Part of the idea for the events was to let the player make it more difficult risk/reward. Some events have selections, like getting married. Get married and live longer (unless the spouse dies) but marriage adds complications (more of the harmful unknown pieces).

Yeah, I get what you're trying to do. I just don't think it works that well in this particular game.

Ok, played it one last time and tried the Alien Senator option. There are three things that don't work for me.

#1 -- There aren't any constraints about which tiles I can switch. I can grab a tile and just stick it in an empty space. I'd rather see the player have to switch two tiles, like you have to in Bejeweled.

#2 -- The speed of the game picks up too quickly. I started feeling overwhelmed after about 5 minutes. I stopped planning my moves and just started clicking as quickly as I could. Part of that is because there aren't any levels so no breaks to relieve the pressure, but part of it is the pace of the game itself.

#3 -- The tiles started clearing themselves. I think it had something to do with the truck icon, but the pace was so fast I couldn't be sure. I think you need to decide if the tiles clear themselves or if I have to hit the "pay taxes" button. I kept trying to plan a big combo and then bam, the pieces I was setting up would disappear and I didn't hit the "pay taxes" button to make it happen. That frustrated me.

Hope the feedback helps. Should give you some ideas for what to work on during your next iteration. Good luck!

Roy

Yeah, the scroll bar is a little more obvious. Except I couldn't just drag the scroll bar. I had to go all the way down to the bottom of it and click on the arrow.

> When you say tiles clear themselves, do you mean that they disapear or that the icons disapear leaving a blank, worthless piece?

No. I mean a picture of semi zooms across the screen and some of the tiles disappear.

What I'm saying is that if I have to click the "pay taxes" button to make the tiles disappear, then I don't like that one of your random drops can make the tiles disappear without me press anything. There were several times I set up two or three groups of tiles and started to click the "pay taxes" button, but the truck icon cleared some of the tiles away while my mouse was moving to the "pay taxes" button and I felt cheated. I was like "Hey, I worked hard for those groups!" hehe

> I'm curious if you noticed the two lower difficulty profiles Easy and Simple. I tried to make them stand out.

Yeah, I played those too. I've played about 5 or 6 games on a variety of stuff.

> The senator has to think quickly.

I get that it's a more difficult level, although it really feels more like I'm just choosing a different avatar rather than a difficulty level.

What I'm talking about are the dynamics of the game. On senator, you start off balls to the wall and then you just keep going balls to the wall throughout the entire thing. There aren't any peaks and valleys. You need both. With the peaks, you feel the stress and go "oh shit, oh shit", but then you make it through a level and relax for a minute. Then you start climbing the next peak.

It's a dynamic, like a roller coaster ride. A roller coaster needs the peaks and valleys to give it the thrill. Without them, it's just the same thing all the way through. Same concept with your game.

Pretty cool, but yes I agree, you should introduce the game mechanics in a few short learning rounds or something.. It's a lot like tetris and the basics are easy to understand, but it seems pretty deep with the different color pieces etc... Interesting idea, if it's still around in a few months maybe I'll stumble on it again =)

Yes. That shows there's a difference between each profile.

Sorry for the late response, but I just stumbled back across this topic. If you want me to look at something, send me a private message with a link to the post.

Roy