[Imagine Cup] Puzzel Master Project

[rover2341]

About
Imagine Cup - Microsoft's biggest student programing contest ever year (International). Several category's. We choice the game category.

My Brothers and I are working calling Toad Jam. We are turning it in 3/24/2013.

Toad Jam

What We Ended Up With

• Classic Gameplay
• Puzzle Mode
• Online (Live Multiplayer)
• Cross platform (Windows 8, And Windows Phone)
• Achievement's
• Classic Mode, Puzzle Mode, Online Mode
• Interactive game pieces.

Future

• Fix known issues, Move blocks quicker.
• Additional Effects
• Ability to join a game with friends, and share achievement's with friends.

Screen Shots


Video

Submission Requirements

10 Min Video About Project.
30 sec Video Ad.
How to play power point attached. (required in our submission)
The xap file (its like in exe on windows phone)

 

[Accname]

As far as i understood thats not a very innovative game concept. Isnt that game actually quite old already? Even blizzard made a SC2 mod for it.

To answer your question:
I wouldnt play this game. But i dont play many games at all, and i never play games on mobile devices. (i dont even have any phone)

But i actually like puzzle games. Something quick and simple. Which you understand after only a few seconds and which you can play within a minute or too. Especially if its multiplayer.

When i was in school i made a multiplayer online java puzzle game. It was player versus player and every action by a player would make the game harder for the other player. This would quickly add up and make the game insanely hard for both players who needed to react very quickly to stay alive.
It was designed in a way that somebody would lose, fast. And you had to fight not be the one.

Very simple, quite bad coding if i am looking back, but we actually played it.

Just try to think about something competitive, i think a game which makes you want to challenge your friends is always a good idea. And something fast paced which you can play in the matter of minutes. For example in the break between school lessons or something.

 

[rover2341]

K "not a very innovative game concept" This is true. and one our biggest fears.
Ill keep the competitive stuff in mind.
1-5 min rounds. most would end in 3.

 

[OMGOMGOMG]

To answer your question:
I wouldnt play this game. But i dont play many games at all, and i never play games on mobile devices. (i dont even have any phone)

You don't have a cellphone , I don't have one either! We're one of a kind .

back on track, No I wouldn't play this game... I think this would be boring and isn't very innovative as people have said.

 

[Accname]

[...] as people have said.

We are the people who rule the world ...

 

[rover2341]

k, This is good feed back, not what I expected to here, at least not so strongly.

This just tells me I gota make the puzzle more innovative. Else they may think, I don't want to try this before they even open it. that's not good, we want good first impressions before they even try it.

Because even if the game was SUPER FUN, as most of you said, you wouldn't even try it.
(well maybe cause I made it you be like... I try it once... cause I know the dude ish...)

What the judges want (we think at least)

• Innovative
• Polished
• Addicting - Fun, in 1-3 min
• Successful - That they believe it will be. (this is why we lost in internationals (2009), after making it to Egypt, they thought it wouldn't be successful)

Innovative - The game it self isn't, but the fact its live multiplayer on the windows phone, that's rare to non exist, + the fact it would be cross platform to windows 8. Touch feels natural.

Successful - Before submitting, get the app high up on windows phone game rankings, and windows 8 "Metro". and get good reviews from lots of people. (100's on the phone).

Addicting - If rounds are short, and fast enough. Could be pretty fun. Hard to say if it will be yet. But with real people it should help, and rankings.

Polished - We think we will have a lot of time to polish this thing to the max.

But I agree the ideas been done a million times over. and 1000 times over multiplayer, but for a student contest, live multiplayer is rare. Multiplatform even rarer, unless it was something that ran on a webpage.


This feed back is fantastic! Thanks

 

[Accname]

I can tell you what my puzzle game looked like if you want.

It was 2 players only and each player had his own board.
The board was filled with coloured blocks. At the start, only the first 3 rows at the bottom were filled with random blocks for each player.

Each player could now drop a block of random colour from the top of his board, he could decide at which point on the x-axis the block would be dropped. He saw the color of the block but he could not control it.
When he let a block fall and it hit another block beneath it which had the same colour then all blocks of this colour, which were in a continuous chain with the dropped block, disappeared and were spawned at the top of the opponents board.
The game was won for a player when the blocks reached the top of the opponents board and couldnt fall any further.

The game was simple but it had its fair share of strategy.
Each time you drop a block 1 more block is added to the game, so an end to the game was ensured.
If you were planning on releasing a huge chain of blocks you could really throw your opponent off-guard because of all the blocks suddenly appearing on his side.
But on the other hand you gave him much more time to shape the board in his favor. (make it even and not have a "tower" stick out.)
The faster you were playing the more blocks you have created and the more blocks you have probably send to your opponent.
If you dont get going fast in the game you will lose to an experienced player in the blink of an eye because you get swarmed by blocks.

It was really addicting for the first couple of plays.
Try something that has alot of options to the player but is still simple without too many different game objects.

 

[rover2341]

Updated Videos, Screen shots, and Text.

 

[camelCase]

Saw the video, that's really cute!