Any PC gamers around?

[Drago]

Nope, never held the slightest bit of appeal. I'm probably the only person in the Western hemisphere under the age of 75 who hasn't done so.

 

[ColinJ]

Nope, never held the slightest bit of appeal. I'm probably the only person in the Western hemisphere under the age of 75 who hasn't done so.

You are NOT... During a break in one of our rides I whipped my phone out and tried showing @Littgull how the puzzle game that I am developing works. His eyes glazed over! Further investigation revealed that not only does he not play mobile games, he doesn't play any other type of computer games OR non-computer games! Nowt, zilch, nothing... He isn't keen on TV either. I think he just reads a lot!

 

[Edwardoka]

Nope, never held the slightest bit of appeal. I'm probably the only person in the Western hemisphere under the age of 75 who hasn't done so.

Ok troops, what game shall we get Drago to play then?

We don't want to remind him of his time in 'nam so I think big bombastic first person spectacle shooters are probably out

Arma3 would be a good candidate - although being shot from 500m away by someone he never even saw might jar with the whole Arnie/Jesse Ventura/Sly Stallone thing he's got going

Hearts of Iron IV will give him an opportunity to smash the commies*

* run out of infantry equipment and get steamrolled by the first division he encounters

 

[Edwardoka]

You are NOT... During a break in one of our rides I whipped my phone out and tried showing @Littgull how the puzzle game that I am developing works. His eyes glazed over! Further investigation revealed that not only does he not play mobile games, he doesn't play any other type of computer games OR non-computer games! Nowt, zilch, nothing... He isn't keen on TV either. I think he just reads a lot!

I must profess curiosity about these puzzle games you're developing. Got anything you can share with us?

 

[Grant Fondo]

Yeah, here it is inside my FT03 case. Been playing some Control, it's rather good

View attachment 557101
My old Vega 56 used to rub up against the case fan where my finger is in the photo. It was rather irritating, I usually had to remove both of them at the same time to get the GPU out. Now there's loads of space. Note I did plug in the power connectors after taking this photo

Also, UserBenchmark was rather complimentary about my system Now I'm tempted to get another 16B of RAM...but then it's not like I need it so perhaps I should chill my boots!

View attachment 557100

Finally up and running... this card is ludicrous, everything feels really smooth at 4K now....worth the wait

 

[ColinJ]

I must profess curiosity about these puzzle games you're developing. Got anything you can share with us?

I don't want to give too much away at the moment, but let's just say that the first game is 'a bit different'. It isn't just another Candy Crush Saga clone!

There is a playing grid on which pieces can be moved around. Fixed detectors in other grid cells respond to those movements... The object of the game is to produce a certain response in all of the detectors. The player tries out what looks like a useful move and then observes the result. Blind guesswork is punished by running out of moves. Overcautious hesitation and overthinking is punished by running out of time.

The more complex levels (literally!) have billions of billions of billions of... possible variations so there is no way to get the answer by trying all of the possibilities at random. Even the very simplest levels have thousands of possible moves so it would be stupid (and tedious) to try to use brute force to solve them. The game rewards intelligent guesswork, and the player slowly iterates towards the solution, never quite sure if (s)he is on the right track until nearer the end. Some players would find that very annoying, but I actually enjoy the ebb and flow of the game. It is often 2 steps forward, 1 step back, but gradually the feeling develops that one is on the right track. And, eventually ... TADA - YOU WIN!

The graphics and sound effects are clean and simple, but the actual game itself is deceptively difficult. I can make it arbitrarily easy OR hard, but after a lot of experimenting I have found that there is a degree of difficulty which suits me.

Every puzzle is guaranteed to have an exact solution and I am 99.99xxx% confident that there would not be any other solutions. It doesn't matter if there were other solutions, but I like the idea of there being just one. I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I would offer a £5 note to anyone foolish enough to spend years trying to find a second solution!

I like levels which take me 30-60 minutes to crack. Some people wouldn't have the patience for that so they might opt for easier ones that take (say) 5-10 minutes.

I will also set the occasional mega-hard puzzle that might take days to solve, and challenge people to be the first to crack it. If nobody ever got the solution to a puzzle it was clearly TOO hard. If it got solved in a few hours it was too easy. I'll tweak the difficulty accordingly for later challenges.

I am going to include a challenge mode. A group of players could arrange to play the same (relatively easy) set of levels against the clock with points for first, second, third... to finish. If nobody finished, then the points would be allocated according to how close each player got to the solution. (There is a display showing that.)

I'm thinking of starting a thread on CycleChat - e.g. ColinJ's Puzzle Challenge. Anybody interested could beaver away and try to get the answer first. I asked Shaun years ago if I could do it, and his reply was.. "Go for it!". Unfortunately, I got distracted and never actually got the game finished that I was working on at the time.

The first game will initially be for Android devices only. Sorry - I don't have any experience with Apple, or own any Apple kit. If there were sufficient interest in my games to make it worth my while, I would buy a used Macbook and iPhone and create an iOS version. I could probably do that quite quickly.

I have the game running on my phone which has a 5.25" diagonal HD screen and it is pretty clear on that. The game resizes itself for different resolutions/sizes so it should work on many devices, but the complex levels would be a bit cramped on screens smaller than about 4.5".

At some point I will be looking for some volunteers to help me test the game. I would be putting on the Google Play store and could then give private access to it before the official release.

I'll doublecheck with @Shaun again when the test version is available, and if he gives the go-ahead I'll start a thread calling for test volunteers.

 

[Littgull]

You are NOT... During a break in one of our rides I whipped my phone out and tried showing @Littgull how the puzzle game that I am developing works. His eyes glazed over! Further investigation revealed that not only does he not play mobile games, he doesn't play any other type of computer games OR non-computer games! Nowt, zilch, nothing... He isn't keen on TV either. I think he just reads a lot!

Ha ha, yes it looks like we are in a club of two @Drago. I've never had the remotest interest in computer games or board games come to that! My 2 sons, who are in their late thirties and live away now, are very tech savvy. I always did loads of outdoor activities with them plus hours of fun and discussion (still do when COVID allows) but I never participated in computer games with them, which from memory were things like Super Marios and Pacman when they were very young.

My IT competency is just sufficient to write, read and send emails, write reports and do spreadsheets etc though I've been retired for over 3 years now. The other thing is, I have an absolute phobia of instruction manuals relating to techy gadgets.

 

[Pale Rider]

write reports and do spreadsheets

Spreadsheets?

In my terms that makes you a computer nerd.

Words and spaces is about as much as I can manage.

 

[DCBassman]

I build the damn things. Still have no idea about spreadsheets...

 

[fossyant]

Finally up and running... this card is ludicrous, everything feels really smooth at 4K now....worth the wait
View attachment 557676

Your fans are a bit boring ! 👅

20200625_164650[1]

Click link for video. It's not that noisy in real life.

 

[Grant Fondo]

Your fans are a bit boring ! 👅
View attachment 557749 20200625_164650[1] by Anthony Fosbrook, on Flickr

Very bling!

 

[ColinJ]

I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I would offer a £5 note to anyone foolish enough to spend years trying to find a second solution!

Correction: I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I would offer a £5 note to anyone foolish enough to spend years trying to find a second solution AND BEING THE FIRST TO ACTUALLY FIND ONE!

 

[fossyant]

Very bling!

It's my daughters that one !

I've just had to add my son's rig to the insurance as he's upgraded it - £3,300

 

[Edwardoka]

Correction: I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I would offer a £5 note to anyone foolish enough to spend years trying to find a second solution AND BEING THE FIRST TO ACTUALLY FIND ONE!

I was going to say that your stuff about "detectors" put me in mind of one of the Zachtronics games, but the "there is one correct solution" is antithetical to their designs (in their games there are as many solutions as there are people who solve them)

(I spoilered the maker because I don't recommend risking polluting your game idea by researching what other games in the genre are doing. I've lost count of the number of projects I've started and abandoned because someone else had similar ideas. Yes, Gladiator Manager, I'm talking about you.)

Edit: for goodness sake, someone is literally releasing a game next year with THAT VERY NAME
GET YOUR OWN DAMN IDEAS

 

[ColinJ]

I was going to say that your stuff about "detectors" put me in mind of one of the Zachtronics games...

I was going to ask you how you did the 'fuzzy spoiler' but having quoted you... I now know how!

....but the "there is one correct solution" is antithetical to their designs (in their games there are as many solutions as there are people who solve them)

I could relax the design of my game if I didn't enforce the 'one solution' rule. To achieve it I restrict my grids to multiples of 2x2 cells.

It would only take me a day or two to add the option for unrestricted grid sizes and potential multiple solutions. I'll finish it the way it is, and then try an unrestricted version at a later date to see if I enjoy it more or less than this one.

(I spoilered the maker because I don't recommend risking polluting your game idea by researching what other games in the genre are doing. I've lost count of the number of projects I've started and abandoned because someone else had similar ideas. Yes, Gladiator Manager, I'm talking about you.)

Edit: for goodness sake, someone is literally releasing a game next year with THAT VERY NAME
GET YOUR OWN DAMN IDEAS

I've had a couple of ideas in the past, started work on them, but then found that something very similar had already been done.

I find that most of the names I think of have already been grabbed. I search for a product of that name, a business of the same name, a dotcom of that name, and the hashtags being in use.

Somebody is trying to sell ColinJ.com for $2,795...

There used to be a site at ColinJ.co.uk and believe it or not... it had puzzle games on it, and that ColinJ was not ME!