Cubiq - A Match-Three Game for Android

[mouser]

or just point a camera at screen.

[Jibz]

After playing this game for a while I have one thing that bugs me a little -- the faces on each cube are arranged randomly.

I feel that if the faces had fixed positions like on a dice, then it would take a certain amount of mental skill to decide what way to rotate them in order to get the color you need in the quickest possible way. As it is now, your best bet is some combination that rotates through all possible faces, and then hoping the color you want isn't on the last face.

Perhaps having a fixed ordering would result in issues with the gameplay, and I guess you are randomly distributing only the number of colors needed for the level. I don't really know how, or if, that would work. Is it something you considered during development?

Or well, perhaps I am getting too old to move my fingers fast enough. I've seen my son play Geometry Dash, and spent five minutes slamming into the first three obstacles before realizing I wasn't meant to play that type of game anymore .

[Deozaan]

After playing this game for a while I have one thing that bugs me a little -- the faces on each cube are arranged randomly.

I feel that if the faces had fixed positions like on a dice, then it would take a certain amount of mental skill to decide what way to rotate them in order to get the color you need in the quickest possible way.

-Jibz (July 22, 2016, 02:28 AM)

Pay a bit closer attention to the colors as you rotate the cubes. They are arranged like dice. In fact, we even have a stage that is themed with dice images.

The game also hints to the fact that the cubes are like dice. For example: red and blue are always on opposite sides from each other. You can see this because the red face has a blue background and vice versa. And the red and blue meters are next to each other on the side of the screen. So if you get red, but you wanted blue, just rotate it twice in any direction (but both times in the same direction) and you'll get blue.

We used to explain this in the tutorial, but we got complaints that the tutorial was too long, so we trimmed it down to pretty much the bare essentials so people could finish it in less than a minute if they were rushing through it.

or just point a camera at screen.

-mouser (July 21, 2016, 06:31 PM)

I feel like that would look terrible.

[Jibz]

After playing this game for a while I have one thing that bugs me a little -- the faces on each cube are arranged randomly.

I feel that if the faces had fixed positions like on a dice, then it would take a certain amount of mental skill to decide what way to rotate them in order to get the color you need in the quickest possible way.

-Jibz (July 22, 2016, 02:28 AM)

Pay a bit closer attention to the colors as you rotate the cubes. They are arranged like dice. In fact, we even have a stage that is themed with dice images.

The game also hints to the fact that the cubes are like dice. For example: red and blue are always on opposite sides from each other. You can see this because the red face has a blue background and vice versa. And the red and blue meters are next to each other on the side of the screen. So if you get red, but you wanted blue, just rotate it twice in any direction (but both times in the same direction) and you'll get blue.

-Deozaan (July 22, 2016, 04:24 AM)

If they were like dice, they would not always be facing me with an upwards image no matter which way I turn them.

If they were like dice, then doing (up, left, down) would rotate the front image clockwise.

If I am looking at two cubes with a red face, I may have to turn one of them left and the other down to find the yellow side. If they were like dice, and facing me with the same orientation on the front image, they would have to be turned the same way.

I don't know if it would be better or worse if they worked like real dice, just pointing out that they do not .

[Durgan]

After playing this game for a while I have one thing that bugs me a little -- the faces on each cube are arranged randomly.

I feel that if the faces had fixed positions like on a dice, then it would take a certain amount of mental skill to decide what way to rotate them in order to get the color you need in the quickest possible way.

-Jibz (July 22, 2016, 02:28 AM)

Pay a bit closer attention to the colors as you rotate the cubes. They are arranged like dice. In fact, we even have a stage that is themed with dice images.

The game also hints to the fact that the cubes are like dice. For example: red and blue are always on opposite sides from each other. You can see this because the red face has a blue background and vice versa. And the red and blue meters are next to each other on the side of the screen. So if you get red, but you wanted blue, just rotate it twice in any direction (but both times in the same direction) and you'll get blue.

-Deozaan (July 22, 2016, 04:24 AM)

If they were like dice, they would not always be facing me with an upwards image no matter which way I turn them.

If they were like dice, then doing (up, left, down) would rotate the front image clockwise.

If I am looking at two cubes with a red face, I may have to turn one of them left and the other down to find the yellow side. If they were like dice, and facing me with the same orientation on the front image, they would have to be turned the same way.

I don't know if it would be better or worse if they worked like real dice, just pointing out that they do not .

-Jibz (July 22, 2016, 06:36 AM)

Greetings, my first post, so please forgive my noobness.

I'm one of the other devs for the game. (The one that lacks coding skill, so you should be able to narrow it down.)

I wanted to say that's a very good observation in regards to the images always staying right side up  . This in fact was intended. In early development of the game we initially had just colored cubes. So when flipping it would always look the same. What is up right would not have mattered. However we then moved onto images and ran into the problem you just described as the function of 'real dice'. It was a judgement call to have the feel of a connect 3 style game with static upright images.

If I were to ask the guys removal of that now, I'm pretty sure it would spark a Clark Griswald-esque rant. "...and I'm gonna look him straight in the eye and call him a ...." 

[mouser]

Just wanted to say welcome to the site, Durgan 

[Deozaan]

I don't know if it would be better or worse if they worked like real dice, just pointing out that they do not .

-Jibz (July 22, 2016, 06:36 AM)

You're right, and I almost mentioned this in my previous reply:

They are like dice in every respect except that we rotate the image so it's always up-side up. As Durgan said, this was intentional. We thought it would look weird if the images were rotated all directions. It also seemed like a pretty complex thing to ask of players to learn/memorize all the orientations of a cube.

That said, I've been wondering to myself over the past couple of months if perhaps we're giving people too little credit for their (conscious or subconscious) spatial awareness to help them out. But I haven't brought it up because no one else has mentioned it until now.

I think it's at least worth a discussion.

[Durgan]

Just wanted to say welcome to the site, Durgan 

-mouser (July 22, 2016, 05:57 PM)

Thank you! 

[Jibz]

Thanks for the explanations both Deozaan and Durgan .

I don't know if it would be better or worse if they worked like real dice, just pointing out that they do not .

-Jibz (July 22, 2016, 06:36 AM)

They are like dice in every respect except that we rotate the image so it's always up-side up. As Durgan said, this was intentional. We thought it would look weird if the images were rotated all directions. It also seemed like a pretty complex thing to ask of players to learn/memorize all the orientations of a cube.

-Deozaan (July 22, 2016, 06:33 PM)

You are probably right it could be too confusing for the average user.

[Ath]

The only thing I have to report is that I've stopped my testing of Cubiq. (updated to beta 6).
My devices are either too slow (Samsung Tab2 10.1"), or too small (Nexus 5) to decently play this game. And I'm not that of a game player that I must play this, or any, game.
Thanks for the experience, and thanks for having me around.

[Deozaan]

Thanks for the experience, and thanks for having me around.

-Ath (July 23, 2016, 04:21 AM)

Thanks for giving it a test drive.

If you don't mind giving a little more feedback, I'd like to hear what part(s) you consider too small to play? I used to test the game on my Galaxy Nexus^w (from 2011) which has a 4.65" screen, and I thought things looked fine. But we have made some changes to the UI since I last tested on that device. And these days it's so old and slow it can barely run the OS, so I don't even really use it anymore.

[Ath]

Well, I've just played Cubiq for a short while on the Nexus 5. I constantly find my hand covering the current scores per color, as my primary hand is my right hand. If I could swap the scores to the left side, it would be better playable, I think. I still would fail the critters level (13 is a lot when just catching 3 or 4 cubes at a time), I guess, as I'm not ver good at any game (I usually lose interest afer a few seconds) but just by keep playing sometimes helps me pass a level 

Oh, and the speed on the Nexus stays fast enough now, even after playing a bit longer.

[Deozaan]

I still would fail the critters level (13 is a lot when just catching 3 or 4 cubes at a time), I guess, as I'm not ver good at any game (I usually lose interest afer a few seconds) but just by keep playing sometimes helps me pass a level 

-Ath (July 24, 2016, 04:22 AM)

You may want to consider activating some time/moves boosters to help you out. They'll give you more time or moves when you get a combo. They're essential for completing the later stages of the game. Also, try going for different patterns. For example, try making a connection in the shape of a plus sign. That's 5 cubes right there. Or if you do a big one, that's 9!

Due to feedback like this, we're trying to figure out a way we could show tips now and then. Right now we're leaning to showing them on the loading screen, since we're aware that that lasts a bit longer than most people would prefer.

Oh, and the speed on the Nexus stays fast enough now, even after playing a bit longer.

-Ath (July 24, 2016, 04:22 AM)

Glad to hear it!

[Deozaan]

We just released another beta update. This one took a lot longer than previous ones, but is also packed with more fixes and changes.

With this release, we fixed one of the major outstanding known issues, which was that you could complete a level and get game over at the same time if you happened to fill all the meters with your last move or just as time ran out. That shouldn't happen anymore. We also gave the game a graphical overhaul in some aspects, improving the visual quality on higher resolution screens.

But probably the most notable visual change is something that I think is a good compromise between what Jibz was requesting ("dice-like" images that rotate) and our desire to make it look good without confusing people too much. We've added guides to the cubes which will show you which direction you need to swipe each cube to get a certain color to appear. Take a look at these before and after images:



In the image above, you can see that you would swipe from the top down to get yellow. Or from the right to the left to get red. Et cetera.



The image above is just a before and after shot of the higher quality images used for the meters. Please note that there is some dithering in the above GIFs to reduce filesize which lowers the quality a bit.

Visit the website for the full changelog.

[Jibz]

Very nice cleanup of the graphics.

[Durgan]

Very nice cleanup of the graphics.

-Jibz (September 14, 2016, 03:07 AM)

Thank you! It took more time than I anticipated to get it done but I really like the improvement.

[Deozaan]

It has taken much longer than expected, but we're hoping to finally launch the game sometime this summer.

i'd love to see some video of the game.

-mouser (July 21, 2016, 05:54 PM)

We finally made a video for the game:

[Deozaan]

Cubiq has officially left beta and is available on Google Play.

[mouser]

Congrats!