PowFish

[Wampus]

PowFish will be my first complete game in GLBasic. Hopefully there will be many more. Currently there is a lot of work to do on this game but I hope to get a big update finished by Thursday. I aim to put it on the AppStore but make it free to download for PC and Mac. 

Gameplay:

• Get 4 or more sea creatures connected by adjacent positions to get a score
• Do not let the timer reach nothing! The timer will increasingly speed up as you play
• If you get stuck or see an opportunity for a big combination you can use a swap. Double-tap a sea creature to swap it to its opposite colour
• The more sea creatures in any combo the more bonus points you will get. You may even get bonus swaps if you make a very large combination
• Bonus powers occasionally become available when you see a shell. Explode any combo near the shell to reveal your bonus power. Double-tap to use

Currently only Arcade mode is working.

Let me know what you think. What's good? What's bad? Improvements?

Thanks 

btw I only uploaded a Windows version because of file size restrictions

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[MrTAToad]

It plays very well - like the squidgy sound.  What does the right mouse button do ?

[Wampus]

For testing purposes only the right mouse button restores the settings to (almost) a new game. [edit] Oh, and due to some carelessness the right mouse button also sets the number of sea creatures to 6 instead of 8, making the game waaaaaaaaay too easy.

The squidgy sound is made up of three separate sounds. I squelched some jelly, crunched two crab shells together and slapped some seaweed against a wall.

I had no idea how hard and involved sound design was until I had to do some for this game. That's why most of the sounds are just 8-bit at the moment. I just haven't found the time to create appropriate 16-bit sound effects.

[MrTAToad]

Sound effects are always the hardest to get right

[monono]

Great!
I love your graphics and animation. The color changing confuses me a bit. Maybe it´s just me, but I don´t get it. Ok, 4 or more creatures of the same kind in a row and I get points and time. But what about the colors? Why does it make that "no" sound and stops me from swapping creatures from time to time?  Biggest improvement for me would be a decent tutorial. I am looking forward for the polished version. What further plans do you have? What are the other modes?

[Wampus]

You start the game with 10 colour swaps only and have to earn more through big combinations. An in-game tutorial as well as instruction screens explaining everything will definitely be included in the first full version of the game. Its very confusing otherwise.

The other mode of play I'm planning is Puzzle mode. Instead of a short timer that speeds up relatively quickly you start off with one single large timer that only very slowly goes down with each move you make. This will allow for a a more thought out and relaxed game. 

I don't have any other plans for this one but I'm already designing a sequel to PowFish which will have additional features. For instance, I will be looking to include achievements, opponents to beat and different sprite sets & locations. I also want to take greater advantage of iPhone hardware. When I first started making this I didn't have an iPhone or an iPod Touch to test it with so wasn't very ambitious with the visual special effects.

[Wampus]

Uploaded an update. Now the sound is complete and the bonus stage between levels has been implemented properly. I didn't upload any music because the file size gets too large.

Still have to add a tutorial, improve the HUD and create title screen & menus.

[Ian Price]

I got to a point where I couldn't swap some of the tiles. Don't know why.

Looks and sounds geat though

[Wampus]

Ah, that's either a rare bug (that I've recently fixed) where the end of level bonus screen doesn't exit properly or you ran out of swaps (which the tutorial should cover).

I've made lots of significant updates over the last week. By the end of this week or just into next week it should be completely finished and waiting for approval by Apple for release on the iPhone.

My first game! Woohoo!

[Ian Price]

I definitely had colour swaps left, and I could switch certain tiles, but not others. The game exited when I ran out of swaps, I presumed this is what it should do.

[Wampus]

Hmm. That doesn't sound quite right. Could be something I've fixed since I last uploaded, there is a bug I don't know about or something else.

No reports of problems with the current version. I might hang back a couple of days before submitting to Apple to let friends & family play to see if they can find any bugs.

Thanks Ian

[erico]

tried...

it´s wonderful, monsters are really cativating...neat.
will play more to check gameplay,
later...

[Gregory Atlas]

I like the graphics very much! Wondering how you done that.
Gameplay i like too, have something similiar on my cellphone ^^