HomebrewSoftware is very pleased to announce the release of "Arrow Antics", a 2d puzzle/maze game set in Egypt. The goal of the game is to help a team of explorers escape the pyramids by laying down arrows to direct them around the mummies, traps & tricks left behind in the mazes.

It features an easy to use in-game level editor, specially commissioned music for the game, and over 100 levels including 10 bonus "action" levels.

These levels get HARD as the focus is "easy to learn, hard to master", with new special trap tiles introduced throughout the game.

The demo features 20 levels, including two action levels to unlock, and is available here:

http://www.homebrewsoftware.com/html/arrowantics.htm

Feedback is VERY welcome, as are any bug reports!

I just tried the game.

Likes :

theme - I always wanted to do a game like this with mummies and explorers. Well ... until popcap released mummy maze.

Game menus & title screen - pretty nice except for some slowness at points

music is good

graphics are mostly good

Dislikes:

Too many buy buttons and too much selling. I find the pitch is too strong. I'm not sure how it will affect sales, but as a player I felt inundated with requests to hit buy buttons and it was distracting.

Tomb selection comes up very slow and clicks were remembered from the previous menu I thought wasnt working. Was confusing when I got dumped right into play.

Character animation - Could be better. Doesnt seem consistent with the quality of the other images.

Gameplay is of the style "set it all up and then watch it go" - I realize this is fundamental to the design, but I've never liked this style of puzzle. Even The incredible Machine and Rocknors Donut Factory which both do the concept fairly well also suffer because of it. This game suffers more than they do for some reason. I think at the end of the day this will be the limiting factor in your sales. To me it's just not that fun. I expect you'll have an uphill battle selling this title because of it. As a player I feel outside the action. Contrast that with the game Lemmings where you're always changing and operating lemmings as the game progresses. I find that more interactive and more appealing.

Thanks for the feedback, Steve. It's definitely a "version 1.0" with the aim of changing it over time to improve the quality of the experience so good feedback like yours is important.

We actually do have bonus "action" levels that behave realtime like you've suggested, however you're now the second person who would rather play in that fashion rather than the "puzzle" mode. It'd take some time to improve it to a quality level that the action mode could stand on its own but it sounds like that's what the public "wants" so far.

Toning down the "buy me" is easy enough to do... Too many nag dialogs or was it the intro/outro screens that bugged you? Or some combination of the two? :)

One thing I worry about is our difficulty level - we have some very hard levels in the full game, but I'm unsure how much to show them in the demo. Right now, I don't think the difficutly ramps up enough in the demo - how many levels did you attempt/finish, if you don't mind me asking?

Originally posted by dogbert
Toning down the "buy me" is easy enough to do... Too many nag dialogs or was it the intro/outro screens that bugged you? Or some combination of the two? :)

The intro screen was just fine. Didn't bother me at all. Nicely presented etc. It was the in game nags I found to be a bit much. I no longer do an intro buy screen in my games because I figure you want to play and then decide and not the other way around. So I just do a screen on exit. No hard data to support that it's better that way.. it's more of a personal usibility thing than a sales experiment.

Originally posted by dogbert
One thing I worry about is our difficulty level - we have some very hard levels in the full game, but I'm unsure how much to show them in the demo. Right now, I don't think the difficutly ramps up enough in the demo - how many levels did you attempt/finish, if you don't mind me asking?

I got through about 4 levels. I didn't quite because of difficulty though. I think in puzzle games it's best to just show the natural progression of the game and not try to put in tough puzzles at the outset. Beginner players will understand that the levels ramp up in difficulty, and sticking a player with something really tough when they're not ready for it is likely to be more frustrating that fun.

Thanks for the feedback! You made some good points.

The initial Buy Now screen has been moved to when the player exits the game.

I also changed the behavior of the in-game nag screens. Instead of combining it with the "YOU WIN" or "YOU LOSE" dialogs, I give the player non-nag versions after each level. Then after 3 non-nag screens I show a WIN or LOSE dialog with the Buy Now button added. That should cut down on the "in-your-face" advertising. :)

I'll be working on caching the graphics so that the tomb selection (and other images) come up faster and don't feel sluggish. BTW, what are the specs of the system you played the game on?

Originally posted by rogue

I'll be working on caching the graphics so that the tomb selection (and other images) come up faster and don't feel sluggish. BTW, what are the specs of the system you played the game on?

ATI Radeon card, High end pentium, 512mb ram

Nice game.
Played the first 18 levels and here are some observations

- The fact the screen is all cleared immediately after a death makes it quite tough sometimes to determine where was the problem (especially when there are multiple explorers to save). Maybe you can "freeze" the screen with all the sprites still visible some seconds before clearing it...I don't know.

- I would like to see an option to keep the arrows in place once the screen is cleared after an unsuccessful attempt. Sometimes I realize I only need to add one arrow to my current setup to finish the level and it's a bit annoying having to rebuild the setup from scratch.

- Sometimes I wished there was a 'speed up animation' button. I think it would be cool because on some levels (especially the ones with switches) it may take a lot of time to get every explorer saved.

Anyway I liked it. Well done.

Website:

It may sound strange but, although the download button is quite bit, it took me a while to find it. You should consider making it of a more vivid color and centering it with the text. Also include a link at the end of the description (maybe below the screenshots) as the download button is hidden when you have scrolled all the way down.

I would also change the Buy Now button. It looks more like a RegSoft advertisement than a functional button of your site.

And the overall design of your site could be a little more friendly. It looks like a site to buy utilitary software rather than games. I
would use an Egypt theme or something. It doesn't nee to be anything too complicated or graphical, just better layed out and more colorful. It's current design would make me go away before even reading the text or seeing the screenshots.

Download:

Make your download an EXE insaller, not a ZIP!

Game:

GUI: Very nice graphics and a tidy layout, I like it. A bit slow when loading, at the beginning of the game. Also, as has already been said, when you click to close the instructions screen, it seems it hasn't worked, so you click again. However, it did work the first time, so the second click is received by the maze selection screen, and you go right into a level you chose by accident. You must correct this.

Game graphics: They're OK. Animation of the character could be better, as has been said.

Gameplay: I agree with what the other posters have said. Just laying out the arrows and then just watch it go isn't fun for more than a couple of levels. However, I don't know how well a more dynamic gamepaly would work... Maybe you could include one of those 'action' levels in the demo.

Make your download an EXE insaller, not a ZIP!
Well, this is my first time using pad files. Since the pad toolkit (websites use this to auto check your product for updates) is going to search a ZIP file to see if there is an update, I thought it was a requirement to put it in a ZIP file. The pad toolkit can parse ZIP files, but as far as I know cannot read through an installer EXE to find a padfile. It probably works if your EXE is a WinZip self-extracting EXE, but ours is a Wise Installer file.

I will look at the other things you mentioned and see about fixing them.

Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Improving the website is high on our to-do list, as is improving the introduction screen. We may add some in-game help as it appears our claim of "easy to learn" isn't necessarily true...

We're fast coming to the conclusion that focusing on the puzzle style of "place & go" may have been a mistake, or at least, makes it a tougher sale. Almost all feedback we've had since we completed it has been suggesting people would be more keen on the action mode being the main focus. However, that's a pretty big change in design as it puts a different emphasis on how levels are planned. Hmmmm.

By the way, there are two action levels in the demo - finishing level 9 should open up the first one.

However, it did work the first time, so the second click is received by the maze selection screen, and you go right into a level you chose by accident. You must correct this.

This has been fixed & will be in our first update. One of those things you never spot yourself as a developer, because you tend to get locked into a routine of how you run & click things, if that makes sense.

Originally posted by rogue
Well, this is my first time using pad files. Since the pad toolkit (websites use this to auto check your product for updates) is going to search a ZIP file to see if there is an update, I thought it was a requirement to put it in a ZIP file. The pad toolkit can parse ZIP files, but as far as I know cannot read through an installer EXE to find a padfile. It probably works if your EXE is a WinZip self-extracting EXE, but ours is a Wise Installer file.

I will look at the other things you mentioned and see about fixing them.

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't understand... What's all that about pad files and auto check for updates...?

Most downloadable game demos come in a single EXE file, which is very convenient. You just click and the install starts. Next, next, ..., next, finish, and you're playing the demo (an option of 'Run the game now' is usually included and already selected in the last installation screen.)

I suggest you use Inno Setup (http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php) it's really easy to use and does almost everything you'll ever need in an installation program.

Pad files are a XML file that contains a description of the product. This replaces the older file_id.diz used many years ago. It is extremely convenient because you can submit your product to hundreds of sites merely by providing them with a URL to the pad file.

One of the fields in the pad file is a URL to your download. The web sites that you have submitted your product to will periodically run a process that goes out and checks those URL's, scans the file for an updated pad file and updates their records if anything has changed.

Yes, from a USER point of view they do not care about this, but this forum is a developer forum. I am surprised you have not used pad files for your products. It will save you hours of typing in fields for submitting your product to various sites.

One thing I can do to fix this is use the winzip self-extracting exe program to wrap my installer and the pad file. This will make it transparent to the end user and they will just download an EXE and can start running that self-extracting installer.

Everyone here knows what PAD files are and what they are used for.

The confusion comes in how a PAD file is preventing you from creating a proper installer.

No, I think it is MY confusion on where to put the pad file. I read on the pad site that it should be inside the downloadable distribution so it could be checked. That ONLY works if you have a ZIP or zip compatible downloadable. Since our installer was created with Wise Installer I wrapped it with a ZIP so both our installer and the pad file were accessible to robot scripts that would check for updates.

Maybe I just read the pad documentation incorrectly and we do not need to include it in the distribution, just on our web site.

Since you are familar with using pad for dist, please share with me the correct way to use it. I appreciate your help.

Replying to my last post. I re-read the pad web site information on where to put the pad files and it can be inside my installer. The pad toolkit that the web sites use doesn't look inside that file at all, just at the XML file that you have given a URL to in your pad file (to check for updates).

The other reason I had made this a ZIP is that my web hosting service does not allow me to upload an EXE file to the server.

Unless I have the file hosted with a service like fileburst.com I cannot change this. Unfortunately fileburst.com is not cheap so I won't be using them in the near future.

Thanks for the good feedback. I know it makes it easier for the downloader to get an EXE that they can "Open" (meaning run) and start the install process, but unless I can get my hosting service to allow me to put up EXE files I do not see a way around this.

I don't think I've ever installed a game that included it's PAD file in the distribution.

Generally, you store the PAD file on your server and when you submit to shareware sites, they retain a link to it to watch for updates...

As for the hosting, well, you're going to have to find a host that doesn't have stupid rules like "you can't upload an EXE".

Can you upload the EXE with a ZIP extension and then rename it on the server afterwards?

Can you upload the EXE with a ZIP extension and then rename it on the server afterwards?

I tried that earlier. You cannot upload or rename files to anything with a .exe, .com, .reg extension.

I am looking for a reasonably priced file hosting service. Anyone have any good recommendations?