldn’t stop playing for a while. 
Is it impossible to get to the second stage or do I just suck?? 
2 Likes
i shared best strategy on games jam russian page. so let me translate it here
- We have following tiles which Random(RNG) give us (1, 2(vertical), 2(horizontal), 4(cross), 4(square))
- we have 2 more tiles which only be combined from another source 4(cross)+4(square) = 8(perimeter), and finally 8(perimeter) + 1 = 9(Full)
- Goal in the game to make 9(Full) tiles in every field of the board. if you clear the board you will be promoted to the next rang (actually you will just get points, and board will be uncleared again).
- RNG give the same number of the the tiles (like 100 times 1, 100 times 4(square), etc.)
- you can see that this sequence (1, 2(vertical), 2(horizontal), 4(cross), 4(square)) give you tiles which could be combined to 9(Full) tile (4+4+1) and 2(vertical) and 2(horizontal) will remain on board
- because of previous step you need to avoid combine 1 with 1. because this game has the end it’s a real small chance that RNG give you enough 1-tile at the end of the game
- Because of RNG you need to control the board and avoid situation when you have more 4(square) types than 4(cross)
- Main steps is combine 4+4+1, but most of time it’s not possible. you need to avoid situation when you create 8 tile and don’t have 1(tile) beside. You need to make 9(full) tile as soon as you make 8(tile).
- Because of previous point if you don’t have 4+4+1 moves y need to make 4(cross) or 4(square) with respect to rule from 7step
- And final rule, after you reach master level you need to remember which tiles appeared next (you see that this game as tetris show you the tiles which appeared next). and make your moves and predict where new tiles appeared and think about what you will do with them next
4 Likes
need an opinion from everyone.
2 days ago with community help I noticed an issue, that the game is more complex on mobile. e.g. on browser people make 30-50 tiles but on mobile they even can reach master level (clear the board 1 time). So what i did is changed math.random function to another pseudo random And now game is hard on mobile and on browser. this is not what i want.
So what you think about following logic
- We have 3 levels (Novice,Master,Ninja)
- Each level is 25 board tiles which must be clear
- This means we need 25 single tiles for sure to clear the board
- We need 75 single tiles at least to pass the game
- I want to give 5 more single tiles as spare turns (when player make 9pips tile on already cleared board)
- we have 80 SINGLE_TILE in deck
- More than half of this full tiles must be created using SQUARE_TILE and DIAOND_TILE
- add 50 SQUARE_TILE and 50 DIAMOND_TILE to the deck this will give 50
- remaining 30 full tiles must be create using VERTICAL_TILE and HORIZONTAL_TILE
- add 60 HORIZONTAL_TILE and 60 VERTICAL_TILES to the deck
so finally we will have 80+50+50+60+60 array which just need to shuffle and give players. so any internal random function will work just in one place (shuffle_array).
And surely i’ll add additional tiles, but with the same proportion.
3 Likes
Pipler won special prize on games jam defold.
Result was announced today at white night conference. Also i collected there some useful and sometimes positive feedback.
In week or two I will prepare a new build with one really core and useful thing.
11 Likes
Congratulations. Pipler was, IMHO, the most interesting game on jam from the game design point.
6 Likes
Great to hear man, well deserved!
3 Likes
Thank you baturinsky, but I don’t agree with you. maybe with game mechanics yes, but not with the game design.
One huge drawback is that I didn’t solve the problem of first 15 seconds and first 3 minutes in the game. so even if people make FULL 9 dots tile in the game they didn’t see the goal (why they need to continue doing that). and it’s a gamedesign issue. this is what I’m working on right now, and hope in week or 2 I’ll solve this issue.
Sims like this issue is the same complexity as to invent a new mechanics. so if someone has any ideas how to improve player experience in first minute I’ll be happy to hear that.
My thoughts are at least
- separate items which match with each others by shapes or colors
- recreate interface with huge level progress bar and create several tutorials levels where player need to learn how to make double tiles, and which tiles doesn’t match.
- Add leader board (maybe not on this, but for next version for sure)
5 Likes
I spent more than one week on following design. Tried to make it nice.
What you guys think if new version will looks like this
I’ll be happy to hear any comments.
thx.
1 Like
I personally prefer the “flat” design of the original game. This new design mixes beveled round and square boxes and I’m not sure I like it. The small shadows on the pips are nice though.
1 Like
agree. that beveled was mistake. actually just seated with my wife and we changed some stuff.
I hope it’s much close to flat design
1 Like
If the dark crescent under each dot is a shadow, and the board is seen from above, then the dots are not in the center of the square. This bothers me.
1 Like
Better. Fewer colors and the boxes on the left have the same width!
Something that bugs me a bit though is that the board background feels like it has one perspective where I’m looking at it from directly above and I can see all four of the beveled edges, while the OPTIONS and UNDO button has another perspective where I look at those from above but “from an angle” so to speak.
1 Like
And as @jakob.pogulis said, the shadows under the dots and the board as seen from above doesn’t feel quite right.
1 Like
@jakob.pogulis yeah. this happens because previous screenshot was with cleared field. below one contains uncleared board. So dot’s has the same shadow offset and the same color as uncleared field. Some visual hack to make it works for cleared and uncleared field without any transitions from state to state.
I also removed 3d from the board.
8 Likes
Today i finished several new animations on the board. and then tried to record video using OBS which gave me wrong colors. and then i remembered about internal start_record and stop_record functions. and here you are, just 1 minute of coding, 1 for recording and one for uploading it to the youtube.
Hope you like it.
As usual if you know how to enhance these animations (i use just twins) let me know. With all of your advice and comments i’m doing this game much better.
Thanks.
9 Likes
