Pentominoes - Alpha release

[jdarling]

My oldest son LOVES (can't stress that enough) Pentominoes and asked if there was a version for his computer, DS, or whatever. Looking around, I couldn't find something I was willing to buy (they all had hard coded puzzles) and there really wasn't a freeware version available with the features that he and we wanted.

Below is a VERY early release of what I've been putting together for him. This version is playable, has the starts of an editor, and in general not even close to done. There is a readme file that explains the controls and where the settings file is stored included in the zip file.

Placing up here for public brow bashing, and look for more updates as I have time to complete them.

Download From: http://www.eonclash.com/pentominoes/pentominoes.zip

PS: If anyone has a good (as in well written, fast executing, and easy to understand) implementation of Knuth's "Exact Cover" that they wouldn't mind sharing, I'm looking for some reference material.

- Jeremy

[farcodev]

just tested it seems cool, excepted the window flicker when i move the mouse over it. Apart that it's a good start :)

[GordonShumway]

You shouldn't be so modest it's a very cool layout and design. Excellent use of colors. I would say you are well on your way to a very complete game. Excellent work. A question though. Will you allow the puzzle maker to have multiple pentominoes of the same type? Then you could make little pixel artwork puzzles. (If there is some really obvious way of doing that already please forgive me for my ignorance and if you would, point me in the right direction.)


FYI. I didn't get any screen flickering.

Edit: Because I just can't spell tonight...

[jdarling]

There might be flicker on some systems as I'm only using a paintbox and a basic 2nd buffer with no V-Sync. Basically only native Lazarus controls to build it out at this point (easier to port to Mac and Linux).

My idea is, once I get everything else complete, that the editor will let you build with duplicates but currently you can only have one of each type. I also want to setup custom win screens eventually, and some way of doing online play. Nothing fancy mind you, basic "family/team" scoreboard so there is little incentive to cheat.

My other want to finish idea is a "store" where you can download (probably free) packs of puzzles and upload your puzzles to for others to download. But that has to wait till I at least get the basics of the game solid.

Over the weekend Julian found LOTS of bugs. An example is you can right click while placing and it will place the piece no matter what. So, obvious, next step is to fix those then finish my work on the editor.

I did get my Exact Cover code working over the weekend, so I can now solve any 60sq (IOW as long as you use all 12 pieces) puzzle with ease. Just need to make some changes so it can solve partial puzzles (5 of 12, 7 of 12, etc).

Thanks for the feedback thus far and I'll post another update when I get some progress done.

- Jeremy

PS: Any ideas on Win Screen(s), layout, looks, graphics, I'd love to hear.

[GordonShumway]

Leave it to kids :D LOL The mouse will get you every time. I was working on context sensitive mouse movements (read over glorified drag and drop) and I ran it. Worked perfectly... Or so I thought. When you let up on the mouse button the object would move back like it was supposed to but if you didn't move the mouse and clicked the button down again the object would teleport back to the mouse position :D

Win screen... Hmm something like that I would personally try to use what you've already got, namely the blocks. It would'nt be too hard to have the blocks from the puzzle spell out 'SOLVED' or 'YOU WIN' in block/pixelated letters and for extra fancy kudos you could have it animated. It makes it even easier since you're using a (I assume) TDrawGrid. But whatever you choose it should definitely be satisfying :D your players will be working hard to see that little animation/screen and you should make it cool enough for them to want to earn it. (Just my two cents.)

[jdarling]

No draw grid in the code, actually its using a custom control derived from TGraphicsControl for the rendering. It could be re-targeted easily to DX or OpenGL, but I wanted to keep it basic and quick to develop.

I've been putting more thought into the Win screen and have a few ideas. One I'm playing with is simple enough, capture the puzzle after the win, shift a palette of colors and bounce the puzzle around the screen with some type of Win notice in text moving as well. At least it would keep my son entertained :). Still, looking for any ideas, maybe a particle engine spewing blocks that bounce off the screen LOL

Gave him a new build last night to play with, once its passed "QA" I'll post it up for everyone else.

- Jeremy

[GordonShumway]

"...actually its using a custom control derived from TGraphicsControl for the rendering." You made my inner nerd smile ;D ( He likes custom controls. )

Actually that's not a bad idea for the win screen and would look very cool. I'm looking forward to the new build... Your 'QA' department would be the envy of any developer. I get the feeling many times, as my little avatar is stuck in the wall that 'QA' departments don't exist or they hate their jobs. Either way you're five steps ahead. Keep us posted please.

[jdarling]

After a couple days of Julian pounding on it and not finding any new ways to cheat and/or break the app I'm pleased to release the next version of my Pentominoes game.

Basically this version lets you change the colors of the board, puzzle, and pieces inside the game UI and fixes a few bugs (mentioned above). It also includes a better editor that actually lets you (gasp) load puzzle files. It still can't load puzzle files that don't use all 12 pieces, but it can load any puzzle that uses all 12 pieces. It also lets you load puzzles to play instead of selecting them at random :)

Download From: http://www.eonclash.com/pentominoes/pentominoes.zip

Next up:

better puzzle loading (let it load puzzles that don't use all 12 pieces)
better win screen
More puzzles
Better puzzle selection screen
High Scores board
Better random puzzle selection algo based on scoreboard
Campaign Mode (play all puzzles in a given group)
etc...


- Jeremy

[est000dog]

cool, and not too easy ;D

[djcityscapes]

I played "Pentominoes" and found it entertaining. I never heard of this before so I had a slight learning curve figuring out the objective. Now I know- fill in the game board with the available pieces. I'm at work so I fired it up thinking I would just look at it briefly for now, but its certainly addictive because it was hard to stop playing. One suggestion from the perspective of a newbee like myself is to explain the objective of the game at the top of the help screen. Also, maybe start the game with the directions (r,l,h,v) visible somewhere on the side.

[code_glitch]

really good game. works perfect. :)

[jdarling]

Yeah, there are still a lot more things to do on the Help and Tutorial parts, right now I'm focused on getting all of the bugs out and making things work properly. Once I get to that point then I'm going to look at better help and some type of tutorial/hint of the day type thing.

I also want to get hints into the game so you can get assistance on if a move was good or bad as well as what the next move should be (if you want of course).

If you really want to stress your brain, make a puzzle in the editor and then try playing it in the game. Unless you have a REALLY good memory, you will be surprised how hard it is to even solve your own stuff LOL

- Jeremy

[djcityscapes]

I didn't notice any of the bugs. It just worked for me.

[jdarling]

I posted a new zip file last night and forgot to post about the update here on PGD... Updates to this version include a better (I hope) win screen, ability of editor to load/solve any valid puzzle, a lot of bug fixes and optimizations, and a few new puzzles.

While it may not seem like much has changed a lot has, in fact, I've separated out the internal workings so well that I hope to have two versions of the actual game (if not more). One for OpenGL and one for GDI. My eventual plans are to try and cross compile for handheld devices too, but that's a bit off for now.

Next up is a bit of a UI overhaul and scoreboard stuff. I'm going to try and get all of the UI elements built in so that porting to other devices and rendering contexts becomes easier (again, I hope).

By the way, I'd highly recommend building a project like this. You wouldn't believe the amount of complex crap and optimizations I've had to learn just to get this game up and running without it seeming like a resource hog. Dancing Links, Exact Cover, Endo, Enup algo's, tree and trie optimization, memory mapping and page fault speedups, you name it this has been a learner. Can't wait to port it to limited hardware (I'm thinking Android and DSi for starts) to see if its all worth it.

- Jeremy

As always; Download From: http://www.eonclash.com/pentominoes/pentominoes.zip

[mikade]

Sounds pretty impressive. :)

How long do you think UI overhaul is going to take? Erm, that is to say, should I just wait for a new version, or try what you've posted now?

[jdarling]

Sounds pretty impressive. :)

How long do you think UI overhaul is going to take? Erm, that is to say, should I just wait for a new version, or try what you've posted now?


LOL, the answer on timelines from me will always be "Its done when its done". The UI overhaul won't be anything major and the gameplay won't change with it. So the version I've posted is as playable as any.

On the subject of Educational Games... It depends, I end up coding a lot of "quick hit games" for my kids but don't hardly ever release something to the public. An example would be a math based fill in the picture "game". The player was presented with a field of formulas and as they solved the formulas a picture was revealed, if you answered what the picture was successfully then you got a simple "yeah" screen and the next set of problems were thrown up.

I've also done a few memory type games. Some with math (1 + 1 = 2), some with pictures (two different dogs but still dogs), some with words (cat = <pic of cat>), nothing ever very polished, but good enough to keep my kids interested.

E-Dungeon is another thing my oldest and I work on from time to time (of course right now we are working on this one). Its basically a Rogue-Like game where you have to wander around learning things. Nothing fancy right now, but fun to play when its working LOL (can't compile right now as I broke some of the code when I reinstalled everything the other day).

- Jeremy