Brick-Breaker

[Moderator]

18:17, 7th Sep 2011
Vengeancekael: Status: Approved

15th september 2011
Vengeancekael:
Review:

Gameplay:

The map can never get boring, with all the possibilities, the modes, the game speed changes, the different types of levels and even different types of bricks.
The adventure mode is kinda neat, it lets you play a quick match really quickly.
The custom game mode is a really nice, which lets you customize the ball speed, the area size, etc.
However the best part of the gameplay is the editor. The player has a lot of tools, different types of bricks, ones with more or less hp, ones with special abilities, etc.
The hotkeys are also convenient.


Terrain:

You've used really neat models for the bricks and walls, however it would have been nice if you had used a custom terrain tile for the background. However since this is a mini-game, you'd have to keep the file size really low.

Other:

The necessary information is in the quest log, with all the different modes and controls.
However colors would make the text more readable.
Also create a floating text when you get a power-up.
And when you pick a normal sized area, you can't see everything, when the ball for example goes completely up, you can only see power-ups falling down, but not where the ball is.

Overall:

A really neat, fun and advanced mini-game, which needs but only some improvements to make it perfect.

Rating: 4/5

 

[MagiC_AntO.]

Ooooh ! Original ; i will test now !

 

[Blood Raven]

huh, everything is creatable in WC3 i see
we have tetris, roller coaster creator, cards... now we have brick breaker
anyway: some suggestions: make the map smaller, so it fits with the size of the breaker zone and maybe you change the tileset not to "dirt", cuz it is kinda boring...
Great map anyway, but why are there 2 balls?

 

[Tirlititi]

I think I chose 64x64 as a map size. Even if 32x32 should be ok (the breaker zone can have different sizes), I prefer leaving me a little margin. But I'll think about it.

I totally agree with you about the terrain. I'll try to change the tilesets in the next version but I'm under Linux and it's hard to find a configuration that makes the Worldedit works, so I can't guarantee anything (same problem for map size, by the way). I think I'll find a solution but I won't make a wonderful landscape anyway.

About that, the map is kinda "protected" : I mostly use a MPQ Browser to edit it. The only thing I have and that you can't access is the uncompiled vjass map's script. I can give it to anyone who ask me, though.

Thanks for the advices.

 

[Vladadamm]

Very nice map !

5/5 ^^

 

[samljh]

i tried it as a full house game. I think it's a decent map, but my friends keep on asking if there is any alternate movement controls.

 

[Tirlititi]

Up.

I made a boss level (that can't be really edited, unfortunatly) and some other little things. I rebalanced the other levels, added a new command, you don't restart the Adventure mode from the beginning when you give up anymore...
Sorry but I'm terrible for changelogs.

I'll add a key control system and a terrain variation system soon, but the Boss took a lot of work.

 

[KuWe]

Awesome map! I liked the gameplay and the level editor is nice feature. But I think you should add a bit variation to the background terrain because it looks so boring. Also adding somewhat logical hotkeys to spells would be nice (eg. QWER).

 

[Tirlititi]

I'm dumb. I use an AZERTY keyboard and I didn't think that it wasn't the standart... Thanks for pointing it, I hope it'll be better now.

So, I updated again : I added a terrain generator which activates itself when you enter a game and I think it's not so ugly (less than the previous terrain at least ).
I also made a keyboard system : you can control your bat with both right-click and arrow keys but the camera automatically follows your bat and you can't move it manually. However, you can type "-arrow" for controlling your bat with right-click only and having a free camera.
And I fixed few bugs.

Unless someone has great ideas for additionnal stuff (or if you find a bad bug), this may be my final version.

 

[Vladadamm]

hmm, why not "E R T Y" hotkeys, with this, no problem for all.

 

[Tirlititi]

I use the MPQ's id for a french versions : french people have the same hotkeys than before (with 1 or 2 exceptions) while I put QWER for the others. Since AZERTY seems to be a french weirdery, I guess it's ok for all now.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Review:

Gameplay:

The map can never get boring, with all the possibilities, the modes, the game speed changes, the different types of levels and even different types of bricks.
The adventure mode is kinda neat, it lets you play a quick match really quickly.
The custom game mode is a really nice, which lets you customize the ball speed, the area size, etc.
However the best part of the gameplay is the editor. The player has a lot of tools, different types of bricks, ones with more or less hp, ones with special abilities, etc.
The hotkeys are also convenient.


Terrain:

You've used really neat models for the bricks and walls, however it would have been nice if you had used a custom terrain tile for the background. However since this is a mini-game, you'd have to keep the file size really low.

Other:

The necessary information is in the quest log, with all the different modes and controls.
However colors would make the text more readable.
Also create a floating text when you get a power-up.
And when you pick a normal sized area, you can't see everything, when the ball for example goes completely up, you can only see power-ups falling down, but not where the ball is.

Overall:

A really neat, fun and advanced mini-game, which needs but only some improvements to make it perfect.

Rating: 4/5

 

[Tirlititi]

Thanks a lot for this fast and good review. I'm feeling lucky when I see that other maps sometimes waiting years for a review.

I just uploaded a bug fix version : I saw a bug in the boss level making him impossible to defeat if you don't kill bricks in some order. I hope he doesn't have flaw anymore.
I also took advantage of it to add colors in quests and a perspective from top. It is a pain to manage the camera distance with this view, though...

EDIT : You should have told me about that ugly bug that makes all white...
Sorry but under Linux (wine), fog is reversed for some reason and I couldn't see any bug in my CPU...
It's a bug I noticed in Pudge Wars and JetPack in the other way. I'll pay more attention to fog functions in the future.
Sorry again.

 

[trojans009]

Interesting, fascinating

I never really tried it but it seems interesting, A tetris game in WC3 will try this with some friends.

[url=http://www.sc2pod.com/achievements/starcraft-2/one-man-army/?id=11805] [/URL]

 

[Rufus]

Pretty nice idea! Pretty fun gameplay! Pretty good overall! 4/5

 

[Vengeancekael]

Yay updated!

 

[Pitakebab]

Seems like lighting of the map is corrupted or something. Everything is dark and black and it's nearly impossible to play :/

 

[Tirlititi]

Pfffff, I'm so stupid.

I fixed that bug in the last version and now it comes back... Somehow I used the previous version.
It should be fixed now (I can't see this bug on my computer).

Thanks a bunch for pointing it out.

 

[Pitakebab]

Yeah now it works very fun and well executed but kinda difficult

 

[LovG]

Wooow looks nice..

This is very original I wasn't expecting this game

 

[CoLd Bon3]

Awesome map! 5/5 & +rep!

 

[Tirlititi]

What a coincidence, I just wanted to update it ^^.

I hope this version doesn't bring too many bugs but I guess I can't be aware of them all.

 

[Frotty]

hm, played this for 5 hours, sadly, and there are some issues.

• You can't use blink an arrow-key mode
• The deflection from brick-edges is what ruined the game. In the early stages that wasn't so much of a problem, but we were like 2 hours on one stage (2player) and almost every time we almost got it, the ball deflected off some edge and went stright upor down into the out or
• We missed an easy ball because the mouse-mvoement is so lacky~ it's hard to describe, but it's the only mdoe where you can use blibk properly, and kinda the laser too so you can shoot 2 bricks, but it has this accelerating-movement, which doesnt allow you tu move small spaces, and sometimes doesn't turn fast enough
• Another very very very annoying thing with the mouse control is the selection circle of the batter. If you only have to move a tiny bit, you click yourself and don't move at all. If you click further away you move to far and als miss the ball.
• The tiny bit gets especially annyoing when you thing, okay, the ball will hit and stand still, but that it hits the side of your bat and goes out! thats shit!
• I also don't get the web-rules..or how it works, sometimes the ball sticks to the bat, sometimes even 2 balls, sometime it just bounces off or whatever. Again, super annoying-> sometimes the ball sticks to the side of your board, and you can't do shit, it will 100% go out after web goes down.
• the movement, especially with mouse, in fly-mode is horrendes, you only go in sort of straight lines and keep touching the ball from above, making it go into out by urself.
• Sometimes the ball has such a small angle, it just bounces left-right above your bat, if you use fly then to bounce it ob, it almost can't touch your board and instead of up, it goes down.
• The edge-deflection is especially shit in that case. The ball bounces left-right for 3 hours and then suddenly hits an edge and goes right out. great.
• Some ball graphics don't even have a particle trail to indicate the movement(the lighting ball e.g.) and others sfx is bigger than the collisionsize and vise versa.
• The ball 2 ball collision is somewhat weird. the collision a big ball collides with a small is too big (visually) and the impulse is as the big ball would weigh 200 times the weight of the small ball
• I don't get the colorsceme. Cyan, yellow, ??GREEN??, red. Why would green indicate a lower health than yellow
• If you use fly on some stages you can fly through some solid bricks
• the power-ups suck the fuck. Speeddown is jsut negative?! why have 1 negative powerup, thats just a noobtrap. no limit lightning and attract look almost the same, attract is just shit btw, it does attract to your board even in movement, and instantly changes the direction of the balls. It should rather be like an inversed tornado-pull balls to the board if near. the blinkfreak is just totaly bullshit in arrowkey-mode. instead of moving, you blibk somewhere you don't want to and keep missing the balls. Where are the classical powerups? more balls, faster board, bombs, different bouncer. Also the bouncer should have an circular-shape since it bounces the balls of in that pattern.
• If there are only ~2 bricks left, behind solid bricks so you cant shoot them and getting the ball there is very hard because of the odd position, it's totally boring, you can't do shit, no mana, no pwoerups and have to bounce one little ball (since all the others get lost very fast) over the place until it hits an edge and goes out
• If you forfeit the game before any of the orcs has thrown a ball, the game end when they throw the ball
• the mroe players you play with, the harder it gets. I believe its easier alone, since no1 casts e.g. wave and makes balls change direction instantnly without warning. Also the big gaps make them loose the balls very fast and it's gameover before start. The AI is totally useless, even von "hard" it lost every ball after 10 seconds (on later stages)
• On later stages, sometimes 2 balls get thrown in such an angle, they both would go into out right after start, so you CAN only save one, or use wave, but if you use wave, your mate loses his ball.
• It depends so much on random factors. How the orcs throw the balls and if these "swapping" blocks are attackable at the moment the ball touches them. It's like so hard to get the ball to the last remaming "swapping" bricks and when you get it, they are solid....
• I would have liked to see the boss, but we didnt get the stage with the swapping blocks in a rectengular shape in mid, and after you got al blocks, spawning 4 cyan ones in mid.
• make some lvl skipping feature...or after 50 tries you can continue or whatever, I would really like to see the next stages
• There are no indicators for the time you have big bouncer or web, so you can't really use it wisely because it may run out every second.
• lvl 10 is max :/ We had to try some stages so long, we were lvl 10 very early. Either make more lvls (for the bouncer ofc) or make it lvl slower and make the spells better

Well thats it for now. Not ment to offend, just a bulk of things that annoyed us etc.

 

[Tirlititi]

Thanks, it's always good to have feedback. And I'm aware it can get really really annoying (congrats for staying without giving up ^^').

First, this game is hard. I really wanted to make a game hard to beat even if everybody should be able to pass the easiest levels. It's often easier to play in a custom level, where you can fix the speed, the ball types, etc... It really helps.
But I'm not satisfied on difficulty in multiplayer (especially 3 or 4). There are too much situations in which you can't do anything :s.

• You can't use blink in arrow mode and that's shit, but I made this game first with a right-click control only, hence the stuff unadapted to arrow control. I'll think I'll change that spell but if you know a way to enable blink without the mouse, it would be great ^^'.
• For me, the edge deflection is one of the things that make this game interesting. It asks you to concentrate more than if the movement was easily predictable. But that's true it's annoying when you loose a near-completed level because of it. I think the solution is to reduce the time required to complete a level ; I'll try to think about spells (and maybe "events") for that.
• The accelerating movement is also there in arrow mode, but it gets annoying only when you push the left arrow before releasing the right arrow for example. In mouse mode, you can push Stop (S) just before right-clicking to turn faster. I don't know if it is humanly do-able in real situation, though. Test it and if you still find that's not enough, I'll increase the acceleration ratio.
• "You click yourself so you don't move" -> That's not true. You can always click on your bat for moving a little bit. About moving a little bit with arrows, it is not possible but that's Blizzard's fault. The arrow key events are really bad (and has delay on multiplayer games) but I don't see any way to fix it. I guess I should make the "right-click only" mode the default.
• The web rules... You don't catch balls when it hits the edge of your bat, and balls catched can still reflect another ball that comes hit it. Sometimes, you catch a ball on the wrong side of the bat, as you said, but you can still save it by using the ability fly and release the ball on a side (that's a mate of mine who discovered this move, not me ^^). Its doesn't work in all levels though.
• I agree : it's hard to control a "flying" bat with the arrows, but I don't see any good way to fix that :s.
• I'll try to think about better "ball controling" spells, it'd solve a bunch a problems.
• "Some ball graphics don't even have a particle trail to indicate the movement(the lighting ball e.g.) and others sfx is bigger than the collisionsize and vise versa." -> It's not necessary to have a trail for all the balls in my opinion and I never had the impression that the size doesn't fit. I'll check it more precisely, though.
• Okay, I didn't think about adding weight on balls, but that's a good idea.
• I don't know why green... hum... I guess lots of brick-breakers game have green bricks and a strange color scheme .
• Yes, flying into bricks is just wrong. I wanted to remake the bat area of movement in my last update but that's kinda hard to do it well with the less lag possible. It's on my To Do list.
• About powerups, I find it good to have powerdowns to avoid. The colors of the texttag should help : red for powerdowns, green for powerups and blue for two-sided effects (blue also for the boss' level powerup but that's a special one). I just don't have idea for other powerdowns so it is the only one for now ^^' (thx for suggestions by the way). About blink-freak, that's the same problem than always, I don't know how to make it work properly with arrows... And for the bounce pattern, that's the same than in most of brick-breaker games, I guess (it's not exactly a circle bounce though : if the ball hits the good side of the bat, its angle after the hit doesn't depend on its angle before the hit, I tested both and that's better imo).
• Last bricks are always a pain to manage in brick breakers :s. That's one more thing to ask to the spell(s) or the events I'll put.
• Thanks for the bug, I'll try to fix it.
• I'll work on the AI again but I don't know how to make the game not so hard in multiplayer (and consequently with the AI).
• I'll decrease the orc launching ball angle range (is that english? :O). That's a problem I also saw too much.
• You were stucked at the last level before the boss ^^'. It's a level for which I already decreased difficulty (imagine that swapping bricks had 2 hp before...) but it has the "stuck-for-hours-because-you-can't-touch-the-last-brick" flaw. I should replace it but I would have liked to find another kind of special brick and introduce them in it. However, you can test the boss level at any time by choosing a Custom game -> predefined level n°8. Beating him will just not trigger the ending cinematic like it does in adventure mode.
• I'll try to add buff for size-up and make buffs tinkle when they are soon over, like W3 buffs.
• I may add more levels to bats, yes. I finished this game several time (it is easier in solo indeed ^^, but also more boring maybe) so I know that if you don't loose too much, you can get to the boss with level 8 or 9 (the last ones are quiet long, I'll change that if I add more).

Fiew, thank you again. I get how long it had to be to write your post now I answered to it ^^'.

 

[Legal_Ease]

I love the idea of vintage games remade!!!!

 

[deepstrasz]

Suggested players: 1-4; Players: 1
?_?

 

[Tirlititi]

I don't know why there's this information.
I confirm that you can play this game from 1 to 4 players (one player per "wall" of the arena).