Marblesared (Marbles Are Red)
Hey Players,
Here is the Bastille Day edition 14/07/2017 beta build of
"Marblesared" (Marbles Are Red) for PC and Android.
Viva la Revolution!
Actually, no, viva la peace & quiet please, stop rioting &
destroying local shops, or better yet, hold your G20 summits in
backwater country retreats instead of major metropolitan
centres. It's almost like the organisers WANT to stage a
bloody protest event....
Sorry, way off topic.
This edition was previously known as the "7/11 edition" because I am
underpaid with poor working conditions, but I found more bugs just
before releasing it...
This version brings us to the next qualitative step in readiness for
proper release
- Level+item Shaders,Texturing, & Level colour control in the
Video Settings panel.
(Dynamic lit Shadows next on list).
So pretty!
I held off on those features for so long because I needed to ensure
it would work on low spec devices first.
All those features seem to play just fine on my Samsung Tab Pro 9.7
android,
and of course work fine on PC Windows.
On random builds there still seem to be persistent intermittent
issues with hanging on the animated splash screen, which I have
narrowed down to deserialisation of the savegame data file, but I
cannot reproduce it in debug mode, and often running another build
of the same code makes the issue go away. Deleting the
savegame application cache in Android sometimes causes the failure,
sometimes it fixes it. Exceedingly vexing.
[edit for 14 July ed.]FOUND AND FIXED!
Also, completely overhauled & fixed the shaders framework which
initially did not work at all on older Android devices (e.g. Samsung
GS3). And with only 3 days to do it! (Just like Time
Team, but no grave goods were discovered ... only post
holes.)
Anyway, here is the usual blurb below:
What is "Marblesared" ?
It is a new take on the old hand-held "marble-in-a maze" type games
commonly available many decades before electronic hand held games
existed,
where you had to get a marble from one corner of the maze to the
other, or variations on the theme.
Marblesared is designed to make the most of Android device built-in
accelerometers,
enabling you to play simply by tilting your Android mobile device as
if it were a physical container holding a marble.
It can also be played on PC with keyboard (or gamepad) controlling
the marble.
How to play ?
- Roll your red marble to the red goal, through mazes, obstacles
& bonuses.
- Help a little yellow bean get to the yellow goal.
The yellow bean can auto-navigate, and even has a jetpack for
speeding to the yellow goal after your red marble unlocks it.
HOWEVER
Only your marble can help the bean reach that yellow goal.
How? By lowering obstacles, by NOT tripping bad items, by NOT
directly running over the bean and Smooshing it,
and ideally, by doing it in as little time as possible if you are
competitive and want to brag a bit :-)
The target audience is early teens and older, due to the bean
character being "smooshed",
and humour content (very bad puns),
There is no elite skill barrier - anyone capable of using a PC or
Android tablet can play - albeit some better than others :-)
Current Features:
- Animated intro/splash screen with sound effects.
- Help/Instructions (Please read first as introduction on How to
Play).
- Tutoriballs (Animated Tutorials) - disabled by default, appearing
as a zoomable PIP inset image when enabled.
synced to 1st appearance of each new bad/bonus
item so players learn how to use them
- 33 hand-designed levels for each of 3 skills for Play testing:
- "BabyBall" skill (No Bonuses
or Bad Items),
- "Normball" skill (Bonus
Items - e.g. Actuator/Triggers with Drop-down walls)
- "Hardball" skill (Bonus/Bad
Items - e.g. lava pit, spiky balls, bomb, smartmine)
- "Maballs!" skill (Bonus/Bad
Items AND electrified goal for yellow bean requiring player goal
entry to disable)
- Bonus items (Green), include: Actuator Pad, Wall, Bean Shield,
Extra Time, Bean Powerup, PortalEntry, PortalExit,
- Bad items (Red), include: Actuator Pad, Wall, Compactor, Slicer,
Spike Plate, Lava Pit, Weight , Bomb, SmartMine
- Bad/Bonus actuators exist primarily to activate the other
bad/bonus items.
- Reset Actuator (Purple) clear Bad Items in Hardball, MaBalls!
skill
- Player setup/name/skill/Score reset for New games (New Player
games start by default at Level 1 on BabyBall skill)
- Continued games option to start at any level up to highest played
for current player
- Score/countdown per level & local saved high score table for
each player & top 10 player scores
- Auto Next Level countdown on each level completion.
- Game settings including Debug on/off, Sound on/off, Controller
input selection for both PC & Android using inbuilt
default/keyboard/accelerometer/gamepad
- SoundFX setting enable/disable
- Additional "Settings" for improved graphics quality (shaders,
shadows, reflections, transparency),
Next on Todo list:
- Beta build on sale as "Early Release"
- Adding more levels manually
- Marketing/Promotion
- option to upload player total scores to internet with top 1000
player scores worldwide
- Algorithm for auto-generation of levels,
- Make it a bit more "pretty", add in music, etc...
The [expanded] app size is currently about 40Mb for Android, 30Mb
for PC version,
Download size is 23Mb for the Android .APK, 11Mb for the PC version
executable installer ).
Link to my "PCAndVR" Google Drive shared directory for Windows PC
download :
MortePCAndVR
Google Drive shared directory "Marblesared"
The shared directory contains self-extracting Setup executable for
PC, Release Notes,
and an Install-README text file with more detail on PC & Android
version install/uninstall.
The PC version is a generic Windows 32bit .exe so it works on WinXP
through to Windows 10 (AMD/Intel x86/x64 only)
No Windows 10 "Universal" build for ARM/Atom yet - coming soon as I
get Win10+Universal SDK.
Once the game goes into early release for sale,
The link for PC will only be available to patrons & registered
beta testers (see patreon link below).
Android users who install now will get a free ride on beta updates
until the game is converted into Google Play Store release mode :D
If your Android alpha version is not auto-updating past the old
v20170511 or v20170512 version to the new Beta build,
try uninstalling, then reinstalling from the Google Play Store link.
If you are getting game hangs, clear the Marblesared application
data/cache in Android application manager
If that doesn't work, drop me a line on one of my new social media
channels.
Play Hard & Roll Ball!
-Morte
