[BETA] Gnomium: Pocket Edition! [Action Word Puzzler]

Hi Wicked8146.

Thanks for your valuable feedback, it is much appreciated.

There is a bug when you try to start the tutorial again after playing a game. The tutorial grid is off screen. This will be fixed with the next build so no, the smiley face is not mocking you.

As far as the game play experience. I did at one time have the tutorial within the game grid and am now considering whether or not there should be some additional help therein during the first play through.

By far, the hardest concept for most players to tackle is that the grid handles the finding and combining of words automatically and that the players best course of action is to simply manipulate (move, re-structure) the existing words or rows and columns of tiles. It is very much a cause-and-effect game. Every move you make effects the structure of the grid and the combination of words found therein. Once this concept is settled, the game play becomes very simple and straight forward. Move-break-swap-match, open chests, earn more tiles, progress further.

Now mushrooms. Mushrooms! Yes, they are a surprising bunch. I will explain them and will most likely add a glossary of some sort (like you mentioned) to explain the usefulness of all items.

Mushrooms serve a couple of purposes. Red mushrooms multiply quickly and fill in adjacent empty spaces and unused tiles. They are the housekeeping service of the grid, clearing out unused tiles that may become overly populated like Qs, Js, Xs etc.., they server a very specific function of allowing you to continue to play with a rich set of useful letter tiles. When a group of connected red mushroom tiles reaches the top of the grid, they all pop and clear out the spaces they were occupying.

Whenever red mushrooms appear, there is a chance that a blue, purple or orange mushroom will appear in the bunch. These are special multiplier mushrooms and will not go away until they are tapped (popped) by the player. These mushrooms explode, have a certain radius and cause a value-multiplier effect on all of the word-groups they destroy. For example, a blue mushroom applies a 2x multiplier in a 1-tie radius to all word groups destroyed by the explosion, effectively generating twice the number of coins a word-group would have produced otherwise. Purple mushrooms have a 3x multiplier and a 2-tile radius and so forth. Thus, you can use mushrooms to your advantage if placed properly before detonating.

The tile indicator. So in the upper left-hand corner of the game screen it shows the number of tiles you currently have and the maximum number of tiles you can currently have throughout the game. As you break words and new tiles come into the grid, this value decreases. Also, the value decreases by 1 tlle a second, like a timer. If this value reahes 0, then a 5 second timer appears, giving you a few seconds to perform an action that would give you more tiles (like double tapping a gem) before the game ends. If you break words or combine coins when this timer is active then the timer resets.

My plan is to have a helpful step that explains this the first time you play a game. Your goal really is to combine enough coins and gems to get the gem you need to open the chest. Doing so gives you many ore tiles, increases the total tile capacity and allows you to continue play until you can open the next chest.

Let me know if any of this information is useful. My primary goal is to make these things clear so that you can enjoy the game play for a long time to come.

-Chris

 

slewis, Yes! I knew it could click if you kept at it! Though, I need it to click for folks right away (not after 20 games ). I'm working on improvements now to the tutorial that will continue to instruct vital things during the first game.

Just out of curiosity, looking back, what key bits of information would have added in order for the proper game play to click sooner?

 

Wicked8146, awesome. Let me know if you run into any issues or have additional feedback or questions.

 

slewis7, I think you've nailed it precisely. The biggest hurdle is simply to 'not think about words', but rather view the words as movable pieces that serve a means to an end (producing coins which can then be used to match and combine and earn more tiles). It's really more like Word Tetris. The problem is that this isn't always intuitive at first.

Regarding your other concerns:

What is a good score? I've been able to reach about 10K and usually average around 5K. I tend to look at my progress based on the level of treasure chest I was able to open, so I've opened a Sapphire chest, which is the 9th chest or highest Tier 3 gem chest. The Tier 4 chests are definitely the most difficult to open as it takes a lot of time to combine enough Tier 1, 2 and 3 gems to get a Tier 4 gem but it's definitely doable. If I really had time to sit and play a game with uber strategy I could probably unlock a diamond chest.

Getting a high score will rely on using strategy throughout the game, especially early on. It's all about properly managing your number of tiles. Here are some tips:

- Try to get silver or gold words as often as possible as this will save having to combine so many copper coins. Silver word-groups have a value of 55 or more, so if you can swap a few tiles in order to grow a copper word-group into silver, it's a good tactic.
- Use multiplier tiles effectively. Multiplier tiles have stars, blue = 2x, purple = 3x and orange = 4x. When a multiplier tile becomes part of a word-group it multiplies the total value of the group. This is a quick way to silver and gold word groups.
- Try to combine 4 or more coins/gems where possible. Combining 4 of one item will give you double the result. Combining 5 of one item will give you tripple, 6 = quadruple and so forth. This is the most effective way to get higher level gems quickly. Setting the coins or gems up to trigger a quadruple or quintuple match can be tricky, but you'll learn how to do it effectively over time.
- Do not unlock chests until you need to. If you've just unlocked a Garnet chest and a Peridot chest drops into the grid and you have a Peridot gem, wait until your tiles are low before you open the chest. This is good for 2 reasons. If you open a chest when your tile count is high, you will reach your max tile count too quickly and waste the extra tiles you would've earned if your tile count was lower. When you open a chest, your max tiles value increases by 50.
- Exchange gems (double-tap) only as necessary, and only exchange gems that you may not use unless you have no other choice.
- Use explosive mushrooms effectively (the blue, purple and orange mushrooms, not the red). Blue mushrooms explode with a 1-tile radius and multiply the value of the word groups they destroy by 2, essentially doubling the coin output of the destroyed groups. Purple do the same, except that their tile radius is 2 and their multiplier is 3x. Orange has a wider radius and multiplies by 4x. Before you destroy a mushroom, move it next to an ore-yielding word group, especially silver and gold, you will often get many more coins out of these groups using this strategy.
- Try to chain explosive mushroom explosions. If an explosive mushroom is within the range of another explosive mushroom when it explodes, the effected mushroom will have it's multiplier value added to. So, for example, if you have 3 blue mushrooms in a row and tap one of them, the blue mushroom next to it will explode with a 3x multiple, and the mushroom next to that will explode with a 4x multiple etc.. You can get some gnarly multipliers going if this is set up right.
- Use the gifts. You will get some pretty awesome hats (like the mushroom or crown) that will potentially produce a lot of coins and gems for you. Not to mention, an effective use of a golden pickax can produce many gems in a single move.

Anyways, there are several other strategies you can use to prolong game in order to open the higher level chests. You'll discover these as you continue to play.

Yes, copper coins are susceptible to explosions from both gifts and mushrooms. All other coins/gems are safe.

It sounds like you ran into a bug that I'm currently hunting down where the grid becomes unresponsive. If this happens, you can end your game by going into settings (tapping the gear) and choosing 'end this game'. If that doesn't work, you'll need to restart the app.

Thanks slewis7, I'm glad you're enjoying the game!

 

Beta Update

A big thanks to all testers who have participated up to this point. Your feedback has lead to several new changes forthcoming in the next Beta build which I plan on releasing this weekend, mainly surrounding an extension to the tutorial and that addition of an in-game Game Guide that spells out many rules, tips and item descriptions, all of which was probably necessary anyways. Keep playing!

There is still an open invite to any other TA forum readers to join in the BETA, play a fun a game help me make improvements.

Thanks again!

-Chris

 

Hi vectorarchitekt,

Thanks for the feedback. I'm looking into the occasional 'grid not responding' issue and trying to narrow down and eliminate the cause.

There will other play modes introduced in future releases based on player feedback like yours.

So, each word tile has a value, A = 1, Q = 10 and everything in between. You can see the letter values in the lower right corner of each tile. When a tile becomes part of a word group, it's value is added to the sum of the other tiles that are a part of the group. The value of the word group is on a tag attached to a random location on the word group.

The value (not the length) of the word group determines whether it has no value or is copper (20+), silver (55+) or gold (125+). Naturally, longer word groups are move valuable. But you can have a shorter word like 'Quiz' be a copper word all by itself. In addition, the multiplier tiles (those with stars), double, triple or quadruple the value of an entire word group when they are included in the group.

So, there is a small chance that any new tile that falls into the grid will be a stone tile. When a stone tile becomes part of a word group, and the word group's value is less than 20, the entire group will turn to stone and become unbreakable (except by a pick, chisel or if you cause the group to grow to a value of 20 or more).

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

Beta Build 1.0 (2) now available.

BETA Info (Nov. 9, 2015): Beta build 1.0 (2) is now available. If you are interested in playing, we'd love your feedback. The best way to get your email added to the TestFlight list is to send an email to me at [email protected].

This is the second public Beta release of Gnomium PE for iOS.

Changes in this build:
- Fixed: Unable to relaunch the tutorial after playing a game.
- Added a Game Guide that displays the first time you play a game and is accessible anytime by tapping the '?' in the lower-left corner of the screen. This contains several pages explaining certain aspects of the game, objectives, item catalogs and tips.
- Replaced the traditional pickax with a hammer. Now hammer are used to break stone word groups. The pickax is now a permanent tool that is used to break everything else (the 'flying pickax'). The plan is to have this tool be upgradable in the future.
- More SFX (with more to come) and some to be replaced (such as the gem-exchange-for-tiles sfx, this was meant to be temporary)
- Altered some colors and backgrounds for a few of the hats.

Things to test from this build:
- The new Game Guilde. I do plan on making it easier to flip between pages without having to swipe so far. Doe the Game Guide provide sufficient information to get started and understand objectives? Does it explain items sufficiently?
- General gameplay. Do you feel it is too difficult or too easy?

Things I am still working on:
- Sharing of Photos
- Enabling IAP
- SFX
- Better more powerful hammer effects.
- Proper Music transitions
- Purchasing Unity Pro in order to remove the 'built with Unity' splash screen.
- Performance Tuning
- A fix for the issue where occasionally the grid will cease functioning.
- A fix for the gnome's eyes disappearing between scenes.

Game Play:
- Grid manipulation: Test all aspects of grid manipulation, i.e. slide rows/cols of tiles, slide words, left, right and up, swap tiles, break words.
- Matching: match 3 or more of the same coins or gems.
- Items: Use chisels and hammers on stone tiles/words. Blow up blue, purple and orange mushrooms for multiplier effects on affected words. Try purchasing and using boosts and try opening and using the items presented in the gift.
- See how far you can get. I was able to open a Sapphire chest with the current build, but haven't spent a great deal of time doing extended testing.
- What are the best aspects of gameplay and what could you suggest for improvement?

Performance:
- So far I have only been able to test Gnomium PE on an iPhone 6+ and an iPad 4. I would love to have the game tested for performance issues on a wider range of iOS devices.
- Do you experience any noticeable frame-rate drops when playing the game and if so, when?
- Were there any moments before or after the game in which the game appeared to freeze or lock up even if for a short moments?
- Did the game crash on you at any point during game play?

Known Issues:
- Compression artifacts on the edges of images, especially on non-retina displays. This is an issue I am currently tracking down in Unity and may have something to do with the Sprite Packer.
- Tapping the play button multiple tiles causes multiple treasure chests to drop into the grid.
- Proper player gold count does not show up when going to the boosts screen after first loading the game.
- Gnome eyes disappear when transitioning to/from a game sometimes.
- Wearing a gifted hat when the game ends could cause some problems.
- Matching a gem with a chest when the game timer is low does not reset the timer and the game could end prematurely.
- Some strange grid pieces hanging in the air sometimes when the game ends.

 

Thanks flyordiedays for the feedback. Yes, the juice of very important to me I'm very happy you're enjoying the game. Now, on to fixing that freezing bug..

 

Game Guide Images

Here are images of the new in-game Game Guide that is now accessible anytime while playing.

 

Hi Wicked,

Yes, I'll improve (shorten) the swipe distance that is required to swap between pages. I noticed that as well after testing on the iPhone.

So, as far as technique, here are some tips. It sounds like you are taking a brute force approach, i.e. just breaking words as they appear in the grid, with little if any effort to 'grow' the word-groups into copper, silver or gold word groups before breaking them. This will work to some degree and may feel somewhat satisfying, however, it will only get you so far into the game.

The best approach is to do what I like to call 'fill in the empty spaces'. Before your are tempted to tap (I know, it's tempting), slide the word-pieces.. re-arrange them, as best you can. They naturally fall downward of course, because of gravity, but you can slide them left or right or upwards. You can cause them to fall and fit into new places, or swipe them up and then swipe them left or right to potentially move them into new regions of the grid. It should feel quite natural as they slide and push each other around, as if the pieces were blocks of wood you were re-arranging within a large box. Every move you make will cause the grid to re-evaluate the position of letters in the grid, with the potential to grow or create new word-groups.

You will begin to get copper and silver word groups much more frequently, and even some gold word-groups at times. You can, choose to be more strategic by swapping tiles around in an effort to extend existing words where you see fit.

Once you're starting to run out of 'sliding' room for any of the words, you have test most of the possibilities, it's time to start clearing the copper or silver word groups by tapping them and producing coins. Copper coins have a limited lifetime so you'll want to match them up fairly quickly and this often requires re-arranging other items or words, or breaking blue word groups that stand in the way.

Really, you are trying to do two things well. 1. Produce higher valued word-groups that yield coins, and 2. Match the coins together within a limited time. These two tasks can be balanced fairly well, and most of the time, re-arranging the grid to move coins around for matching does a great job of creating higher-valued word-groups.

I hope this advice helps. I think, at some point it will just 'click' for you and you will discover how to whip the grid into shape effectively.

As far as IAP. The game is not set up to be pay-to-win. There is only a single IAP, which will provided the player with infinite credits and a larger grid (8x8 instead of 7x7). I guess you could say that the larger grid gives the player more advantages in that he has more room to work with, but you do not need to do this to enjoy the game or to 'win'. It just gives you a little more breathing room.

The window you see where it gives you the option to watch an ad for 3 credits or the IAP (mentioned above) will show whenever you attempt to play the game and you are out of credits. Basically, you earn game credits by watching Ads, and you can watch and Ad every 3 games, or watch as many as you want in a rows and generate lots of credits. This is how the game funds itself (and I feed by family).

In the beta version, you can click the button to purchase the IAP and it will just unlock the 8x8 grid for you and give you infinite credits since the IAP mechanism isn't hooked up yet.

Thanks for continuing to test Wicked8146. Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.

-Chris

 

Beta Build 1.0 (3) now available

BETA Info (Nov. 13, 2015): Beta build 1.0 (3) is now available. If you are interested in playing, we'd love your feedback. The best way to get your email added to the TestFlight list is to send an email to me at [email protected].

This is the third build of the public Beta release of Gnomium: PE for iOS.

Changes in this build:
- Fixed: Image compression artifact issues.
- Fixed: The pickax getting large and being unable to shrink it back to normal size.
- Fixed: Some items becoming untappable because the pickax was tapped.
- Fixed: Potential cause for the grid to freeze or become unresponsive.
- Additional SFX.

Thanks to all those who have provided feedback so far. There are only a few things to wrap up this weekend and the beginning of next week before we submit this baby to the App store.

The most valuable feedback comes from new users as I'd like to make sure their experience with getting into the game and playing well is as straightforward as possible. You can still email me for a TestFlight invite any time.

-Chris

 

Hi vectorarchitekt. I'm planning on introducing new play modes in future updates. This kind of feedback is great though. Knowing other ways in which players would like to engage with the game can only help improve it.