no 16bit mode means it's hella slow on my intel gfx card notebook. Unplayable slow. No-testing slow.

it seems to ignore the fullscreen 0 option
why have the bpp in the config if it doesn't work with 16 (i deduce this from the fact that it still starts up in 1024/32 if i set 16bit and that it's not in the resolutions comment)?

I'd question if 1024 fullscreen is the right startup resolution for a game like this :) (that one would probably try on low end systems) 

It's super slow on my notebook too (P3 1ghz with ati mobility something). I think it is some bug though as flipper.exe & explorer.exe go berserk when I run it. They eat 100% cpu, 70:30 for flipper.exe (if I recall correctly).

Also no tiles are displayed. 

Changes:

* Fixed a bug when cancelling the level screen
* Re-worked the highlight system, sometimes would leave some highlights active.
* Added more functionality to the help screens.
* You can view help from any level now, not just certain levels.
* Help button is yellow/flash first time a new feature is introduced.
* Can scroll back through all previous help screens
* Added some debug stuff to config file (performance checks)
* enabled 16bit graphic modes (640x480-1280x1024)

Inertia: its compiled scripts, no source distributed with the exe.

Megaman: I have enabled 16bit mode for all screen sizes (640x480-1280x1024). I also checked all modes, full screen does work but you need to set the config variable to 1.

Spirit: The game is really a 2d engine trying to be a 3d engine. Unfortunately I assumed when I bought the product that I would be able to use 3d assets for everything. (TGB does support 3d files) Not the case, the engine runs like a legless horse trying to win a race when using 3d assets. TGB is basically a script language with fancy GUI widgets.

From this point on I intend to spend all my time developing a flash web version as this has more product support. This version is more or less final unless I find any global show stopper bugs affecting everyone.

Thanks for everyone's time in testing.
Sims 

Would you be interested in getting some music for this? I've been doing music for a few years now and I'd love to do a few songs and sound FX for this. 

Will check out.

Re: Fullscreen
Fullscreen is indeed working (in the old vers.), but i can't switch to windowed mode, even though there's Fullscreen 0 in the cfg. 

got the same speed issues like spirit now. ~0.1 -0.5fps.

FS still not working. 

Blitz, sure it would be very cool if you did. I was looking at stuff like this for background music (http://ccmixter.org/media/files/_ghost/3631) I really liked the drifting fluffyness!

I did buy a load of SFX libraries but they turned out to be rubbish, it sort of put me off working with SFX for a while. But I am open to any suggestions of what you think would fit. Drop me an email if you want to chat more.

Megaman: Ummm, Im confused at what mode you are trying to run the game in. Can you email your logfile in the root of the flipper directory. Something must be going wrong to get 0-1 fps. Did you do a clean install? Alot of stuff has changed filewise between each version.

Sock 

http://ccmixter.org/media/files/_ghost/3631/ 

http://pastebin.com/f54b51f4c

clean install. 

/home/pastebin/public_html/../posts/ needs to be a writable dir to use file storage engine 

Do you still have access to your PlanetQuake e-mail or do you have another address you check regularly? 

My PQ account is closed down, I moved all my stuff to my own domain. My current email address is at the bottom of my website.

http://www.simonoc.com/ 

Download : http://www.simonoc.com/files/games/Flipper_v15.exe]http://www.simonoc.com/files/games/Flipper_v15.exe
Website : http://www.simonoc.com/pages/design/games/flipper.htm]http://www.simonoc.com/pages/design/games/flipper.htm

I am planning to upgrade this game to a new format but I want to do one last check to see if anyone has any new feedback.

Stuff I am looking for on current feedback:
Did you have any problems with the installer or access to the game?
Do you like it or dislike the game? Anything in particular you like/dislike?
Can you think of anyway the game can be improved?
Was there anything that frustrated you while playing the game?
What did you think of the presentation of the game?
How difficult was the levels for you? easy/medium/difficult?
Did you get stuck on any levels and give up?
Do you find the interface confusing? Able to choose different levels?
Did you try out the editor and create any puzzles yourself?

The top link is a new version which should hopefully work correctly with vista and win7. If anyone can spare some time to test this new version I would especially appreciate it. :)

Thanks 

are busticated and should probably be fixed. More feedback to follow a bit later tonight... 

Download : http://www.simonoc.com/files/games/Flipper_v15.exe
Website : http://www.simonoc.com/pages/design/games/flipper.htm

I cut and paste them from another post, my fault they are broken. I normally double check, too much late night posting. Above links should be good. 

took a quick look, first time seeing this game.

1. there's a lot of random flipping animations. i'm guessing it's just for flavour but i find them very distracting because it feels like the game is trying to point something out. i'd rather the random flipping (as well as the flips that occur when the mouse passes over tiles) were gone (at least when i'm playing an actual level. it's fine on the intro screen).

2. tiles should highlight when i mouse over them. a white glowy highlight for tiles that i'm allowed to move to, and an evil red glow for tiles i cannot move to.

3. sounds! get someone with a synth and some nice pad sounds or something. :)

4. the 'start' button does nothing? you have to click in the center to start a game. weird.

5. this game feels like it could be played with the keyboard too. my first instinct when seeing the 4 arrows radiating out of my current tile was to reach for the arrow keys. could be cool as an option when players become better at the game as it would be much faster than clicking on tiles.

anything else i didn't mention didn't bother me. installer was fine and fast. (not sure where it went, actually... probably program files i guess).
i like the progression of coloured tiles. interesting and cool.

i find the jump in difficulty on level 4 to be very high. the 'exploding' tiles that create new colours add a whole new dimension. it felt to me like there should be about 10 levels that are pretty easy to get hooked on. for me, it gets hard (hard as in, a level of difficulty that requires real thought) too soon.
try to introduce the exploding tile alone for the first time or something? not sure.

this is all from maybe 10 minutes total, stream of consciousness, first impression stuff. hope it's helpful.

btw, if you think i'm going to open up notepad and edit a config file to change game settings, you're dreaming. put that shit into the game! :) 

with necros on these points:

3. sounds! get someone with a synth and some nice pad sounds or something. :)

4. the 'start' button does nothing? you have to click in the center to start a game. weird.

5. this game feels like it could be played with the keyboard too.

Seems like I might have complained about #4 before...can't remember for sure.

It took me a bit to get back into the "feel" for this, but once I did, it's still fun! 

sock I still want to do sounds for this :) 

After speaking to some friends recently I assumed it might be worthwhile to do something with this old game prototype and update it with some new features. The amount of interest this game has generated in the last week (on several forums) is next to nothing which leads me to believe the game is still flawed and not much fun to play.

Thanks necros, pjw and Blitz for your replies but this game prototype is going no where fast. 

I downloaded and play and I think is quite fun but the sounds as said by others need fixes! 

well, good luck with it. :) 

this game is pretty hard. like it's very much a thinking puzzle game, not just like quick action like tetris. you need to plan ahead some times and the graphics don't really match the game in that they seem to imply a fast paced actiony tetris game when it's really a slower paced thinking game where you need to project some moves ahead in your head like chess almost.

dunno if that's helpful. 

Ok that is awesome feedback, because it might explain why everyone who tests the game seems to be in a rush to complete the puzzles. I really want everyone to take their time and not rush around. I have been wondering for some time what sort of art theme / presentation would hint to the player to slowdown and think more? 

i'm an audio guy at heart, so my first thought is that music would definitely help 'set the mood'.

another thing that makes it feel actiony is like i said in my first post: there's a lot of animations that take place.
especially on the later levels where there are multiple icons on the screen.

i know it was probably a lot of work to get all those animations in but i find, for example, the cone grower tile ]< and the teleporter tile [>> both rotate on an axis. i find it distracting as well as confusing because they rotate pretty slow so if your eyes are looking over the whole thing quickly, you might only see a thin grey line.

the box growers and box shrinkers rotate constantly which isn't as bad, but really isn't necessary.

when you mouse over grey tiles, they flip. when you move your mouse across the screen, it makes a huge line flip. this one is more a personal preference, but i would prefer a more subtle effect. for example, the tiles have a lighter, inner border. if that border glowed a little bit brighter when you had your mouse on them, i think that would look nicer with less movement.

finally, gray tiles randomly flip around which draws my eyes to them. i think this could be done away with completely.

i would say the big thing with this game is it's too flashy. there's tons of movement and sparkles and such.

one thing that's more minor is that i felt the colours were inverted. i would have thought it would go from hot to cold, with bright red being many flips and blue being 1 flip. especially when green is 4. usually i attribute green to 'good' and red to 'bad'.
try maybe: green(1) -> yellow -> red -> purple(lilac, not deep purple) -> blue(5)?

oh, one last thing. i just noticed that there's an inset box on each tile which corresponds to the number of flips it needs. i think that box should be a little more visible because i only noticed it now. :S
also, the icons often block most of those boxes. if the icons were blended additively, you'd be able to see the boxes, but that could just look like shit. :P

anyway, keep going on this! :) 

remember this: http://www.continuitygame.com/index.html

it has two modes, one where you play a single tile, running and jumping like mario or something and then you could switch to the 'over map' where you could rearrange where each tile was in relation to the others.

the music has two tracks that were played synchronously. when you were at single tile mode where you jump and run, the music was louder with drums and harsh synths and when you zoomed out into the 'over map' mode, where you had to think and rearrange tiles, the music lost all of the drums and almost became just pads and piano and soothing synths.

you can see how it really completely changes the way you interpret both aspects of the game, and it's definitely the second one that would work.
i guess the real barrier is finding someone who could do it. :S