Show HN: Game of Bins - Javascript Puzzle Game | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Game of Bins - Javascript Puzzle Game

gameofbins.com

15 pointssimpleglider22 comments

I don't like the fill colors. Right now you have three fills - full white, very translucent, and "slightly translucent". But I find it very difficult to judge whether a shape is very translucent or slightly translucent unless all the options are on the screen.

This made the tutorial especially jarring - when I saw a white fill blue, and a slightly translucent red, I ended up confused about yellow... was it the very translucent or slightly translucent?

I'd suggest changing one of the translucent colors to a full fill or some other representation, like stripes/polka dots.

Solid vs. Light fill is hard for me to differentiate, especially the last practice "Find the Correct Bin"...could you use a pattern to fill instead? (Much more like Set)

Yeah, using fill was just easier with the graphics library I was using. I've used pattern fills with SVG before, not sure how widely supported it is in browsers.

The tutorial would probably be nicer if it were more interactive earlier on, and this would allow you to ramp up players at the same time.

Explain shape matching, and show some example combos, but then dive straight into playing a quick round where the only thing you have to match is shapes. Perhaps use less bins so it's not too easy, and set a lowish target amount of points to move on, say 10 or 15.

Increase difficulty by adding more parameters, I would add colour first, balancing a quick reward cycle with the more complex gameplay.

On the tutorial, with the animations you currently have you definitely need a way to let players skip them. I wanted to quit the tutorial half way through because I already understood it, and the three animations are identical once you know the idea. I was getting frustrated by the tutorial before I got to even touch the game.

All in all an interesting diversion, thanks!

Thanks for all the ideas!

Not really gameplay but the tutorial was slow (paced). I understood most of it by reading the text but still had to wait for the animations and had no way of skipping them.

Overall it was actually more difficult than it appeared on the face of it.

Thanks for the tip. I'll tinker with the animation speeds.

Yeah, you get the hang of it, but it's not easy when you start. Do you think it'd work to ignore fill at first and just have color and shape to match on?

That is a good idea. Limiting the options so that the first bit is like a tutorial helps I think.

About the animation speeds there were some that I just didn't need to see the animation at all but had no way of getting to the next page.

The only other annoyance was the buttons had a different cursor than is generally expected of a button but they functioned and that is really the biggest thing a button needs.

I welcome any comments on gameplay!

Not a question about gameplay, but I have mixed feeling about the affiliate links on a show HN post. Maybe it's not the place for profiteering?

Hmm yeah I see where you're coming from. A lot of affiliate marketing seems really sleazy to me as well. Here I'm trying to provide a bit of value on top of the advertisement.

Rather than buying search ads and making money of pure arbitrage, I made a game that might inspire people to read about the technologies used in the game. Then I follow up with links.

Why not? It is text only and at first I did not even notice it. Hopefully not only the HN crowd will play the game so it would take a exrtra "Show HN only" landing page without adds to get rid of them.

I've certainly complained about affiliate links before, but at least in this case they were somewhat related to the reason HN might be interested in the post.

Not a comment on the gameplay, but the tutorial is far to slow and drawn out - experienced gamers could have this summarised in maybe 2 images with a line of text each. Maybe under a "quick help" link?

For you, was it the animation speeds or the material itself? Do you think a single page text with pictures description could work for "quick help"?

Edit: I'm tracking some basic stats, and it looks like 50% of those who start the tutorial don't finish.

I didn't finish the tutorial. For impatient people it takes too long :D

Saying that you can need to put together the same or all different forms/colors/fills should suffice. Whoever doesn't understand that probably won't have much fun with the game anyway.

By itself, that 50% figure is ambiguous. Do the tutorial quitters leave entirely, or do they just start playing the game?

Inspired by: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(game)

Found a bug :)

When placing the third object in a bin clicking several times real fast gets you a) tons of points or b) -1 per click.

Thanks! I just fixed it.

is there always a correct solution visible on the screen, or do you have to make some moves based on the likelihood of completion pieces entering the stack from the left?

Fun game, but the bottoms of the squares are cut off sometimes. Edit: also, I get kinda dizzy after doing it for a while. Don't know what's up with that.

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