[Released] Welltris and Wetrix (and Wordtris)

[coughlinjon]

This looks so cool!

[FartSatchel]

Is there a way to specify sorting layers in UI images?

 

My current setup is that all letter blocks are made out of the face, and the bottom edge that gives the blocks the raised effect that's parented to the face.

 

Canvas

      BlockFace

            LetterText

            BottomEdge

 

But I want my bottom edge to be sorted differently than the other items, and only Canvas has a sorting layer property. Is there a way to override this? I could move the bottom edge to a new Canvas but then would have to manually move them when each letter moves.

[Travis]

4 hours ago, FartSatchel said:

Is there a way to specify sorting layers in UI images?

 

My current setup is that all letter blocks are made out of the face, and the bottom edge that gives the blocks the raised effect that's parented to the face.

 

Canvas

      BlockFace

            LetterText

            BottomEdge

 

But I want my bottom edge to be sorted differently than the other items, and only Canvas has a sorting layer property. Is there a way to override this? I could move the bottom edge to a new Canvas but then would have to manually move them when each letter moves.

 

I don't think so. The only way to change layers within a canvas is by putting the stuff you want on top at the bottom of the hierarchy.

 

I messed around with shaders to check for z location on UI elements and it didn't seem to have an impact. 

[FartSatchel]

Playing around with a new background effect

[infamous space turtle]

This is looking so good. Never has spelling been so explosive. 

[brendonsmall]

The added "juice" of the explodey hovering rocket powered letters and screen shake make this really appealing!

[FartSatchel]

17 hours ago, infamous space turtle said:

This is looking so good. Never has spelling been so explosive. 

 

8 hours ago, brendonsmall said:

The added "juice" of the explodey hovering rocket powered letters and screen shake make this really appealing!

 

Thank you everyone! I spent way too much time ghosting the GDC vault to not eventually use those tips

 

However I was playtesting my game on the bus to work today and under those lighting conditions the background effect isn't at all visible. So I've upped the contrast but now the flip effect doesn't look so great.

 

Trying 3 new effects, please let me know which you guys like more.

[pdotjpg]

I vote #2. They're all cool though, I like the ASCII vibe.

[FartSatchel]

Added the first power up (it's late, I know). Vowel Wall! For when you can't make words from those pesky side columns.

[FartSatchel]

Changed the color scheme and UI again. Added a new pause effect.

[FartSatchel]

Added 3 new letter powers.

 

Red: X2 on the blastoff height of your word

Blue: Freeze the field for a while

Yellow: Spawns two vowel walls

[FartSatchel]

Also yes I'm totally copying puzzlejuice's UI

[FartSatchel]

Didn't realize the Jam closed at 7

 

Releasing it 2 hours late, but here it is! Available for Android and Windows.

 

https://fartsatchel.itch.io/wordtris

[pdotjpg]

Looks like your .rar file is missing the UnityPlayer.dll file and the Mono folder.

 

[FartSatchel]

1 hour ago, pdotjpg said:

Looks like your .rar file is missing the UnityPlayer.dll file and the Mono folder.

 

Sorry about that, it should be fixed now. Plus I included one tiny bug fix in the new version for both PC and Android.

[brendonsmall]

I downloaded the rar archive but when I tried to extract it, it said it was of an unknown format or damaged. Edit: Turns out it works with 7zip, but not with winrar.

 

This is pretty fun. I am generally not a fan of games with timers or word puzzles, so I am definitely not the target audience. But I got pretty far, I think? The combination of words in the sky and words in the letter stacks is a fun idea! The "drag line to make word" mechanism is satisfying. I imagine with some more juice it would be even more so.

[pdotjpg]

This is an excellent prototype! I love the mechanics and feel like this has potential to be a really good mobile game. Two gripes of mine would be that the pace is a bit too quick right now and that the distribution of letters needs to be considered (too few vowels, too many same letters next to each other). The second problem in particular is probably difficult to solve, but both of these contribute to rarely being able to string together 4+ letter words, which isn't very satisfying. Or I'm just bad at the game.

 

Then again, the frantic pace and difficulty leads to my rounds being around 2:30 long, an excellent length for this sort of game.

 

Presentation is already quite good as well, though I agree with Brendon that there's room for even more 'juice'.

 

Overall, great job! I might put this on my phone and take it with me.

[FartSatchel]

23 hours ago, brendonsmall said:

Turns out it works with 7zip, but not with winrar.

 

Yea that's apparently a thing and I'm not sure why. I zipped with with winrar and it works on my comp and I have no idea why that's happening.

 

23 hours ago, brendonsmall said:

But I got pretty far, I think?

 

Really wanted to make an online leader board but didn't have time to learn how. But hey if you feel you got far then that's all that matters

 

23 hours ago, brendonsmall said:

I imagine with some more juice it would be even more so.

 

Felt the same, but didn't know how to add more juice. Really wanted to add sound which would help in that department but didn't have time unfortunately

 

Thanks for the feedback!

[FartSatchel]

3 hours ago, pdotjpg said:

Two gripes of mine would be that the pace is a bit too quick right now and that the distribution of letters needs to be considered (too few vowels, too many same letters next to each other). The second problem in particular is probably difficult to solve, but both of these contribute to rarely being able to string together 4+ letter words, which isn't very satisfying. Or I'm just bad at the game.

 

100% agree. I was so focused on getting a menu and a tutorial into the game I didn't really have time to tweak the numbers around the flow of the game. Never tested with a wide enough demographic and speed was an apparent issue after I finished it and showed more people. Difficulty settings was a to do list item I didn't have time to get to

 

I spawned letters based on the frequency they appear in common English words (shorter words on average) instead of the English dictionary, thinking the latter might be too hard, which I think contributes to the short words problem (my longest word was POISON). So I balanced the game around combos which I'm not sure if that came across or just didn't feel as juicy as longer words. For the vowel problem, I think it's because words you make definitely have vowels in them, but if they fall back down they're re rolled again, which doesn't guarantee vowels, causing the number of vowels on screen to decrease over time.

 

I've already fudged blank block spawns. Another one of my to do list items I didn't get to was spawn vowels if no vowels are in a 3x3 area. Could also guarantee burnt letters spawn as many vowels as was in the original completed word that burnt them in the first place.

 

4 hours ago, pdotjpg said:

I agree with Brendon that there's room for even more 'juice'.

I felt so too but didn't know what else to add visually. Sending words over the top definitely needs more work. Didn't have time for sound, which also could help.

 

4 hours ago, pdotjpg said:

I might put this on my phone and take it with me.

That would be incredible thank you!

[Teljoor]

I finished a game with a score of 686. This game mechanic seems very intuitive  to me (though I have played meteos before). I'll echo the observation that I seemed to get stuck with a lot of consonants and was mostly only able to form short words. This was especially the case in the leftmost and rightmost columns. Also, the speed at which letters started coming in at the end (somewhere around 5 minutes, I think?) made it almost impossible to recognize and form new words before the columns shifted again, at least  when playing with a mouse.

This is a good proof of concept. I think the greatest thing holding it back is the distribution of letters, as mentioned before.

[Nappi]

The concept is really clever and seems to work well too. I also think that this could make a nice mobile game once polished a bit.

 

I too found it hard to make words that are longer than 3 or 4 letters, which is fine, but nailing those longer words just feels so satisfying. I don't know how to improve the situation, though, maybe some blank/joker letters or something.

[FartSatchel]

Thank you everyone for the feedback! Seems the general consensus is that forming words in the current letter distribution isn't satisfying enough and speed is too fast.

 

Maybe I'll polish this up, add in long term progression and release it. Maybe not.

 

This has been a fun jam though, thanks everyone for following this game!