[GAME] Kiri's Garden

[Tim Knauf]

Hi folks! I'm very pleased to present my second PuzzleScript game, Kiri's Garden. It was a therapeutic holiday project over Christmas and New Year, and features 21 lovingly-designed levels. Enjoy!

[Alan Hazelden]

There's a lot of cute touches here!

On 14 January 2018 at 11:39, Tim Knauf <timk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi folks! I'm very pleased to present my second PuzzleScript game, Kiri's Garden. It was a therapeutic holiday project over Christmas and New Year, and features 21 lovingly-designed levels. Enjoy!

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[Stephen Lavelle]

Tim - 

Woah, I really like how it moves, but I have to say I'm really not taking by the color palette, which is for me a bit garish. 

I am still trying to figure out how the mechanics work, but I think I like that part about it. (got to the level with the horizontal mushroom groups).

Best,

S

[Tim Knauf]

Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated.

Ha, yeah, I struggle with palette design. I appreciate the many built-in defaults in PuzzleScript for that reason, though I wanted to try something different due to the theme. My more-artistically-inclined wife helped me fix the most glaring problems (pun intended!), but the garishness is all on me. :-)

It's the first time I've tried to teach puzzle mechanics through level design alone, and it proved challenging! When I made puzzle games in the (distant) past I always leaned on a big ol' pile of dialogue and tutorialising. Trying to do without that has been an educational experience. (Any outright obscurity is not intentional, mind.)

Cheers for this wonderful toolkit, Steven, and great to see the friendly community around it. I can't believe it'd completely passed me by until a couple of months ago.

On Sun, 14 Jan 2018 22:36 Stephen Lavelle <anal...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tim - 

Woah, I really like how it moves, but I have to say I'm really not taking by the color palette, which is for me a bit garish. 

I am still trying to figure out how the mechanics work, but I think I like that part about it. (got to the level with the horizontal mushroom groups).

Best,

S

2018-01-14 7:46 GMT+01:00 Alan Hazelden <al...@draknek.org>:

There's a lot of cute touches here!

On 14 January 2018 at 11:39, Tim Knauf <timk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi folks! I'm very pleased to present my second PuzzleScript game, Kiri's Garden. It was a therapeutic holiday project over Christmas and New Year, and features 21 lovingly-designed levels. Enjoy!

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[Jamie Perconti]

This was wonderful! Played through last night after Alan tweeted it, and really enjoyed it.

Jamie

,

On Sun, Jan 14, 2018 at 5:01 AM, Tim Knauf <timk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated.

Ha, yeah, I struggle with palette design. I appreciate the many built-in defaults in PuzzleScript for that reason, though I wanted to try something different due to the theme. My more-artistically-inclined wife helped me fix the most glaring problems (pun intended!), but the garishness is all on me. :-)

It's the first time I've tried to teach puzzle mechanics through level design alone, and it proved challenging! When I made puzzle games in the (distant) past I always leaned on a big ol' pile of dialogue and tutorialising. Trying to do without that has been an educational experience. (Any outright obscurity is not intentional, mind.)

Cheers for this wonderful toolkit, Steven, and great to see the friendly community around it. I can't believe it'd completely passed me by until a couple of months ago.

On Sun, 14 Jan 2018 22:36 Stephen Lavelle <anal...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tim - 

Woah, I really like how it moves, but I have to say I'm really not taking by the color palette, which is for me a bit garish. 

I am still trying to figure out how the mechanics work, but I think I like that part about it. (got to the level with the horizontal mushroom groups).

Best,

S

2018-01-14 7:46 GMT+01:00 Alan Hazelden <al...@draknek.org>:

There's a lot of cute touches here!

On 14 January 2018 at 11:39, Tim Knauf <timk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi folks! I'm very pleased to present my second PuzzleScript game, Kiri's Garden. It was a therapeutic holiday project over Christmas and New Year, and features 21 lovingly-designed levels. Enjoy!

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[Tim Knauf]

Oh awesome, glad you enjoyed it Jamie! And thanks for the tweet, Alan.

As more people have played it, it seems that the real goal of the levels isn't adequately explained in the early levels. A lot of people suddenly get stuck around level 6-7 because they've muddled through 1-5 without realising that you need to surround the tree goal squares with other plants (of any kind). I'll be taking a harder look at affordances in future games.

On Monday, 15 January 2018 09:15:00 UTC+13, Jamie Perconti wrote:

This was wonderful! Played through last night after Alan tweeted it, and really enjoyed it.

Jamie

,

On Sun, Jan 14, 2018 at 5:01 AM, Tim Knauf <timk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated.

Ha, yeah, I struggle with palette design. I appreciate the many built-in defaults in PuzzleScript for that reason, though I wanted to try something different due to the theme. My more-artistically-inclined wife helped me fix the most glaring problems (pun intended!), but the garishness is all on me. :-)

It's the first time I've tried to teach puzzle mechanics through level design alone, and it proved challenging! When I made puzzle games in the (distant) past I always leaned on a big ol' pile of dialogue and tutorialising. Trying to do without that has been an educational experience. (Any outright obscurity is not intentional, mind.)

Cheers for this wonderful toolkit, Steven, and great to see the friendly community around it. I can't believe it'd completely passed me by until a couple of months ago.

On Sun, 14 Jan 2018 22:36 Stephen Lavelle <anal...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tim - 

Woah, I really like how it moves, but I have to say I'm really not taking by the color palette, which is for me a bit garish. 

I am still trying to figure out how the mechanics work, but I think I like that part about it. (got to the level with the horizontal mushroom groups).

Best,

S

2018-01-14 7:46 GMT+01:00 Alan Hazelden <al...@draknek.org>:

There's a lot of cute touches here!

On 14 January 2018 at 11:39, Tim Knauf <timk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi folks! I'm very pleased to present my second PuzzleScript game, Kiri's Garden. It was a therapeutic holiday project over Christmas and New Year, and features 21 lovingly-designed levels. Enjoy!

--
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[Ove Ahlman]

Wow, this is really cool and ambitious. I really like the sound design, especially with the waves when you change level and the different step sounds. However, in order to play past level 1 I had to hack the game and remove the Undo sound. It was just so annoying that when I discovered that I had to go back like 20-30 steps and try something else (which there is  a lot in the begining) I started using restart, even though it took longer, just to not having to hear that repeating undo sound over and over.  

The grahics are also really nice, I especially love the plant-bobbing. I dont mind the color-palett, but then I am not a graphical guy.

Level 2 confused me more than it helped for future levels. I would sugest putting the plant-spaces not in a line and not surrounding the Tree-Box, so that it becomes clear that these things are not implied (which I messed around with for a long time on thenext level).

Level 3 took like 5 minutes for me, since I didn't know that I could pick up, non flower things, and that, the only things I can pick up are on the side Island...

Level 9 is a nice Turtorial level. However it is weird that the mechanic it teaches is already being used in level 8, which made level 8 a bit frustrating. Maybe switch places between these two levels 

Now when I actually took the time to play and went through the frustration of not knowing at all what to do it is a nice game. And from level 10 and on I really enjoyed it and could actually "play" the game and spend the time trying to figure out the puzzles.

[Tim Knauf]

Good call. Update sound is now removed!

Thanks for the other feedback, will respond in more depth later on.

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[Tim Knauf]

Oops, I meant Undo sound, obviously. :-)

[dil...@gmail.com]

Lovely game and very ambitious! I especially like all the animations.

I also got confused by level 6, as I didn't really understand the goal of the game until I read your spoiler text here. Perhaps the earlier levels should be a little more difficult, too force the player to learn the goal of the game without just "muddling through" as I did.

Other than that however, I thought you did a great job teaching the mechanics through level design. After level 6, I never felt any of the puzzles were unsolvable, just difficult.

In my opinion the palette isn't too bad, just a bit garish. I think toning down the overall saturation and brightness would help.

Overall great game, thanks for making and sharing!

[Tim Knauf]

Sorry to hear you had a frustrating time in the early levels, Ove! I'm glad it eventually 'came together' for you.

I'm not quite sure that I understand your advice for level 2. The plants need to go around the tree box to complete the level, so I can't think of anywhere else I could put them that would be useful. However, that links back to a bigger problem with the game: it's never spelled out that you don't have to cover every square, but for aesthetic reasons I set up the levels so that they would be covered for each valid solution.

Bummer about level 3! I experimented with various ways of visually marking out placeable 'saplings' vs. plants, but didn't quite nail it, by the sound of it.

With level 8 and 9, it's supposed to be that 8 teaches the concept by 'pushing' you into learning the mushroom growing mechanic, and then 9 is there to solidify it by showing you something cool you can do with it. But a few people have stumbled around 8, so you might be right that they should be switched (or reworked). I'll have a think about it.

Thanks again for the detailed feedback!

[Tim Knauf]

Cheers Dilots! Glad you enjoyed it.

Yep, level 6 seems to be a stumbling block, and I agree that it's probably that earlier levels don't adequately prepare you.

There's probably a clever metaphor or visual device one could use to help people better understand the goal of surrounding but not filling the tree squares. What form that might take, I don't know!

[Tim Knauf]

Alan, I meant to say: Cosmic Express is one of my favourite puzzle games, so a shout-out from you was extra nice.

[D]

> you don't have to cover every square

I could be missing something, but it seems that on level 7 it is possible to surround the tree boxes without filling every square, which prevents you from winning:

https://i.imgur.com/WO0klDc.png

[Tim Knauf]

Ah right, so all eight surrounding squares need to be filled, including diagonals.

[Skalmantas Šimėnas]

I've found this game really inspiring, it resonated with me very well! I actually had a somewhat similar idea but it never formed into something I would make.

I also loved the step sounds but hated pretty much every other sound; the graphics were ok, I guess.

I had no problems with the current levels. However, I will note that I never actually learned that "eight surrounding squares need to be filled, including diagonals" to the very end! Luckily, all levels can be completed with the assumption that you have to cover every single square.

[Tim Knauf]

Cool, glad you found it inspiring, Skalmantas! Bummer that the true win conditions never became clear; this whole thing has been a very good lesson for me in the importance of rule clarity.

Yeah, I find sound in PuzzleScript very challenging! Ironically, my day job involves a ton of audio (I'm a game programmer, mostly focused on audio), but I found it nearly impossible to find sounds that I liked and that worked together. Has anyone got any advice other than "keep hitting the random button"? I thought maybe I could try reverse-engineering the seed numbers, but looking at Steven's code, he's deliberately made it difficult to do that. I think? I can understand why, but I still can't help chafing against it. :-)

[Skalmantas Šimėnas]

We could just collectively put together a library of useful puzzlescript sounds but I don't think it's worth the time and effort of anyone.

[Hand-E-Food]

That was a beautiful game! I'd also assumed you had to fill every tile, and am thankful I read about the real rules earlier in this thread.

I love in the second last level how that one particular square remains blank.  :-)

[clmun...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, January 13, 2018 at 7:39:37 PM UTC-5, Tim Knauf wrote:
> Hi folks! I'm very pleased to present my second PuzzleScript game, Kiri's Garden. It was a therapeutic holiday project over Christmas and New Year, and features 21 lovingly-designed levels. Enjoy!

Great game! I think level 18 took me forever, but I got it eventually!

[Tim Knauf]

Thanks Hand-E-Food and C.L.! Glad you got there eventually on level 18, C.L—it is a tricky one!

Hand-E-Food: no-one else has commented on that tile yet; I'm pleased that you noticed. :-D

[Tim Knauf]

I've been thinking a lot about many people not realising the 'real' rule with the tree goals, and even though you can muddle through not understanding, it's hardly ideal.

I talked to Alan about it last week, and he said he very much doesn't want to see pages of tutorial text. I agree, though I do wonder if just one or two explanatory/reinforcement messages might help as a 'band-aid'. I feel like it's a bit late to make major structural changes to the game, but if anyone has advice about how to make the real rule clearer, it'd be gratefully considered!

[Hand-E-Food]

An appropriate tutorial level is something like this.  I just used level 20 as a template.  With the plants I've chosen, it fits after level 9.  Maybe different plants would let it fit sooner.

[Tim Knauf]

Alan: ah, interesting! I guess as the designer I've only really considered what I knew to be the 'real' rule. It's true (at least, I believe it is) that you can solve all the current levels with the incorrect 'cover everything' assumption, so maybe it doesn't really matter, like you say. That said, to me, it seems _easier_ for the player to come up with solutions if they know they're only trying to surround squares, maybe? (Feels a bit "boil the ocean" otherwise?) Like you say, you can catch this stuff with just a little more playtesting. :-)

On Tue, 23 Jan 2018 12:02 Alan Hazelden <al...@draknek.org> wrote:

The way that you've designed the levels, I really don't think it matters!

As long as people's expectations about how to beat the level are aligned with how you actually beat the level, then there's no problem. I think you'd only have to teach the actual rule if there was a level where you *couldn't* cover every tile.

--

[Tim Knauf]

Hand-E-Food: cool, thanks for this! I've had a busy few days but hope to be able to sit down and analyse your design this weekend.

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