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Combo Gems
by mbvideogames
Combo Gems is a game about matching up gems in order to trigger powerful special effects. The goal is to get as many points as possible before you run out of moves or gems on the board.
Combine the right special effects to add more gems to the board, get additional moves or simply score a large amount of points. Create your own golden opportunities on the board and keep the game going to get the next high score.
Achievements activate permanent bonuses to special effects, starting conditions and points scored.
Improvements:
- implemented in-game quick reference
- complete overhaul of the achievement system
- rebalanced game to make achievement bonuses more important
- green and purple gem combos now take usefulness of gem types into account when determining random gem distribution
- improved sound effects and removed/replaced a few annoying sounds
- renamed auxiliary gems to combo gems
- tutorial menu now shows all tutorial messages
- achievement menu now lists all achievements with conditions and effects
- replaced achievement pop-up with a less intrusive trophy indicator
- new achievements are now indicated in the menu (trophy icon)
- moves indicator now changes color depending on its current value
- added back button on the left side of the screen
- added rank and name to high scores
- limited high scores to 10 entries
- allowed both landscape orientations (as determined by the sensor)
- new game now starts directly from the game over screen
- show score and messages for the first three ranks on the game over screen
- game over screen now asks for the player's name
- added particle effect to indicate combo gem contribution
- added scroll indicators
- updated credits
- fixed color banding on some android devices
- prevented dialogs from overlapping
- particle effects are now hidden when not in game
- all gems are now removed immediately when the board is cleared
- fixed overscroll flicker issue
Roasts
cnjeffer 4 years ago
Mechanics Tutorial/Learning CurveTutorial/Learning Curve - after about 10 minutes of playing I got a pretty good grasp on what the different colored gems do and how the synergise with one and another. The tutorial acted as a guide for me to piece together how it worked by myself, which is great for a certain group but most will not put this type of effort into a mobile game they've just installed. I had to keep going back into the setting and re-enabling the box prompt to remind myself what each color did what, it would have been a lot better if it just told me then and there what the colors did, instead of having to waste a game and reading it while playing.
When learning the game through the box prompts I shouldn't be able to interact witht the game while reading it, I natrually tapped the screen outside the box to trigger the next tutorial page and instead I selected a gem and wasted a turn. Having a hand crafted stage that goes through all the mechanics on everyones first game is an awesome way to counter this.
UI - At times I wished the blank space around the play area was utilsied more. Being able to open a prompt that tells me briefily what all the colors mean and different points gained from what shapes would be an awesome quality of life feature. As well as how many points I just gained form the combonation I made, making it a lot less tedious to optomise my stratergy.
Occasionally my fingers in the menu screens would press 2 buttons at once, maybe just spread them apart a bit more to prevent this.
Highscores - Having more than 10 scores saved seems kind of pointless, I only want to know what my best scores are.If possible even who, I would love to hand my mates this game and see if they can beat my highscores. Adding the classic 3 letter ID at the end of a game would be great! I can imagine some players get annoyed at having to input a 3 letter name at the end of every game so maybe adding a simple already used ID section will remove this annoyance.
Achievements - As a personal preference I like to know what it takes to comeplete an achievment. It allows me to set a goal that drives me to continue playing the game until I have completed said achievement. Currently all I have to go off of are some basic titles.
Bugs - Haven't ran into any as of yet.
Final Thoughts - Really like the mechanics and how they synergise together, the basic UI and animations are perfect. Sounds seem stock which is fine, somtimes a bit too loud or sharp for the lack of a better term. Highest score before writing this reached was 49, 524. Overall I enjoy this game a fair bit and plan to continue playing and seeing the updates. Good luck!
When learning the game through the box prompts I shouldn't be able to interact witht the game while reading it, I natrually tapped the screen outside the box to trigger the next tutorial page and instead I selected a gem and wasted a turn. Having a hand crafted stage that goes through all the mechanics on everyones first game is an awesome way to counter this.
UI - At times I wished the blank space around the play area was utilsied more. Being able to open a prompt that tells me briefily what all the colors mean and different points gained from what shapes would be an awesome quality of life feature. As well as how many points I just gained form the combonation I made, making it a lot less tedious to optomise my stratergy.
Occasionally my fingers in the menu screens would press 2 buttons at once, maybe just spread them apart a bit more to prevent this.
Highscores - Having more than 10 scores saved seems kind of pointless, I only want to know what my best scores are.If possible even who, I would love to hand my mates this game and see if they can beat my highscores. Adding the classic 3 letter ID at the end of a game would be great! I can imagine some players get annoyed at having to input a 3 letter name at the end of every game so maybe adding a simple already used ID section will remove this annoyance.
Achievements - As a personal preference I like to know what it takes to comeplete an achievment. It allows me to set a goal that drives me to continue playing the game until I have completed said achievement. Currently all I have to go off of are some basic titles.
Bugs - Haven't ran into any as of yet.
Final Thoughts - Really like the mechanics and how they synergise together, the basic UI and animations are perfect. Sounds seem stock which is fine, somtimes a bit too loud or sharp for the lack of a better term. Highest score before writing this reached was 49, 524. Overall I enjoy this game a fair bit and plan to continue playing and seeing the updates. Good luck!
mbvideogames 4 years ago
Thanks for taking the time to play and write this thorough feedback. I'm glad you're having a good time while playing the game!That's actually a great idea for utilizing the free space left and right of the game board. You're right that this kind of tutorial is not something the typical casual gamer will want to go through in order to learn such a simple game. It should do a better job of explaining itself.
I originally planned to do the classic three-letter name thing for the highscores (good old times ;-)) but then went against it, because I find it highly unlikely that the player will share their device with some other player, so most people will just enter the same letters all the time. But maybe this is just a small detail that reminds players of how things were done in the past, so I might add this just for this effect.
Regarding the achievements, I wanted to put an explanation of how to get to each level into the achievement menu. The description text is already there, so it's just some menu design. Should be easy to do. The more complicated thing will be motivational pop-ups (or something similar) that continually remind the player of how to get to the next achievement without having to look it up in the menu.
cnjeffer 4 years ago
That sounds awesome, can't wait to see what the game has to offer in the future
