New Game: Laser Puzzle II

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Artcfox
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New Game: Laser Puzzle II

Post by Artcfox »

Since Laser Puzzle was received so well, and everyone wanted more challenging puzzles, I now present Laser Puzzle II for your enjoyment!
LaserPuzzleII.png
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This is a Uzebox implementation of a different laser puzzle board game I enjoy, which targets an older audience.

Gameplay is very similar to Laser Puzzle, but there are additional tokens, and some behave differently. Tokens with a padlock overlay cannot be moved or rotated, but tokens with a rotation overlay can be rotated in place, but not moved. The laser itself is now a token, there are two beam splitters, a double sided mirror, a checkpoint, combination mirror/target tokens, and a cell blocker (which doesn't block the laser). As one might expect, this provides for much more challenging game play!

There are 60 levels, which include beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert challenges. The controls and instructions are included in the game, though I still haven't figured out how to force people to actually read them before playing.

I had a tiny bit of extra tile space available versus the previous game, so I made a few visual enhancements. I also allow the soundtrack to be paused.

One cool trick I used was to store the font as 1bpp array, which I expand into user ram tiles when I need to put text on the screen. This also gives me the ability to dynamically change the foreground and background color, which I used for the credits screen. During the opening credits I smoothly fade the text color in from black to red, and then back to black.

Let me know what you think!

Edit: Source code, Wiki page.
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D3thAdd3r
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Re: New Game: Laser Puzzle II

Post by D3thAdd3r »

Great game and the challenge is much higher than the first installment. I am almost done with the game but not quite! I think I have approximately 2 hours into it so far, and also I think a new personal record for longest single play session of an Uzebox game.

The graphics and new mechanics are nice. Probably this one has a lot of replay value and will find itself in a good spot as a rather classic Uzebox puzzle game. Besides that my same praise from LP 1 transfers to this one. Well done sir, there is a lot of gameplay time here!
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Artcfox
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Re: New Game: Laser Puzzle II

Post by Artcfox »

Thanks Lee! Two hours at once, damn! :shock: Do I need to have an in-game timer that reminds people to take breaks? :lol:

There is one thing that I thought about changing for replayability, but I wanted to get the community's feedback first. I could add a mode where all of the pieces that can be rotated (including the ones in your "hand") start with a randomized rotation, rather than just facing in their default directions. I didn't include it by default, because I wanted the puzzles that each person solves to be the same, but I could easily add a submenu when you click PLAY that asks if you want a deterministic start, or a random start. There are probably shorter words I could use like EASY or HARD, I'm open to suggestions.

I still haven't beaten levels 59 and 60 yet, and I've been trying to for a couple days.
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Jubatian
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Re: New Game: Laser Puzzle II

Post by Jubatian »

I think I reached level 60 in an hour, but I couldn't solve that!

Nice game, I think very well made for the appearance and mechanics (with the minor nitpicks applying here like in the easier version). It would look better at higher resolution (so after all I don't think this is very suitable for M74), but it isn't really possible due to the lack of sprites at anything higher (except probably the 5 cycle / pixel Mode 3 variant I proposed at some point, but that would also be very ROM intensive due to the code tiles). This graphics style just demands vector like quality.
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Artcfox
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Re: New Game: Laser Puzzle II

Post by Artcfox »

Jubatian wrote:I think I reached level 60 in an hour, but I couldn't solve that!

Nice game, I think very well made for the appearance and mechanics (with the minor nitpicks applying here like in the easier version). It would look better at higher resolution (so after all I don't think this is very suitable for M74), but it isn't really possible due to the lack of sprites at anything higher (except probably the 5 cycle / pixel Mode 3 variant I proposed at some point, but that would also be very ROM intensive due to the code tiles). This graphics style just demands vector like quality.
Thanks! I was hoping that this one might pose more of a challenge for you ;)
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