Pushy Blockbuster by Darthone

[raw]
made by Darthone for LD31 (COMPO)
Push the blocks to form groups of 4 or more and try to get a high score. (Personal Highscore: 477853)

Controls:
Left and Right - rotate the screen
Space - push most blocks to the top
M - Mute

Didn't have as much time as I would have like this weekend to put into this game, but it is a game none the less.

Ratings

Coolness 46% 1500
Overall 3.28 459
Audio 3.04 352
Fun 2.86 768
Graphics 3.21 476
Innovation 3.64 217
Mood 3.06 438
Theme 3.48 716

Feedback

DrHahn
08. Dec 2014 · 06:25 UTC
Ok, so I like the rotating mechanic, and I think it's clever, though the window may be a bit big for the number of blocks to keep track of, and the music (in my mind) doesn't fit with the level of concentration required. Otherwise, definitely something I haven't played before.
FerraWare
09. Dec 2014 · 07:07 UTC
Wow, really cool idea, but at the end I just started pressing buttons randomly and found out I was doing better :P

I found a little bug though, if you press the rotation key while the game is rotating.

Cool game overall!
Drtizzle
09. Dec 2014 · 11:45 UTC
Nice mechanics, but it's a pity the blocks spawn at random positions. It makes it more a luck based game rather than skill based game.
Pete_H
09. Dec 2014 · 13:25 UTC
Nice idea and slick art. I wasn´t great at it though!
Marcellus
10. Dec 2014 · 10:24 UTC
game is a bit too large for my small screen and is hard to resize. I really liked the art but felt a bit like spamming inputs rather than thinking and playing with a strategy. It's a nice entry overall, very polished and dynamic.
Jacksendary
11. Dec 2014 · 20:10 UTC
I didn't really understand what I was doing and was just clicking random buttons and somehow made progress. But it's very innovative, with some more work put into it I'm sure it could be a fun game
Team Myopia
19. Dec 2014 · 01:12 UTC
cool idea, really needs to have some animation between block positions to clearly show the player whats happening though. Could also maybe use more variation with different block types / special items / combos etc

Cool particle effects
savethejets1
19. Dec 2014 · 02:02 UTC
I thought this was a fun little tetris-y-puzzle game

I think I had a hard time conceptualizing in my mind how to line up the blocks. But eventually you can work it out pretty easy.

If you take this into a post jam game, I wonder if playing around with making the first few levels a smaller grid would help that?

Anyways great stuff. Cheers!
CMWeissMedia
19. Dec 2014 · 02:56 UTC
Great take on a common puzzle mechanic. The game isn't the most color-blind friendly, but that could be fixed with more variance in shades or some other aesthetic differentiation.
Bonobo Games & Mechanic Moon
19. Dec 2014 · 03:03 UTC
Great game, fun and addictive.
ShadowStryker
21. Dec 2014 · 03:52 UTC
Interesting concept. I like the mechanics, however it is very difficult to keep track of everything with so many blocks.
Florent
21. Dec 2014 · 15:25 UTC
Yep, I had a hard time keep track of everything and still made score with random moves. But nice game overall !
cxsquared
21. Dec 2014 · 15:40 UTC
The mechanic is really cool. The blocks start off so fast that by then end I was just randomly rotating and pushing so finding a way to focus the mechanic a bit more would be nice.Overall good work.
hoqjed
21. Dec 2014 · 23:22 UTC
It's definitely interesting mostly due to the idea of rotating things to get them to fall the direction you want. Very cool and novel concept, though the blocks falling upwards was a bit of an odd choice to me. I think that may have thrown me off a bit in the beginning.

I found it somewhat hard to intentionally match up 4 squares. Sometimes I would do it intentionally, but most of the time it was blind luck. This may have mostly been due to the game's pace starting out fairly intense from the get-go, which means I never had a point early on where I only had to focus on a couple of blocks. The block spawning can sometimes screw you over also, reinforcing the blind luck since they seem to be able to pop up anywhere on screen as long as it isn't currently filled. I think I only really noticed this one main time, where I had a couple of blocks falling where I wanted and some random yellow block spawned between a potential match I had lined up.

The graphics were fine, though having that side panel slide out could have been nice to give more screen-space and be less of a distraction. The audio was somewhat similar, where the bg music was fine but could be distracting to some.

Clever idea, I think the main improvement would be to have some more balanced pacing (specifically in the intro), so the player can adjust to how the game works. Also working on spawning blocks in a non-obtrusive manner. Aside from those things it's a very solid concept and implementation. Great job for a compo entry!
igoramendola
22. Dec 2014 · 07:20 UTC
That's a pretty cool game. Although sometimes depends on luck, definitely is important to make the right movements in the right moment. I felt the gameplay is innovative. My highscore is 309108, so far. Btw, would be nice if it could save the highscore, but you commented that you hadn't enough time during LD, so I suppose that's the reason.
Nice work :D
egooze
22. Dec 2014 · 22:35 UTC
I total love this game... I've played about 2 hours ... would love it as an AndroidAPP
Geckoo1337
24. Dec 2014 · 06:48 UTC
Neat. Really interesting mecanic but I think that it's not possible to play. My brain can't figure out what it must do :)
Piscythe
25. Dec 2014 · 04:13 UTC
This game was really interesting, kind of disorienting, and a bit overwhelming. The reverse gravity took some getting used to, and the fast pace made it difficult to assess the situation and convert the blob of bright colors into something I could plan around. I really felt like the situation was too overwhelming to do much more than press buttons and hope something works. Still, it's a fun idea, well-executed, and the music is good. My score was 281271.