Hi, I'm happy to announce I'm currently building a game called "Blockbox". The purpose of the game is that it's easy to start, config and have enough options for new and professional players. This all is achieved using a simple user interface and can be played on http://www.blockboxgame.com A screenshot can be seen here: Single player Classic play - A mixture of classic gameboy play with no DAS Marathon Expert 40 lines - Make 40 lines as fast as you can Multiplayer (play against 1 or 4 opponents) Rated Custom - See below for options Team Game (You play with your teammate on 1 big field of 20 cells width) Normal game-options: - Big piece preview on/off - Choose rotation scheme: ARS/SRS/BRS - Next piece animation on/off - Ability to simply select your controls , including a third rotation button Custom settings: - Play Marathon - Play Expert mode - Starting level - Speed level, - Fixed speed (for example 0G or 20G) - Choose garbage: BGS, Tennis, Random, TGM, Off - Players who will play a VS game can use only ARS, only SRS or are free to chose either ARS or SRS Community features: Leaderboard: - Directly updated - Everyones highscore contains a replay that can be watched - Different highscore entries for different game-options - Team highscores support - Also supports stuff like who's the fastest player in Ti sections like 100-200, 200-300 , etc - Ability to see what rotation scheme was used to get a specific highscore - Filter stuff like: shown only the sores of your friends Team support: - Create a team with another player and choose your teamname - Teams will be stored, including highsores, replays, statistics - Ability to be in multiple teams
Hi deniax, welcome to the forums! Regarding single player, I think most people here are reasonably content with what we already have: Texmaster, LockJaw and Heboris do a fantastic job. Regarding multiplayer, there's a distinct lack of good online multiplayer tetris games out there at the moment. If you concentrated your efforts on the multiplayer side of things, and made something that: a) works on most people's computers, and b) is actually half decent, you'll have the market cornered. Currently, for online play, there's Cultris, Quadra, and Blocktrix (based on TetriNET). Cultris has an over-emphasis on combos, and also a lot of people here have had difficulties getting it to run. Quadra has unconventional (cascade) gravity. Blocktrix does actually work for most people, and it's actually possible to play a fairly standard game of tetris; however, there are significant nagging flaws. Basically, if you can look at Blocktrix, and fix all the flaws, you'll have a very decent game. These flaws include: If you can rise to the challenge of making a decent multiplayer tetris, I'm sure everyone here will get very excited.
I think the garbage system for Blocktrix is perfectly fine. I also don't think the items are that bad if you want them turned on, aside from the one that lets you clear your entire screen. That one is stupid. The most important things are customisable DAS, ability to use ARS or SRS (preferably the option of both if t-spins are turned off)
By "most people's computers", do you mean that the developer has to buy a Mac in order to port the program to Mac OS X?
Hi all, thanks for the input The most difficult issue when making a multiplayer game are timing issues. If you have a very fast computer and you play against a slow computer, you will have differences in frames per second which could give you an advantage or disadvantage. I have not played Blocktrix yet, but I did play Tetrinet. My goal is to make the multiplayer part feel more like TGM in stead of the other "normal" multiplayer clones. Also it won't use any extra attack/defence items. The multiplayer part will use the levelprogression, timings, delays & score from TGM2+ Master. It would also be possible to make a custom multiplayer games where you choose al the options. Edo, what do you mean with an Unfair garbage system? How I have currently implemented it is that send garbage leaves one hole open.
How often does this hole change position between rows? In some games, it changes so seldom that the game is reduced to sending 4-line clears back and forth, giving new meaning to "tetromino tennis".
hi Deniax, You create this game for a company ("WebPool" or something) ? i watched the screenshot interface and multiuser communication features, do you use a kind of standardized API shared by several game on mutualised server or website ? (like a registration system where users can play different game with the same account ? or it is only for your game ? i'm very curious about this point. How work the Team Game ? does your teammate is in 2P local or network as well ? does the game mimic the TGM double mode or the 2 teammate playfield are strictly independant ? i mean i'm curious about the network asynchronism here But maybe i'm totally wrong cause watching closely to your "screenshots", may i deduce there is no working prototype ? still on the interface design (photoshop or something) ?
Blocktrix uses the 4 garbage lines for tetris, 2 for triple, 1 for double convention, with no back-to-back bonuses. There is a single hole per garbage line, randomly generated on a per line basis. Garbage is sent to all players, and there's no ability to target a single player. It's not particularly "unfair" per se, but it might be worth considering the option of each player receiving identical garbage. Also, rather annoyingly, garbage is received immediately, rather than waiting for the player to place their active tetromino. Having Tetris DS style garbage, where the holes very frequently line up, is quite ridiculous; as tepples said, it often results in sending 4 lines back and forth. But on the other hand, I personally think pure random hole alignment is a bit too far to the other extreme. Perhaps having a 30% chance of consecutive holes lining up (as opposed to 10% in pure random), would be a nice compromise.
I think each block of garbage should line up, but after every garbage send, the "hole position" should rotate 3 blocks. so consecutive tetrises woud NOT be lined up.
teppless The hole change position changes with every new row you get. It's like zaphod77 says, if first hole is in 1-st position then 2-nd - 4th, 3rd - 7 jago No, WebPool is a Pool/Snooker game we have made. We just used the template for Blockbox. We have created our own API which indeed is shared between many different games we created which you can reach with one registered username. You can see which games your friends are playing and in which room they currently are. Every room has it's own chat, there is a global chat where all rooms are connected to, private chat, etc etc , too many things to name without being offtopic It's currently a Dutch only website (for now), but you can check it out at: www.spelpunt.nl (all games are java based) All players are network connected. So you can not play with 2 players on 1 computer. Originally the plan was that player 1 and player 2 could put their Tetriminos everywhere on the field. The problem with that was lag. For example player 1 put a Tetrimino on a specific place. this was send to the server and the server then sends this to player 2. But, if player 2 at the exact time put a tetrimino in the same place, this could cause problems. Now, you can counter these problems, but it would be very difficult. Because of that, player 1 only has first 10 cells and player 2 has the last 10 cells. When you try to move your tetrimino further than you can, an invisible force field will not let you do it (with a nice graphical effect). This way we simply solved the problems of network play Another difference with TGM2+ Double mode is that you don't have separate level/score , you just have a combined level, score and time. I also want to make it so that you can give your team a name (which will be recognized each time your teammate joins your game), complete with own stats, highscores, etc Anyway, I hope to release a beta version of the game within 2 weeks for play!
That dashes the hopes of people who would otherwise use a home theater PC to play. I don't want to have to buy a separate PC and a separate monitor for each person (including children) who live in the house. Or is the problem that Java can't see gamepads?
Well, I could still put support for gamepads in the game, Java does support it. The only problem is, java based webgames aren't really HT friendly. To play a game with our playmodel, you need to go to a web page, click on the game you want to play and login. You could create a shortcut for the url and put it on your desktop, and you should logon using a username (can be cookied). If that's not a real problem, then we've got only 1 problem left. This other problem is, that because the game is web based, you can't switch to full screen mode easy. These options need some testing, which will be done next week, so I hope to have an answer for the 2 players on 1 computer incl gamepads in fullscreen question then
Doesn't matter what you think you were talking about, because you quoted edo, who was clearly talking about Blocktrix: Next time, read the post you're quoting.
I think that in 2 weeks a beta version will be ready. Thanks to input from guys like Lardarse, Edo and Muf, the following additions will be made and/or will be investigated: (Please note, all game modes are based on Ti and all separate game modes will have grading based on Ti) - Support for playing Doubles in Single player ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jw-Lv4F_FSY ) - USB Gamepad support - Every mode will have his own seperate highscore list (showing name, score, level and grade) - Special achievements for making certain "art" (Like some examples in the "Tetris art" thread) Still under investigation When you better your highscore, a replay of your game will be stored. This means that every player you see in the highscore list, you can watch their replay. Still to do before the beta is released: - Test Shirase timings (I can't play Shirase so I need to have help later on on this) - Fix hold piece implementation (Now if you hold a piece, the next piece in the row also disappears) - IRS doesn't work - When lock delay is active, you can't instant lock the tetrimino if you dont want for the lock delay to finish - SRS colors - Sound effects
