icemann on 21/12/2018 at 04:07
My game, CrossTrix is set for Steam release on January 2nd of 2019. Been working on this game for the past 12 months.
For a description of gameplay:
CrossTrix is a crossword based puzzle game, where you are given 20 mystery letters which are revealed individually each turn. Each player is given 3 re-rolls per game that they may use to replace newly-revealed letters with a different letter, for a chance at more matches on screen. The game features 3 game modes:
* Score Attack - All instances of a revealed letter are awarded to the player. Player reveals all letters, then play switches to the next player.
* Strategy Mode - Players can only select 3 of the instances of revealed letters on screen. When all letters have been revealed, play switches to the next player.
* Versus Mode - Players can only select 3 of the instances of revealed letters on screen. Both players are working off the same screen and can absorb opponent pieces via having a scored tile to the opposing sides (of left and right, or above and bellow) of a piece or pieces to absorb them. Players take turns, as play changes to the next player after "End Turn" is selected.
Goal of the game is to get the best score. Scoring of complete words will earn the player bonus points.
Store page here:
(
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1003690/CrossTrix/?beta=0)
Some gameplay vids for the 3 game modes:
Score Attack mode 1 Player:
[video=youtube;uDoioXgMHJY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDoioXgMHJY[/video]
Strategy mode 1 Player:
[video=youtube;_tb4aLv-IRU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tb4aLv-IRU[/video]
Versus mode 1 Player:
[video=youtube;iN-I1GToFrM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN-I1GToFrM[/video]
Game will be up for sale in 2 weeks at $4.99.
henke on 21/12/2018 at 06:55
Congrats on getting it finished. Looks like something I could get really into actually.
icemann on 21/12/2018 at 18:01
Versus mode is where the real fun is at :). Though that's my heavily biased opinion, having been developing this for the past 12 months. But it was the most fun from a 2 player competitive standpoint. Did numerous QA tests with other testers (wife and some of my students) to check for bugs, make sure everything was working right and to see if it had the "fun factor" behind it.
Has some elements of the game "Othello" in there if you've ever played that (I had as a kid in the 80s on the Atari 2600). Though as your limited in where you can place your selections of the revealed letters on screen, there is a massive amount of strategy involved + some random chance in there. Juggle that, with the battle to complete entire words and then not have that snatched away from you later on, since if a letter of said completed word gets "absorbed" later on then you lose the score bonus.
If there is enough interest later on, I may release the level editor as a free extra. The Crosswords are super easy to put together once you've put together a couple. Only tricky bits is trying to incorporate as many of the letters of the alphabet as you can, and coming up with word combinations if your trying to fill up a full area.
smallfry on 21/12/2018 at 19:35
That looks great- nice work icemann! The versus mode definitely looks like fun. Is there joystick support? It would be cool if my gf and I could play on the couch. Anyway, congrats man :)
icemann on 22/12/2018 at 04:38
Thank you.
Joystick support currently is not in, though I've had joystick support in earlier games I've done. So in theory be do-able to add in. Especially as the game is mouse driven for the most part. I've been spending so much time getting all the Steam store stuff done that I need a break from it all. But give me some time and I'll look into adding that in. Wouldn't take more than a day to implement.
Shadowcat on 22/12/2018 at 09:37
"Each player is given 3 re-rolls that they may use across the match to re-roll a letter revealed for the chance at more matches on screen."
Assuming that's your official description of the game, I'll just say that after re-reading several times I still don't understand what you're trying to convey there, so perhaps you could try to clarify it. The phrase "use across the match" is particularly cryptic.
icemann on 22/12/2018 at 12:38
Be happy to re-word that bit if it's not clear.
Each turn a letter is revealed, with matches for that letter displayed on the crossword. Players in strategy and versus modes have 3 moves maximum for selection of those matches. For a chance at a greater amount of matches on screen, a player may use one of their re-rolls which will then give them a different letter (one which isn't already in their 20 letters). Each player has 3 re-rolls that they may use across the entire match. Re-rolling removes any matches on screen from the initial letter revealed that they had not clicked on (in strategy and versus modes).
Does that make sense?
To give a gameplay example:
Player 1 clicks on "Reveal Next Letter", gets a "B" and only one match appears on screen. For a chance at more matches on screen they click "Re-Roll Letter" which removes the match from B, reveals the re-rolled new letter in it's place which is a "L" and gets 3 matches which then appear on screen. Though of course the gamble is in whether or not the player will get a "better" letter or not.
In versus mode, as both players are working off the same screen, there is the competing for letter matches which is another factor, as say there is 2 matches for a J on screen and player 1 clicks them both, if player 2 later on gets a "J" revealed then they'd get zero matches on screen since those 2 were already acquired by player 1.
For strategy and versus modes, a tactic I've often used is for when I get a letter that only gets 1 match to click on that match (which uses up 1 of your 3 moves per turn), then click re-roll for the chance at more matches to click on and thus use up all of the 3 moves for that turn. Though this can backfire if you happen to get a good letter that has quite a few matches on screen (a vowel for example, which often have more than one match).
henke on 22/12/2018 at 15:00
Eh, it's still difficult to understand, I had to watch the videos to get an understanding of how it plays.
Not sure how to make it clearer in text, but one problem I can point to is that you probably shouldn't use the word "match" in 2 different senses of the word in the description. Seems you use it in both the align-sense and the game-sense of the word.
icemann on 22/12/2018 at 15:42
True. Not sure how I could explain it simpler. Some games are best worked out as you play I think.
Shadowcat on 22/12/2018 at 22:10
I think I understand, but I can only maintain that:
> The phrase "use across the match" is particularly cryptic.
The expanded description now says "use across the entire match" which is basically the same phrase. The word "entire" doesn't make it any easier to parse. (As henke says, it's hard to discern what you mean by the word "match" at any given time.)
I would suggest that you delete that phrase from the text. To my mind it confuses more than it explains. Unless I've misunderstood, I think something like the following would work better:
"Each player is given 3 re-rolls that they may use to replace the newly-revealed letter with a different letter, for a chance at more matches on screen.
