Comment by litenboll | Hacker News Reader

Comment by litenboll | Hacker News Reader

Very nice job, got hooked immediately!

Some feedback/thoughts:

1. I don't think the current approach to difficulty is fun, its just feels limiting without any interaction or ways to turn it into an advantage. Some other ideas would be to have non-tetris pieces that are more difficult to place (but might be very good if you find agood placement), or temporary board obstacles that you can work around until they are gone/removed. Or pieces that do something else when placed like become obstacles until adjacent pieces are cleared. There are many ways to find a more fun difficulty approach :)

2. As others have pointed out it's frustrating to lose when you have "powers" left

3. The difficulty progression vs leaderboards are not clear to me. Am I only competing against players in the same difficulty? Can I choose a lower difficulty? (I would rather get the difficulty from competition than the fixed blocks on board)

4. Getting "holes" in normal tetris feels a lot less punishing than in your game. Here it almost feels unrecoverable at times. I don't have suggestion, and maybe it's not even a problem. Just wanted to mention it.

5. The powers feel a bit "meh". They are useful sure, but seem pretty similar in a way.

Hi litenboll!,

Your comments are very interesting and insightful.

1. Difficulty: You're right—making obstacles dynamic or even destructible is a powerful idea and could be a lot of fun. I’m definitely taking note of that.

2. Powers & Losing: This makes total sense. Other users have mentioned this as well, and it’s a very reasonable point. I’ll look for the best way to implement a reminder or alert.

3. Leaderboards & Competition: This is a great point, and I should make it clearer on my end. You only play one daily game, but your records are compared in two ways:

a. Global: Your score is automatically compared against the rest of the world.

b. Personalized Competition: You can choose specific competitors to follow. This is similar to followers on X; you follow whoever you want, and they are added to your personal board (called 'My competition today'). Your game is then automatically compared just with them.

Imagine you want to compete with your family. You can create a board just for them by adding their profiles using the 'Add competitors here' option. Your daily game will then show up specifically against theirs in 'My competition today.' I think this feature has huge potential, even if many people haven't discovered it yet.

4. Holes: Try using the 'One Cell' power; it's designed to solve exactly that problem! ;)

5. Powers: A power that 'clears' or 'cleans' parts of the board sounds very interesting...

Thank you again for your feedback, it was very useful!

Also enjoyed this, similar frustration at not being able to use powerups in a loss condition. Never got to the state where it felt like the "board fights back".

This comment above about difficulty made me wonder if there are more interesting things to do with the unclear-able blocks that would both let you ramp the difficulty and achieve more of your vision. A few off the cuff ideas:

* enemy blocks that are clearable if you make a row and a column through them * enemy blocks that require to be surrounded by n deep blocks to resolve * enemy blocks that automatically pop into single cell holes * enemy blocks that grow by infecting neighboring blocks over time or the more other rows you clear * enemy blocks that require multiple row clears to resolve

the thought is having a few types with each enemy block needing a different strategy to resolve would give you more levers on how to control difficulty and give you more variation to the strategy and more agency to defeat them. powerups is kinda a deus-ex-machina currently. you dont feel earned satisfaction when you clear an enemy block.

Thank you so much for your feedback; these are really interesting contributions!

The idea of giving blocked cells more functionality is excellent, especially being able to clear those 'enemy blocks' by crossing both a row and a column over them simultaneously. It's brilliant. I'm going to think more about it and see if it fits the core essence of the game.

I also like the idea of having different types of blocks with various functionalities. Very well thought out.

I wasn't familiar with the expression 'deus ex machina,' that's interesting! ;)

awesome glad you liked it. id love to try it out again if you implement any of them. idk what else to call the black squares so "enemy" felt right for the board fights back vibe.

another nice thing i thought of with enemy block types idea is that you don't need to look anywhere but the board if you get rid of powerups that you just have so your whole interface gets simpler. if you still needed powerups you could have them show up as normal pieces in the chain of pieces.

it def starts to veer into more of a classic tetris how far can you go vibe than maybe the puzzle thing you are going for, but maybe its actually two games. puzzle mode is as now but starts with a fixed set or fixed progression of enemys. you finish the puzzle when you defeat them all. winning then is time or rows cleared or minimum number of pieces even. infinite mode is more like the current. or classic tetris, how far can you go while new enemies spawn in of increasing number and difficulty. winning is how many enemies you clear + lines + time

I call the 'enemy blocks' 'blocked cells', but I actually like 'enemy blocks' better! :)

Regarding changing the game dynamics by having power-ups appear as just another piece in the game, I think that would overcomplicate the gameplay and alter the flow of the game too much. I don't really see it as an option right now. I prefer the infinite game mode.

Thanks again!

Thanks for the answers! I just want to point out that I don't think a reminder to use powers is enough. Right now you can lose on the next piece after using a power since it resolves it before you get the chance, which feels unfair. I think you should have the option to use a power as a last option always. It's technically one of your available moves, so it shouldn't matter that the piece you are on doesn't fit, in my opinion.

I think your opinion makes a lot of sense, although I believe the alternative I have in the game now also makes sense. It's all a matter of perspective.

Right now, I think that the way the game over is forced even with pending power-ups is a way to push the player to organize themselves better and compete with a more strategic approach.

In other words, the player has to decide between the dilemma of using the power-ups before feeling cornered or using them when they're in dire straits.

I play by using them a step before feeling cornered, and that way I avoid reaching game over with pending abilities. Either way, it's an interesting debate, and I really appreciate your point of view.

I can buy that argument, basically what you are saying is that the intention is that you need to keep yourself "two bad pieces" ahead all the time. It caters to a more hardcore audience, which is totally fine :)

Thanks for the discussion, I think you have a very good and open mindset. Good luck!

Yes, you understood the idea perfectly! Thank you for your interest!

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