Loops in pool by Recher
You are a magigardener. The Countess du Swagging asked you to clean her swimming-pool, which has been invaded by mud and vines.
Select two tiles with the "1" button (numpad or keyboard) to exchange their vines.
Make some closed vine loops to remove the mud inside it. The clear fountain water propagates where there is no mud.
You can not exchange the vines when the tile is not completely covered by mud or by water, because LOOPS STUCKS !!
The "2" button is a special power :
- on a tile covered by water, it spins the vines.
- on a tile with mud, it adds a vine between two mud triangles.
Each action costs Pool mana (totally unrelated to Mana pool !)
Use the "1" button on the upper left fountain to know you current Pool mana. You regain some by propagating water.
Try to reach the goal on the lower right.
Good luck, magigardener !
https://youtu.be/_6dP44lTLxA
Ratings
| Overall | 513th | 3⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 426th | 3.034⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 144th | 3.672⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 530th | 2.929⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 578th | 2.431⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 438th | 1.94⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 545th | 2.44⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 30🗳️ | 30🗨️ |
Just to help :
- make a vine loop near the fountain (but not connected to it),
- check that the mud is removed inside this loop : the ground inside should become gray.
- use the button "2" (special power) on the tiles between the fountain and your loop, to build a tiny loop that will connect the fountain and your first loop.
- the water should flow.
- continue like this.
You can not make loop by using the border of the map.
I almost quit without ever moving the water, but than I finally saw what to do.
And how man does this require some serious thinking xD
I like it! :smile:
Could use some point and click controls because sometimes you really need that tile the other side of the board xD
Overall good entry! Thank you for the game
@evogengames : you are right concerning the need of point and click controls. The problem is that it is not implemented in the Squarity engine for the moment. I will add it as soon a possible, hope I can do it in a few weeks.
Excuse my horrible french accent. You are allowed to mute the video sound.
Having no tile borders was made on purpose, so that you have to visualize tiles by yourself. Now, I realize it was maybe too much.
If I ever continue this game, I would split it in many levels, and the first ones would have tile borders more marked.
Would be nice to have some sound effects for the water.
Some features I thought about that could be added maybe:
* Maybe have a preview of the tiles you're swapping, and could cancel swap pressing ESC or similar.
* When you lost it took a while until I noticed because nothing was happening.
It could maybe alert that I lost and ask if i wanted to replay again.
When you lose, there is a little message on the log text, on the down left of the screen. It tells that you do not have enough mana to exchange tiles, and that you have lost. But you are right on the fact that the message is not very visible, and there is no way to replay again, except reloading the web page :-) .
@kevinworkman : you are right. We need some tutorial and a better learning curve. Maybe, for the first levels : a smaller map, no diagonal vines, add some pre-built loops, add some nearly-built big loops, ...
Really unique and interesting puzzle mechanic! I managed to get myself stuck on my first game (and not enough mana to repair the situation), before I knew what I was doing, but my second game was fun =).
As a reminder :
- Exchanging tiles : -1 mana
- Spinning tile on water : -4 mana
- Adding a green line : -10 mana
- propagating a little part of water : +1 mana
@naali : contrast is a good idea. I did not have time to draw some decent and contrasted vines. So they are just green lines.
In the end I didn't need to use any of the special powers. Mostly a case of just hunting down the right tile.
The interface was the problem I think. Having a mana display on screen would have helped, and a grid may have made tiles easier to find. Mouse control would probably improve it a lot too.
Also a restart button. I had to restart a lot before I figured out how it worked.
Also, you can not exchange a tile if it is a frontier between a closed loop and the mud. So, I had to clearly show all the closed loops, to help people undertand why they can not exchange some of the tiles.
@someone : you are right on the lack of mana display (though the fountain becomes darker when you begin to be short on mana), a clearer display of the grid, and the ability to select a tile with a click. I will improve Squarity (my game engine) so that all these things are possible.
There is no "official" restart button, but technically, if you click on the bottom right button, named "envoyez le code", it reloads all the game code and makes you restart.
I did it!
The game is pretty fun, once you understand what to do.
The problem is understanding what to do... :sweat_smile:
The french buttons did not really help...
You have a good concept here, but it's not really friendly for your users ^^ May need some audios and more understandable UI ^^ (left mana should be more accessible).
Anyway very good concept ;) I did it with ~750 points
Sorry about the french buttons. I thought it was not really a problem, because these buttons are about Squarity (my game engine) and not about the game itself.
You do not have to use any of these french button to play. But I agree it may look confusing.
English version (and english documentation) should come quite soon.
Interesting game. Reminds me of DOS games like Pipe Dreams/Pipe Mania :D
Maybe having smaller levels with themes, puzzles or growing difficulty could make this better. It was a pretty big task that felt daunting at first. But I made it through!
Definitely a game with a lot of potential. It would be great as a mobile game.
I updated the game engine, to make python error messages visible when the game code is crappy.
It does not change anything to this game. But if it doesn't seem to work, try to do Ctrl-F5.
One last day before the results !!