VOTING & Discussion : One-Month All-Mouse Left-Click Contest

The 2015 One-Month All-Mouse Left-Click OHRRPGCE Game Contest draws to a close! Thank you to our brave contestants!

Here are the four five entries in alphabetical order:

* Graffiti Goose - RedMaverickZero & Spoonweaver
* Hollowkeep - Foxley
* Lab Rat - BlurredVisionGames
* Paladin Traducer - Bob the Hamster
* Return - A Point And Click Adventure - kylekrack

Please play them, and post your thoughts here. Voting is done by listing the games in order from most favorite to least favorite. No points, no scores, no stars, just list them in the order that you prefer them.

I want to thank everybody who entered. This contest has already led to improvements in mouse-related plotscripting commands, and improvements to slice command documentation.

Voting will last until 7 days have gone by with no new votes being cast.

Happy clicking!

Ill start us off.

Paladin Traducer
Hollowkeep
Return
Lab Rat

PT - Im glad there wasn't a timer. It gave a more strategic gameplay which I enjoyed...After I figured out what to do. I've never played a match three game (? I don't know what to call it?) before so a introduction on how to move the pieces would have helped a noob like me. I almost asked here for help before I got it. And I still don't know how the charmer affects damage

H - Again I've never played a point and click adventure. I liked how I opened the door, that was clever. And I liked how I navigated here more than in Return. I'm looking forward to this game being a thing.

R - Better story as is than Hollowkeep (all the games actually). If I could make these two games a tie I would. Obtaining the flower made me feel like a Jedi. I'm looking forward to this one as well

LR - Seriously? This game has more bugs than one of those blue light things designed to collect bugs. And the only entry without music.

1. Paladin Traducer

Pretty cool. I spent about 2 hours completing this. The rules are really well thought-out. I like the style of graphics and the music. I agree re: the lack of a timer. I also agree that a littler more hand-holding would be nice (tutorial mode/tips on the first board/instructions on the main menu) - I played through the first two boards before having any idea what was going on (I ignored the screenshots and also didn't realize you could click on a unit and then click on the image to see a description of how it worked). I'm still not sure what the 'hit rate' is (average damage per move?) or what exactly increases the multiplier (number of matches?), but I did eventually figure out that the direction you swipe in is the direction all the tiles will 'fill' in (and thus is the direction the paladin will move if there are empty spaces). I guess it was kind of fun to figure all of that out, but it felt like more instruction was necessary.

Some sort of 'endless' mode would be a nice feature (or some other differences between the levels besides the HP of the paladin). For example, how many turns in a row can you successfully hit the paladin? Or how many turns can you last keeping the hit rate above some number that slowly rises?

@ BVG: The Succubus colours the paladin's tile, so that you can use him to help make matches (i.e. you can even move him). Her effect seems to be the weakest, but her range is pretty nice and she still prevents the multiplier from decreasing.

2. Graffiti Goose

Also very polished (which is why I've ranked it above the point-and-clicks). It has an effective theme/flavour (reminiscent of Dr. Mario/Yoshi/Yoshi's Cookie). It didn't feel as strategically interesting as PT, though. Even when I did encounter an interesting decision, the timer kept me from really evaluating my options - that's fine, but the game didn't end up engaging my brain in the way I would have liked. Also, there seemed to be a huge jump in difficulty at the level that defeated me (level 23/24 - there are a bunch of 1x1 gaps in the grid - I placed maybe three times before the time ran out since it seemed like there were only 1 or 2 options for where each shape could go without creating splatters). My final score was 2525. Another little thing that bothered me (although other people might not care at all) was that the mouse cursor froze between levels/when the police-dog appeared/during the tutorial. It feels weird that I'm expected to click when my cursor can't move. Perhaps it was unavoidable though.

I could absolutely see some people preferring this type of puzzle game to PT's type, but the difference for me, ultimately, was that the base rules for PT seemed to better facilitate an engaging game than the base rules for GG.

3. Return

I felt like there was a lot more to do in this point-and-click than in the other one, and it was developing a seemingly interesting story. I'm not actually sure if got to the end of the playable material or just got stuck, though. Can you do anything with the onion?

4. Hollowkeep

I think I preferred the general style/feel of this point-and-click (e.g. the direction-based navigation makes it easier to make sure the players don't miss any locations), but there was very little to do (unless I missed something). I was also a bit confused by the 'move' command, which I initially thought was just another way to move myself, not a way to manipulate objects on the screen. I would like to see both of the point-and-clicks developed further.

5. Labrat

Definitely some nifty stuff going on here, but it was buggy. I couldn't seem to pick up pieces after I placed them, and the game exited back to the title sequence too often. This isn't the sort of puzzle game that tends to appeal to me anyway, but I did appreciate seeing the OHRRPGCE being used for the genre.

Very interesting work, all around.

Thank you for mentioning that MOVE was confusing, I hadn't even thought of how it could be mistaken for directional movement. The idea was push/pull consolidated in the same command. I might just make it PUSH instead.

Edit:
Also, yes, there is very little to do, you probably didn't miss anything. I sadly only spent about a couple of hours right at the end of Sunday putting in interactable objects and a situation where you could interact with an NPC in different ways. I feel bad that I've given people who try the game next to nothing to do yet besides be like "oh, yep, that's a point and click adventure engine." I'll make it up to everyone later, though. I plan on having tons of interactions (and thus tons of ways to die instantly!)

Paladin Traducer - Clean. Deceptively complex but presentably simple. Great Android game to advertise the OHR with.

Graffiti Goose - Frustrating, especially once you get further in and the timer runs out fast. I'm too slow.

Lab Rat - Thought it looked easy enough, but soon found it hard to wrap my head around the eventual route of the rat. Rage quit a few times = good puzzle game.

Hollowkeep - Stylistic wonder. I believe you said something about this being your first game to post. Congrats, I think you started with something great. I love what's already here and I appreciate you referring to the goblin as plump and grumpy.

I don't feel like rating my own game. Feels either pretentious or self deprecating. Can't tell which. If that messes up the voting add it as last for me.

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My pronouns are they/them
Ps. I love my wife

My turn? (just now added Graffiti Goose, sorry for the delay)



1.) Return

I really like this game so far. The backgrounds are very early to mid-'90s DOS shareware in appearance, which I adore. At first I didn't understand what QWAS did but then I unlocked one of the abilities and was like "whoa, COOL." Reminds me a bit of gameplay mechanics from an old Infocom text adventure Quest for Excalibur. The plot given seems perfunctory, but interacting with and getting to know the different characters ups the story elements considerably. Would've liked to see a bit more player engagement with using inventory items... Just having an item and auto-using it where it needs to be used works, but having to intentionally select an item to use in a situation would be more engaging, I think.

This gets my first place spot by a slight margin. I'd like to see what happens next with the story and see what other player abilities will become available.

2.) Paladin Traducer

Really really close second; actually, I was going to put it in first due to pummeling the other 3 contenders handily in terms of scripting and slices, but overall I enjoyed Return more.

The premise is a clever twist on Match-3. The lack of timer and seeming lack of any game over conditions is... an unusual choice, but perhaps a good one. The main objective is to find ways to sustain your bonus damage multiplier so you can beat up the paladin quicker, while applying said bonus damage as often as possible. Which brings me to pacing... Increasing the bonus damage multiplier seemed to happen only through completely random blocks dropping in from offscreen and forming matches all on their own. Sometimes I'd get lucky and get like 8 chains of matches in a row and the multiplier would get crazy high and I'd be like AWWW YEAH. But then, sometimes I'd play for minutes at a time with a 1.0x multiplier making whatever single matches I could find. If you can't get the multiplier up, the game starts to feel somewhat boring since you're doing -1 to a paladin who eventually gets over 1000 HP. Mages and succubii seem gravely underpowered in terms of damage dealing too. I don't know if the paladin does anything besides be an exponentially meatier pile of meat to hack away at as levels increase, I only made it to level 4 before I took a break on it. But perhaps if the paladin did things to challenge the player somehow, instead of just becoming a bigger pile of hitpoints, it'd engage the player more.

Overall, it's a pretty fun and very, very casual game. The style is simple, kind of reminiscent of a more colorful Archon, but gets the job done. I quite liked it, and making a game with some novel mechanics and great polish in a month is a job very well done.


3.) Graffiti Goose

I got this for Android when it came out last year. I notice that a tutorial has been added, which is great. It's something I thought the game needed when it originally came out.

I like the character designs in this game (all two of them) and overall the graphics and animations are well done. The game mechanics are, to my knowledge, pretty original. That said, it also didn't catch my interest for more than a few minutes at a time, which for a casual puzzle game is quite alright I guess.

4.) Lab Rat

So this was apparently made in like half a week. It shows, but the fact that it's an actual functioning game with unique mechanics and not just a floating rectangle that says "HI MOM" is impressive (for the record, I would've done worse than that in 3-4 days)

So it's kind of like Lemmings meets Tetris... ish? Sorta? The game mechanics are neat, and interesting. However I found the first puzzle too obtuse to even get all the cheese pieces, and nothing seemed to happen when I passed the unlocked door. Which is fine, again, it was made in half a week, but I was disappointed that I didn't at least get a "YOU ARE WIN" textbox or a party favor sound. I think the mechanics seem alright but the puzzle designs are going to need a lot of work for this game to be pulled off in a way that plays to its strengths.

5 or N/A) Hollowkeep

Not going to review my own game, so consider it last place from my vote.

My votes:

* Return
* Hollowkeep
* LabRat
* Paladin Traducer

Choosing my favorite between Hollowkeep and Return was really hard, in spite of their unfinished states, they both show great promise, and I am really excited to see them finished.

Return

I think Return won out by just a tiny fraction because of simplicty of the interface appealed to me (probably just my personal preference) I liked the atmosphere and the visual style presented by both games.

I hope that a planned feature for Return is for people to react to you differently if you talk to them in a transformed state. After becoming a mouse I eagerly went to each person and was disappointed that they still talked to me like I was a human dude :)

Hollowkeep

I liked how item-using worked in Hollowkeep. Very classy. I agree about renaming "MOVE". Named as it is, I didn't even consider clicking on it, so until I read other's comments about it, I had not realized there was any way to open that one door. "PUSH" would be a much better label. I would also have liked if there was a generic failure message if I try to use a button that does nothing. For example after clicking "TALK" and then clicking on the Wizard, I was left wondering "Did I mis-click the TALK button? Did I click the wrong part of the wizard?" A message like "There is no one there to speak to" would have provided the feedback I needed.

Lab Rat

Lab Rat is cool, and I am impressed by how much content it has for such a short dev time. If it had fewer bugs, it could have taken the top of my list. The main bug that plagued me was that under certain circumstances, the mouse seemed to run over the unlocked door without entering it. If I can pin down the exact circumstances that trigger that bug, I will post them here later. I was also wondering if it might be easier to make fun puzzles with smaller blocks, perhaps of 2 or 3 tiles rather than always tetris-like sets of 4 tiles. The tetrominoes do add something nice to the visual aesthetic, but for puzzle gameplay, other pieces might be worth including.

Paladin Traducer

I put my own game in last place because it is my own game, and because I am a bit burned out on it. :) I am happy with it, and proud of it, but I have played it a bazillion times now in playtesting. I will take to heart the suggestion of adding some help/tutorial screens of some kind. I would also like to find ways to tilt the luck/skill balance a little more in the skill direction. Your score multiplier increases whenever you match more than 3 tiles in a single move AND score a hit on the paladin. Skillful planning can make these matches, but lucky series of matches seem to be more important. The score multiplier is halved when you complete a match without scoring any hits on the paladin. This can be a little harsh, because sometimes, bad luck means that it is not possible to score any hits at all given the current board layout. If I could think of a good simple way to mitigate these luck problems. without changing the overall feel of the game too much, I would definitely try it.

Android versions

I have already uploaded a copy of Paladin Traducer to the Google Play app store. I would be absolutely delighted to help all of you get your games ported to Android. I think all three of these games would be great matches for it. Please let me know what I can do to help you each finish your games. It would be sad if the contest versions are the last we see of these games.

Yes, the default failure messages are something I actually already implemented but I hadn't gotten around to making a template where all the "you can't do that" responses are filled in and can be replaced with unique messages tailored to that object/NPC/item/etc. Just something I didn't get around to doing, sadly.

I'm also bummed I didn't get around to making the wizard guy an interactable NPC by the end of the contest since he's the coolest looking character IMO so far, I had lots of fun drawing him and his little wizard laboratory.

I'd love to get a finished game within 3 months, the framework is already completely working (aside from a simple battle and stats/equip system) so it's a matter of drawing sprites, typing text, and designing rooms. I think that'll be phase 2. If I get around to it, phase 3 will be making animations and overall making the game look pretty and stylistically complete. That might take longer, but realistically I could release the game on Play and Gamejolt and stuff after phase 2, and do the aesthetic improvements later.

No need to find that bug, it's right here.
It's an ordering problem. The whole thing is controlled by a gameState switch in Main.
In RunGame I check for door collision before movement, and door collision is where the gameState changes and win conditions are run. But before it goes back to Main it runs the movement code one more time. That's also why there is that funky little bit at the 'else' here

because it's happening when we press Stop and the pieces are reset, the rat would move one space from its inital starting point. (watch closely when you push stop)
I new these things were here but I had to focus on more important issues with the game that were gamebreaking.

Iv'e chosen this to be worked on while i'm working on my big game, instead of shooter game. So give me a couple months to do this right and I'll talk with you about that android port.
Would any of the code need to be changed for that to happen? Like "commandHere" instead of "putmouseHere"? I'm assuming not.
And I like these little mini reviews. Even for the other games I'm learning a lot. Thx for participating everyone!

The changes to the game needed for the android port will be extremely minimal. You will have to go to "Edit General Game Data" -> "Platform Specific Options" and set "Disable Virtual Gamepad: YES"

In the script, the only thing that will have to change is that you will have to make special allowance for the fact that showing a visible mouse cursor is usually not appropriate for a touch screen.

I would do that with a small change in whatever script first creates your mouse cursor sprite:

That is definitely a plan, but something I didn't notice was missing until I'd already submitted it. My girlfriend came over while I was working on it so I had her play what was there and she tried to do the same thing, go around and see what people say when she's a mouse. I just thought "crap" because I know that's such an easy thing to implement. The "ismouse" global is automatic and the "instead" function I have for text boxes works just like the instead condition in the editor.

So that is definitely something you can expect to see in the next update, as well as the rest of the transformations I drew all these animal faces and I'm really excited to show them off but I can't because I haven't made the game that far yet.

Also, eaagvark, the onion's recipient will make an appearance next time ;)

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My pronouns are they/them
Ps. I love my wife

Did Graffiti Goose not qualify for the contest? I had worked up the PC version and posted in the thread for this contest.

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Check out Red Triangle Games!

Oops! Dang! I completely forgot! Yes, Graffiti Goose did indeed qualify! Everybody please play it and update your rankings appropriately

(if it is easier, you can amend your votes with new postings rather than editing your old ones-- I will only count the last set of votes from each voter)

I am very sorry about forgetting, RMZ!

I adjusted the rankings in my first post.

* Return
* Hollowkeep
* Graffiti Goose
* LabRat
* Paladin Traducer

After much deliberation, I updated my own votes thusly.

Graffiti Goose is a great puzzle game, and I have fun playing it on my phone. It manages to be unique, which is something pretty rare in the casual puzzle game genre.

I am also a big fan of the help/tutorial screen (which I totally need to emulate). I know the game mechanics might have been a bit opaque to people trying to learn with random clicking, so it is great that they are explained so clearly and with such vivid and interesting presentation.

I decided to keep Return and Hollowkeep at the top of my list, because I am really excited about what they will become *after* they are finished. Graffiti Goose is finished, and very nicely polished, but since it was started well before the contest deadline, I decided to let that affect my overall rankings.