I think your choice of license may be incompatible with the GitHub terms of service--there's an implied right to fork by using GitHub, but your license states no derivatives are allowed. IANAL, but something to look into: https://help.github.com/articles/open-source-licensing
As I mentioned in another comment, it's pretty slow under Firefox.
Lastly, the game is quite pretty, but I feel that since the gameplay involved is so precise, the imprecise visuals can be confusing. It's hard to tell exactly when a piece is going to set in place, when a group is eliminated, what would happen if you rotate and a piece is blocked by a stack already in place, etc. I went by pure geometry at first, but I definitely got bitten a few times where a piece moved after I thought it was in place, or a piece didn't get eliminated with the rest of a group since it hadn't fully landed in its column. The collision animations don't quite help there either.
You raise an interesting point about licence compatibility with Github's T&Cs, although it's no longer relevant to this project because the licence has been changed to the GPL v3. To quote the relevant part:
"By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories."
However, there's no further mention of the word "fork" in the T&Cs. Simply forking a repository does not imply that a derivative work has been created. A fork is simply a verbatim copy.
To create a derivative work, someone would need to both fork and then commit a change back to that fork. Of course, it's sort of implied through common (imprecise) use of the word that this is what it's intended to mean, but it's not actually what it says.
While I'm not a lawyer, I believe that a more precisely-worded licence in the repository would take precedence over the ambiguously worded T&Cs. However, Github could at any time clarify the T&Cs to more clearly state that forking does imply creation of derivatives. And as with most online services, if the terms do get changed, "Continued use of the Service after any such changes shall constitute your consent to such changes."
I tried in both FF and Chrome, no issues with performance noticed. Do you have a lot of plugins with FF?
I actually had an opposite problem, the game was incredibly generous with its imprecise collision. I could rotate twice and catch two rectangles falling at the same time on the same paddle and finish a group. I was overwhelmed by the number of sides I had to simultaneously defend and the number of different falling pieces. The animations, I don't think, made much difference in difficulty or ease. Mostly I wound up surprised that I had cleared a group, rather than the opposite problem you described.
Drawing inspiration from the original tetris, maybe the legibility could be improved by having some sort of grid-like background (maybe the height of cells could not be uniform but higher for the closer ones?), and cell-by-cell transitions rather than continuous.
It gets too fast - if it had a limit to how fast it got then it could go on forever but with it as it currently is there are limits to how high your score can get before it is too fast for you to be able to react and once you reach that score you aren't very motivated to keep playing.
Weird. I got to 80k in Firefox, and stopped because it was pretty slow and not getting faster--not really challenging at all.
I tried again in Chrome and its a lot faster, and does get faster throughout the game as well. More fun and challenging, but yeah--it does get too fast too quickly.
Don't focus on placing every tile perfect, just get them evenly placed across the hexagon. The game seems to slow down after a while as well. I got 17800 points after a few trials..
this. After a while it goes so fast I have no clue what I'm doing anymore and it's not that much fun anymore :P Maybe make the overal acceleration a bit slower?
Btw the speed seems to depend on the machine you play it on. On my wife's close to 10 year old laptop it's way slower than on mine. But the rotation is still fast enough, so scores are higher. She's at 20000 now and the speed is roughly similar to what I get at 1000 points. Old hardware FTW.
I played a couple times and maxed out around 700pts. Then played a game where I didn't touch a single key -- no rotation whatsoever -- and managed to score 3292pts.
I'm not sure what this indicates, but it feels off.
That's a valid criticism - I don't know how it could be fixed.
Maybe more colors could be added? Game balance has been really tricky with this game, as changes play out very differently on mobile devices and "real computers."
Hey, excellent game! I'm sure I'll waste a lot of time on this, haha.
One feature that might be cool to have would be to make the gray background hexagon one block larger if you get four or five blocks in a row. That way, you'll be able to keep your ahead above water a little better when things really start to speed up. It would add another level of strategy and planning to the game.
Kind of misleading to use the name "Hextris" for what looks like a very different game. The original Hextris is 2D falling blocks exactly like Tetris, except that the world consists of hexagons, and so the pieces have six rotations. I played this like crazy for a brief time in the mid 1990's.
I quite like the idea but it's a little too buggy at the moment :
- Wildly varying performance (and thus difficulty) depending on which system/GPU combo is being used
- Key input stops responding on slow machines sometimes.
Having constant interval timing in your game engine is an absolute must have.
I think a key to drop faster would be a nice addition.
The speed progression could be tweaked a bit. It's a bit boring until it gets faster, and it takes a while.
Fantastic idea. Beyond the feedback already given I wanted to commend you on the valid use of permissions on Android (just Wi-Fi). Very specific and reasonable for the game.
neat - this is a genuinely new twist on the colour-matching mechanic. sadly, i didn't find it as much fun as some of the others; i got no sense that i could build up a neat structure and then clear it in chunks (a la tetris), or set up and trigger cascades (a la columns). it was always just a matter of reacting to the current piece and putting it somewhere it would go away as soon as possible.
Hey guys, one of the developers here. We've heard many people talking about the differences in speed. Previously we had based speed on the framerate driven by request animframe. We realised this was a mistake so we've switched to time based now. It just got merged and should be updated in the apps pretty soon.
[+] [-] zwegner|11 years ago|reply
I think your choice of license may be incompatible with the GitHub terms of service--there's an implied right to fork by using GitHub, but your license states no derivatives are allowed. IANAL, but something to look into: https://help.github.com/articles/open-source-licensing
As I mentioned in another comment, it's pretty slow under Firefox.
Lastly, the game is quite pretty, but I feel that since the gameplay involved is so precise, the imprecise visuals can be confusing. It's hard to tell exactly when a piece is going to set in place, when a group is eliminated, what would happen if you rotate and a piece is blocked by a stack already in place, etc. I went by pure geometry at first, but I definitely got bitten a few times where a piece moved after I thought it was in place, or a piece didn't get eliminated with the rest of a group since it hadn't fully landed in its column. The collision animations don't quite help there either.
[+] [-] robert_tweed|11 years ago|reply
"By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories."
However, there's no further mention of the word "fork" in the T&Cs. Simply forking a repository does not imply that a derivative work has been created. A fork is simply a verbatim copy.
To create a derivative work, someone would need to both fork and then commit a change back to that fork. Of course, it's sort of implied through common (imprecise) use of the word that this is what it's intended to mean, but it's not actually what it says.
While I'm not a lawyer, I believe that a more precisely-worded licence in the repository would take precedence over the ambiguously worded T&Cs. However, Github could at any time clarify the T&Cs to more clearly state that forking does imply creation of derivatives. And as with most online services, if the terms do get changed, "Continued use of the Service after any such changes shall constitute your consent to such changes."
[+] [-] Mandelbug|11 years ago|reply
I actually had an opposite problem, the game was incredibly generous with its imprecise collision. I could rotate twice and catch two rectangles falling at the same time on the same paddle and finish a group. I was overwhelmed by the number of sides I had to simultaneously defend and the number of different falling pieces. The animations, I don't think, made much difference in difficulty or ease. Mostly I wound up surprised that I had cleared a group, rather than the opposite problem you described.
Funny we both had very opposite experiences.
[+] [-] chippy|11 years ago|reply
https://github.com/Hextris/hextris/blob/gh-pages/LICENSE.md
[+] [-] a3_nm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abritishguy|11 years ago|reply
I'm struggling to beat 5863
[+] [-] zwegner|11 years ago|reply
I tried again in Chrome and its a lot faster, and does get faster throughout the game as well. More fun and challenging, but yeah--it does get too fast too quickly.
[+] [-] WilliamSt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mnx|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelmior|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trappedfly|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stinos|11 years ago|reply
Btw the speed seems to depend on the machine you play it on. On my wife's close to 10 year old laptop it's way slower than on mine. But the rotation is still fast enough, so scores are higher. She's at 20000 now and the speed is roughly similar to what I get at 1000 points. Old hardware FTW.
[+] [-] minimaxir|11 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyo_Puyo_(series)#Gameplay
[+] [-] bluedino|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chasing|11 years ago|reply
One quick criticism:
I played a couple times and maxed out around 700pts. Then played a game where I didn't touch a single key -- no rotation whatsoever -- and managed to score 3292pts.
I'm not sure what this indicates, but it feels off.
[+] [-] loganengstrom|11 years ago|reply
Maybe more colors could be added? Game balance has been really tricky with this game, as changes play out very differently on mobile devices and "real computers."
[+] [-] Cyranix|11 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welltris
[+] [-] lotharbot|11 years ago|reply
3d version: http://theodor.lauppert.ws/games/frac.htm
4d version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzyws5ZkSYg
[+] [-] johnhenry|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kome|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryangittins|11 years ago|reply
One feature that might be cool to have would be to make the gray background hexagon one block larger if you get four or five blocks in a row. That way, you'll be able to keep your ahead above water a little better when things really start to speed up. It would add another level of strategy and planning to the game.
Keep up the great work!
[+] [-] rythie|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jspr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kazinator|11 years ago|reply
http://www.hextris.com/
Kind of misleading to use the name "Hextris" for what looks like a very different game. The original Hextris is 2D falling blocks exactly like Tetris, except that the world consists of hexagons, and so the pieces have six rotations. I played this like crazy for a brief time in the mid 1990's.
[+] [-] prawn|11 years ago|reply
Remembered it recently and based my own game on hexagons!
[+] [-] snarfy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loganengstrom|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] suchabag|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoov|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] remon|11 years ago|reply
Having constant interval timing in your game engine is an absolute must have.
[+] [-] moultano|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loganengstrom|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rampoina|11 years ago|reply
A few comments:
I think a key to drop faster would be a nice addition. The speed progression could be tweaked a bit. It's a bit boring until it gets faster, and it takes a while.
[+] [-] nacs|11 years ago|reply
I believe that game was made for a Ludum Dare originally.
[+] [-] codystebbins|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adnam|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zem|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jnishiyama|11 years ago|reply
Can't stop playing regardless.
[+] [-] garrettdreyfus|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahultgren|11 years ago|reply