Show HN: Colorbars – A challenging new take on the match three game genre | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Colorbars – A challenging new take on the match three game genre

itunes.apple.com

27 pointsSproutworx14 comments

This is my first game published in the App Store and was made with the help of a developer friend, Chris. It's a simple interface but an incredibly challenging game.

Would love to hear feedback. We'll also be doing a post-mortem on our first few weeks in the App Store for those who enjoy that type of thing.

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Saving everyone else the time, these are all redeemed. 0.99c, though; not sweating the cost.

I enjoyed the game, but had a couple of suggestions:

Add a small colour wheel to the main playing area (maybe only for the first few challenges per game?). It's on the pause screen already, but I know when things got hectic I'd have liked it to be there in front of me.

The single colour challenges were pretty punishing, in that there really weren't enough bars coming of that colour to push through to the next challenge. Perhaps give a small amount of time for non-challenge related matches?

Thanks, Scott.

Both points are great feedback on elements that I think we've struggled with during development by being so close to it.

I think we've overestimated peoples knowledge of the color wheel. The data is certainly showing it to. Scores from our beta rounds were much better than the first couple days. My assumption there is the beta users got used to the color wheel over time. Your idea of a hint during the first view rounds is a great one.

Also, for the challenges, were you only trying to complete the challenge? This is another point that I think users are struggling with. Completing the challenge is a bonus, but it's certainly not the only goal. If the challenge says "Clear 10 sets of 5", you can still clear out sets or runs of 3 until you are blue in the face. Challenges aren't required.

Color combination in a line reminds me of Colossotron a bit:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.halfbrick....

I wonder if color-blind users can play this...? Any first-hand experience?

From some of the feedback we've received, not very well.

Definitely an interesting challenge to solve.

The Dots game just solved the color blind problem, http://blog.weplaydots.com/post/92736184749/whats-new-in-two.... Although I am not colorblind so can't speak from experience.

Yup, their solution was our first thought as well. The biggest problem is half our game is about ordering colors based on the color wheel. So Red Orange Yellow.

That doesn't pose the same challenge if that run corresponds to Square, Circle, Triangle. Trying to remember a sequence based on random shapes seems too unrelated. We'll need to do some tests with color saturation most likely.

In the design phase, you could try Skala Preview. I discovered it recently and it works pretty well to mirror your Photoshop work to your phone and also simulate various colour blindness issues.

Yup. I use Sketch and Sketch Mirror, but same concept.

why is this here? Its neither interesting, nor did I learn anything.

Then don't upvote it. Asking that people prescreen their submissions to not offend your subjective definition of "interesting" or "informative", is introducing a chilling effect.

Nor is this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8035586

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