Pounce: A multiplayer stealth game about hunting / tracking
pounce.sh
pounce.sh
- The modal input mechanism feels kind of clumsy. An extra click is needed for the most common move, and the buttons are somehow too inconspicuous. At least I kept forgetting to make the use/save choice for powerups.
- The path of terrains/actions taken is really hard to read. I think it's due to overlaying the two kinds of icons on top of each other. It'd probably be better if the terrain was shown as-is, but the action type was shrunk to maybe half or third, placed in a corner, and with an opaque background.
- click nearby tile should move - click distant tile should pounce
A>>>>
and when the opponent makes another move:
BA>>>>
So the arrows say "this is moving forward in time", and point to the right (which is usually where you add things). But then the new moves are added on the left, behind the arrows.
I think the powerups seem to be bait here. I've won all but one of the last 12ish games by never taking any powerups and simply waiting for the opponent to reveal themselves by taking them. The only time I used a powerup was to pounce onto a bomb when I suspected the enemy was close and about to take it.
The powerups are often useless unless you already know the position of the opponent, which you most likely won't if they don't reveal themselves by picking up one of their own or clearly move towards them. And when you take a powerup it's easy for an invisible opponent to quickly track you down and pounce you from an unknown/ambiguous direction without you having much opportunity to react.
If you get a sense the enemy are generally moving towards a non-bomb powerup by the tiles they step on, you can even prepare for it by simply staying around the powerup tile and pounce them the moment they pick it up, without exposing yourself to any risk if you are wrong.
If both players avoid powerups I suspect it mostly would become a game of chance (unless one player carelessly steps upon a combination of tiles that reveals their position).
The way powerups permanently changes the board by marking the tiles is a good idea in theory, but right now it adds another huge weakness to using a powerup. Your opponent will be able to very effectively track you even AFTER you used the powerups by using the marked tiles in your vicinity. I would change it, maybe by only giving the information about the marked tiles to the player using the powerup.
I would also make it harder to move onto tiles you've stepped on before, to increase the ability to narrow down an opponent over time even if they try to remain hidden.
The vision powerup displays both player powerup, if used right away. But if you wait you can see the other player with out the other player seeing you.
The game is mostly about tracking, and often you can pinpoint another player without using vision, or they do something like pounce of take a power up. So it's still a test of skill.
The tiles that are permanently changed, which is a disadvantage to the person blowing the bomb, but the general idea is you only trigger the bomb when you are sure the enemy is close.
I think a leaderboard - or at least a record of your wins/losses would be cool. The extra click to confirm a move isn't off-putting for me, but I think that double-clicking/tapping on a square should be enough to move. The UI for using the powerups is a bit confusing too. And, being picky, "This let's you move..." should be "This lets you move..." in the instructions.
These are all minor points, though, and I've bookmarked the game because I think it's a fantastic concept and really enjoy playing it.
One pedantic note, hopefully helpful: "this let's you move further" should be "this lets you move further" -- there is no apostrophe in "lets" unless it's a contraction of "let us".
It is not obvious that the form let's is a contraction of "let us". For one thing, it's not generally possible to expand it into the notional "uncontracted form"; if the form were a contraction, that would be easy to do.
Well, because you can't. This is like asking why the word for "dog" isn't "grup". It just isn't, and thinking there might be a reason is an error. That's not how language works. But in a different world, the word for "dog" might be different.
"Let us have a cup of tea" isn't something that anyone would say (outside of a demand for permission), and if you say it, at best you'll get very funny looks.
Here's what CGEL has to say (page 935):
> Syntactically, this construction indicates that the specialisation of let has been taken a significant step further. The 's here is not replaceable by us [...] It seems clear, rather, that let and 's have fused syntactically as well as phonologically, and are no longer analysable as verb + object: they form a single word which functions as marker of the 1st person inclusive imperative construction.
People may look at you funny now, but less so in victorian England.
(Edit: OED agrees, in case we don't trust filthy American dictionaries. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng... )
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-grammar-of-th...
How the word originated doesn't tell you what it is now.
Where did I say that?
> Also not sure I would say cgel > oed for authoritative sources of meanings of words in English... But you do you.
There are a couple of problems with this:
- CGEL is not a source for the meaning of words; it's a description of the grammar of English. But that's fine here, because "how many words is let's?" is a grammatical question.
- The OED is a source for the meaning of words, making it a bad choice for grammatical questions, which are tangential to its purpose.
- The OED also deals extensively with the historical usage of words, even when that usage is not possible in the modern language. You have to be careful.
- You haven't cited the OED. Your link goes to the unrelated "Oxford Learner's Dictionaries". The OED is at least a name with immense prestige; the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries is not at all the same thing.
If it could have multiple players (even teams!) and a "spectate after death" mode, I could see this being a remote game night staple like generals.io.
Other ideas - a leaderboard - achievements like "win without getting a powerup" or "win by moving not pouncing" - limited emotes like "well played" or "you got lucky" or "whoops" - offer to rematch
pounce.sh/?replay=2716316456
Edit: Nevermind, the bug is entirely different: The UI doesn't update unless you hover over something! Even replays don't advance unless you e.g. hover over the buttons at the bottom. Firefox 99.0.1 on desktop here.
Edit 2: Separate note, you could have the URL change to the replay URL upon finishing a game. Almost pasted the wrong one above.
Edit 3: Ok, server is probably also overloaded, as this game the page was mostly frozen despite my "hover over random UI elements" trick. And then it completely broke several seconds after I tried playing a move (it appears to be stuck in an endless loop - can't even right click the page): https://i.imgur.com/dPf27pq.png
A bug made my game end as if the opponent had quit, I went back to the menu and started another one. Made one or 2 moves and then I was back in the game I had just quit, where my opponent was still playing. Of course I was AFK for 1 turn (playing the other game) so my position was revealed. Then I was switched back to the other game where I had also appeared AFK for a turn.
I noticed that playing with a small grid to keep track of possible enemy positions on each turn is immensely helpful (kind of like flagging squares in minesweeper) so I hacked together this little tool to do that from another browser window: https://g12x.net/pounce-sh-helper/
Hope this helps!
Overall, the multiplayer experience was seamless, the ui is a bit offputting, and the game itself feels like a non-starter:
moving in steps is less fun than free movement, so if you have turn based movement you need a secondary goal or some kind of resource generation
1v1 puts more pressure on players
hidden opponent = no clear goal at start of game
My ideal version of the game would have:
larger lobbies
timer for turns instead of sequential (or even better, an action point bar that fills up in real time)
drops as money for a shop instead of straight powerups
make movement a single click (remove confirmation)
Just had a bug where I was in two separate games at once against different opponents. Perhaps a race during matchmaking? It then switched between the two games when it became my turn but when it was my turn in both, switching to the second caused my timer on the first to elapse since ai couldn't switch back to it after moving in the second game.
With a little work, this bug could metamorphose a feature: multiple simultaneous games!
Spend a good 30 minutes already.
I was a bit confused about the map shrinking at first, as it wasn’t explained in the tutorial.
This was my longest and most satisfying victory so far:
Perhaps, creating a new game could generate a clickable link. This would be much more convenient to invite others.
Can I get a description of what this is like?
You have the ability to "pounce", jumping like three squares, but doing so will announce your exact location, so if you miss you will be dangerously exposed. There are also bonus pickup on the map with various powerful effects, but picking them up exposes you, same as a pounce.
(I came here from today’s edition of the weekly HackerNews newsletter http://hackernewsletter.com)
Really fun game!
"Victory!" <whatever>
:)