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Player Thoughts - Poke 5,n Blog
25th September 2017
As each week's release gets mentioned across the web-o-sphere, I trawl through comments and reviews, and post some feedback to the feedback!

RSKGames



Overview : A 3 X 3 puzzle block with a target pattern that players need to match within the given time limit. Game has one of the five different game modes per puzzle with a limit of 5 moves


-=-=-


1. Change the tile
2. Scroll left or right (Like Rubik's cube)
3. Scroll up or down (Like Rubik's cube)
4. Scroll up/down/right/left (Like Rubik's cube)
5. Sliding puzzle (like the 15 number sliding puzzle)
I found the 4th one to be the trickiest.


I'm glad you counted those as separate elements, as that's also how they're coded!
5witch, 5lide Vert, 5lide Horz, 5lide All, 5pace!

.. I forgot to add those titlecards in, didn't I!
D'oh!

The "5lide All" is indeed the hardest of the available puzzles.
Even harder was "5witch Plus", which flips either a + or a X of tiles at a time. Like the classic "Lights Out" puzzle, but within the tiny 3x3 grid.
To suggest it was almost impossible is an understatement!

5um was also planned, but I had enough complications with the game's balancing that I didn't get around to adding it.

Gameplay: All the game modes are seamlessly integrated with intuitive and simple controls. When I first played I had no clue what I was doing, but as the timer was set to a good amount of time, I slowly figured what green square move was and what left/right/up/down arrow was. No limit of number of retries within the timer limit helped in figuring things out. The gameplay tweaks have worked well in helping the player figure things out. I think the timer is the same as the player progresses over many puzzles as I didn't feel panicked as the levels progressed. The 4th type will eventually make the player lose.


Yeah, I also tend to get stuck on that, too. The "5witch Plus" mode was even worse. By comparison, 5lide All was at least do-able!!
But it still acts as a bit of a dead end.
I did consider removing that, too, but then the rest of the puzzles are a bit too simple, and there didn't seem to be much of a challenge.

In all, it's a rather complicated game, given it's only 9 little tiles!

Should make a great mobile game.


I hope so!

Scoring: Couldn't decipher the scoring system details but had a feeling that the faster you solve the puzzle without retries gives better scores.


Scores were the very last thing implemented, in a very rushed style!
Indeed it's just a simple "Time remaining" bonus.
Nothing magical, I'm afraid.

Sound: Background music has a good repeating tune that is pleasant to hear.


Could've done with being a little bit longer, though, I reckon.
I'll have to add a bunch of tunes to the iOS release.

Graphics: Marching ants border for current selected tile and the animation of the blocks for the retries are done well.


"Marching ants" LOL. OK
You might notice that 5pace doesn't "undo" properly if you lose, and instead does a random thing. I totally messed up the code for that!
It still resets to what it should, but the reversey animation is completely borked.

Oops!

Overall a brilliant puzzle game with seamless integration of many game mechanics.


Thanks
Now hopefully I can make a nice menu for the iOS.
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