Rescue The Colors Competition Community Poll

[Lachie Dazdarian]

I can read source codes. And recompile them.

[landeel]

Hacking my code, huh? 

Just do Right, Right, Left, Right, Down, Up in the title screen.

[gothon]

Color Eater 3D:
Died again. Damn! I must be doing something wrong. Do I need to change the travel direction in level 4 (clockwise opposite to counterclockwise-wise)?

You need to turn around exactly once (unless you die) so that you can go up the platforms (or spiral stairs if you like).  Once you go up the stairs, you can get the red orbs from the top floor.  There is not enough space on the top level to turn around.  Once you have the red orbs, you can use the platforms to access the middle level.  There is (barely enough) space to turn around on the middle level but it is unneeded and safer if you don't.

I guess that turn takes some skill to pull off, but if you position yourself high and time it to avoid the sand walls there is more than enough space on the bottom level to turn around while jumping.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Color Eater 3D:

I dropped from the top level and got killed hitting the middle level in two tries. In the second try, I had more lives left, but I couldn't climb from the bottom level back to the top or middle, or to be more precise, when I tried to turn by jumping, I crashed in the middle level with my "head" (lost two lives like that).

Will try few more times...

YAGAC:

Finally finished level 1. And yeah, thanks for saving the amount of lives. Ack! Anyway, I'm starting to appreciate the direct nature of the gameplay more and more, thought I think the game's combination of unforgiving difficulty (or very demanding challenge value, if you like) and monotony don't compliment each other.

[FotonCat]

Voted for Y.A.G.A.C., because I think it has more various gameplay, nice idea about using 2d-sprites in 3d-world.
For me Color Eater 3D and Invasion of the Mononites are both on second place. Good games, extraordinary gameplay, exotic ideas.
In any case authors of all four games have very high skills in FreeBasic programming.
Thank you all for increasing a list of good FreeBasic games

[dafhi]

This is my review of the four entries for Lachie's "Rescue the Colors" FB games competition.  Here is a snippet I made to calculate scores, based on my opinion of certain aspects which I think are important to a competition like this.  To me It's about community, competition spirit and budding talent.

Code: Select All | Copy To Clipboard

Dim Shared As Integer originality=5,interface=9,atmosphere=5,gfx=2,replay=2,craftsmanship=6
dim Shared As Single s

Sub Sum(a As Integer,b As integer,c As Integer,d As Integer,e As Integer,f As integer)
s = _
(a/10)*originality+ _
(b/10)*interface+ _
(c/10)*atmosphere+ _
(d/10)*gfx+ _
(e/10)*replay+ _
(f/10)*craftsmanship
? "score:"; s
End Sub
Sub xtr(mus As Single=0,closing_credits As Single=0,contest_theme As Single=0)
s += 1 * mus/10
s += 0.2 * closing_credits/10
s += 2 * contest_theme/10
? "bonus:"; s
End Sub

Sum 8,8,8,8,8,8
xtr 7

Sleep

My appreciation goes out to Lachie, and to the contestants.

Here is what I have to say for the four challengers:

Code: Select All | Copy To Clipboard

Author: ssjx
Invasion of the Mononites

originality    6
interface      6  speed too sensitive at times
atmosphere     8  oldschool vibes, much to like
gfx            7  fresh
replay         5  beat high score .. "meh"
craftsmanship  7  a few surprises

music               8
closing credits     8
competition theme  10

overall score: 21.9

Comments:  Slid a block onto a spider, couldn't shoot it, had to push block past and get injured.
Also shot a bug which left a green dot embedded in a tile.
I like the polished feel to the game otherwise.  Music is surprisingly good, and end scene fun.
Theme felt natural to contest and stood on its own merit.
Controls could use some polish,but a slick engine otherwise.

Code: Select All | Copy To Clipboard

Author: gothon
Color Eater 3D

originality    5  "meh"
interface      4  steering feels too constrained
atmosphere     4  not my cup of tea
gfx            6  b&w looks nice
replay         3
craftsmanship  3  rushed concept

music          7  pretty good

overall score: 12.4

Comments:  Interface -> gfx -> After testing choices, unclear: "Do I toggle to get that setting?"
Gameplay I lost interest quickly.  As a reviewer I offer my opinion.  As a developer you can say
"hey up yours - I don't see you making games" - and you'd be right.

Code: Select All | Copy To Clipboard

Author: Landeel
Y.A.G.A.C.

originality    6
interface      6  checkpoint system detracts from otherwise snappy experience
atmosphere     7  has potential
gfx            9  very, very cool
replay         5  has potential
craftsmanship  7  quickly found a zone of no progression

music          7  snappy

overall score: 19.6

Comments:  intuitive gameplay, except for falling from ladder top.  camera dizzying at times

Code: Select All | Copy To Clipboard

Author: FXG861
RACESII

originality    7  nice elements (sound fx)
interface      6  compelling except for time spent trying to get back on road
atmosphere     7  time spent on the road is time well spent
gfx            7  Reminescent of .. what's that game
replay         7  I'd try this more except for comment re: interface
craftsmanship  7  again, interface

music          7  nice touch on the sound fx

overall score: 20.1

Comments:  Quite solid game potential which fails to embrace the spirit of the competition

[landeel]

quickly found a zone of no progression

Show me where so I can fix.

[dafhi]

area with the blue cube.  realized just now you can run into the baddie.

I also suggest: create a timer for messages like Level Start

[SMC]

YAGAC doesn't work on my old computer.  I get one of those send and error report to MS message boxes.

[StefanPN]

I want to take back that Y.A.G.A.C. is not to hard... It is... In 3rd and 4th level it is impossible to pass. I had to change lives to 999999 and recompile again. I found out that game is much faster and has better game play with out lives "limitation". Actually I believe that this game does not even need concept of lives, maybe it would be better to play "on time". Had to set usekeyboard=0 in order to use game-pad. And game does not work on Windows XP machine - just shows Microsoft Error Report Dialog.

Color Eater 3D runs somehow slow on my laptop but on older Windows XP machine runs excellent.

[landeel]

YAGAC doesn't work on my old computer.  I get one of those send and error report to MS message boxes.

It needs a  graphics accelerator and drivers that support OpenGL 2.0 or higher.
From my experience, it works very well with NVIDIA or AMD, not so well with Intel.

I also suggest: create a timer for messages like Level Start

I don't quite understand what you're suggesting.
The message will be frozen for a couple of seconds because the level is loading, then you can just press any button to start.

I want to take back that Y.A.G.A.C. is not to hard... It is...

Yes, it's meant to be very challenging, but still beatable.
My tip is collect as many sushis and extra lives as you can.
Has anybody here ever finished "Kid Chameleon"?  

[SMC]

I have an Nvidia card that supports OpenGL 2.0. 

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Try turning off full screen and pick a fixed resolution by altering yagac.conf

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Gonna announce the winners in an hour or so. I need to compile the thread. The text is ready.

[gothon]

Color Eater 3D runs somehow slow on my laptop but on older Windows XP machine runs excellent.

That is interesting, I did test it on an older XP machine, and I tried to create rendering modes to make it run better on that machine.  The color transformation it uses is a bit unusual, it might run better with a software color transformation, even if your OpenGL supports the hardware based method.  I actually found the default hardware coloring slower than software when running it through Virtual Box.