Posted: 11th Sep 2011 20:24
Stack 'o Blocks is a very simple physics based game, the basic idea of the game is that you're a storage worker in life, and have died concealing your secret banana crate stacks so nobody would ever find them! Ofcourse, this sort of behaviour does not go unpunished in the afterlife, so you've been doomed to spend eternity stacking boxes! On a rather unstable beam hanging above the fire.. Ouch!

Should your beam tilt over you yourself will burn in the fire below, will you be able to handle the stress?

Video of Early Release 4 Testing:
Please note, this was recorded before I tweaked the balls and added a game over screen!

Video of Release 3
Video of Release 2
Video of Release 1

Screenshots:


^Both taken by Conjured Entertainment^

As you can see, the graphics do not suit the game AT ALL, nor my idea of the direction I want to take it in. Do remember that this is all just placeholder material, be it made by me, edited by me or taken from Clker.com for prototyping purposes. I am willing to hire a 2D artist to make the final graphics for the game, the only problem right now is.. I don't quite have the funds for it right now! So if anyone would be willing to help out, by either donating a small amount on my Website(I would prefer not to do this, I dislike asking for cash), or simply help out by making a piece of artwork that can be used it would be much appreciated, and I will include you, or your website on the intro sequence should you so desire.

Future Ideas
Add an imp that'll fly over, and drop a so called 'void box', this box will consume the first five boxes it collides with, and then dissapear.
Add a random fire cloud flying across the screen, drop a box on it and your entire screen will be consumed by fire, resetting the game field at the cost of 10% of the score.
Add imps that sometimes drop random boxes as they walk across the beam your dropper hangs from.

Downloads
Release 4
Download

Current Known Issues:
+ Code Snippet
-There's no way to end the game aside from the menu and losing it!
-Graphics option doesn't appear to do much, it only changes the backbuffer size so far.


Changelog:
+ Code Snippet
---
Release 5
---
#Balls will now actually ROLL, instead of sliding for the most part on lower angled slopes.

---
Release 4
---
#Added a game over screen! Fairly important don't you agree?

#Removed the pesky screen right before the main menu.

#Switched the game to always run in 1024*600 windowed mode.

#Changed the scaling physics system into a fixed system, hence the above change. This will allow for more precise tweaking of the game's system and makes it run equal on every screen resolution.

#Added a second heavier box, this box has metal edges and packs a bit more weight than the original box! It's also a little larger than the other one.

#Added a third 'box', a bouncy white ball! Just to pester you! It will bounce around, knocking some boxes away and.. well, just being a nuisance at times.

#Made the scoring system a little less punishing, In my opinion it was impossible to get a decent score.. So here's the updated values:
Box #1 Place  : + 15
Box #1 Destroy: - 3
Box #2 Place  : + 25
Box #2 Destroy: - 5
Box #3 Place  : + 20
Box #3 Destroy: - 4
Will adjust this accordingly should this become unbalanced.

#Completely adjusted the physics values AGAIN, hopefully the last time!

#Removed a lot of obsolete code and cleaned up my functions.

#Lowered the limit on the Box arrays to 75, judging from my tests this shouldn't affect players too much.

#Modified the size of the beam to fit on the screen a bit more, Allowed more boxes to be stacked, but also causing the beam to be unbalanced a little easier.

---
Release 3
---
#Modified the object you balance the beam on to be more square, it will now no longer be randomly unbalanced on certain screen resolutions. This also means the core gameplay has changed somewhat again, but with the tweaks below it is still quite challenging.

#More tweaking to the weight of the boxes!

#Upped the penalty for dropping boxes of the platform from 15 to 25.

#Upped the score you gain for the small boxes from 10 to 15.

#Added sound to boxes hitting something, note that it will ONLY make a sound if it hits something other than what it had hit before.. So rolling over the beam will not make any noise unless it hits a different box.

---
Release 2
---
# Fixed the issue where the game would crash after putting down a specific amount of boxes. It now resets appropriately, and will remove and re-use an existing box. WATCH OUT! THIS AFFECTS LONG LASTING MATCHES! YOUR BOXES WILL RANDOMLY DISSAPEAR!

#Changed the height the beam has to fall to count as a game over, it is now much higher and you will not lose all your blocks, and thus your score if you fail. It is still possible to lose some however, especially if they're stacked quite high.

#Completely overhauled the way placing boxes is handled, you now control a sliding dropper that drops them from up high.

#Modified some physics related settings to compensate for the above change.

#Lowered the game over depth of the beam to compensate for the added difficulty with the new placement system.

#Having a negative score now also means your game is finished.

#The beam will no longer start being affected by physics until the first box has been dropped.

#The beam will no longer lean to the left without any boxes on it after being activated.
Posted: 11th Sep 2011 21:55
Oh, man, I'm laughing out loud! This is too cool!

If you have to get other music, fine, but this music really suits the steady, relentless dropping of the crates.

At first I thought they were dropping too slow, but then when I saw what happens as they hit, wow, this is fun. Tricky to keep the bar balanced and rack up a score.

Keep working on this one, it's got lots of potential!
Posted: 11th Sep 2011 22:12
Thanks for your feedback! If possible, could you tell me your current screen's resolution so I can test, and where possible adjust the speed scaling? It's a little silly as it is now.. And yes, the boxes do have a rather.. large impact! But given the rather small area to play around on, that is to be expected.

If you have to get other music, fine, but this music really suits the steady, relentless dropping of the crates.

Would you mind going into the music folder, and telling me which one it was playing at the time? It's a random system.

Anyways, I've been fixing some stuff that has been bothering me. Such as the speed boxes dropped at when falling over, this didn't scale at all, and was horrendously slow regardless of what you did. Now, they fall over at much more aggressive speed, meaning less time to place blocks to save your behind!

Here's the current changelog for R2:
+ Code Snippet
---
Release 2
---
# Fixed the issue where the game would crash after putting down a specific amount of boxes. It now resets appropriately, and will remove and re-use an existing box. WATCH OUT! THIS AFFECTS LONG LASTING MATCHES! YOUR BOXES WILL RANDOMLY DISSAPEAR!

#Changed the height the beam has to fall to count as a game over, it is now much higher and you will not lose all your blocks, and thus your score if you fail. It is still possible to lose some however, especially if they're stacked quite high.

#Changed the impact of gravity overall, boxes will now fall and roll over at a much higher speed!

#Slightly reduced the weight of the boxes to compensate for the above change.


I'm currently having issues with getting sound files to work, is there a way to determine collision with ANYTHING, instead of a specified sprite? I just want it to make a noise when it hits anything, without looping through ~150^150 options every game loop.
Posted: 11th Sep 2011 23:31
main2 was the one I heard that really had me smiling. So relentless.

My scrren is 1680 x 1050.

I've been able to reach 1000 points before I lose control of the beam.

What I'm using for collision detection is

+ Code Snippet
    hit = GetFirstContact()
    if hit <> 0
        ` play sound, or whatever
    endif
Posted: 11th Sep 2011 23:34
That's interesting! Will look into all that in a moment.. Your resolution shouldn't cause that many abnormalities compared to mine. But first, here's some work I've done after my last post. ;]


Note: I'm planning to (perhaps) make the rail movable, if it won't cause too many control issues for the tablet version(s). Right now I have it working fairly well, it's a bit frustrating having to click an addition button to drop a box, but sadly there's no mouseclick feature on tablets. x[

I'll look into the sound now, and I agree with you on that music track! It's possibly the best one I have in the current selection.
Posted: 12th Sep 2011 0:02
Oh noooooose! Only being able to drop the boxes from that height will make it much harder to cheat!

Looking good!
Posted: 12th Sep 2011 0:06
Haha, I've managed to frustrate myself on several occasions so far tweaking the physics for that! I had it set to making the beam fly off the screen instantly one time.. Wasn't very pleasant!

Anyways, I decided to look into the command you handed out.. And I couldn't get that to work as I wanted it to, so I decided to work with the following commands:

+ Code Snippet
    For i = 1 to MaxBoxes
        If Box1Physics[i] = 1
            Hit = GetSpriteFirstContact(Spr_Box1[i])
            If Hit <> 0
                NewHit = GetContactSpriteID2()
                If Box1LastHit[i] <> NewHit
                    PlaySound(Snd_Box1Hit)
                    Box1LastHit[i] = NewHit
                EndIf
            EndIf
        EndIf
    Next i


HOWEVER, according to the documentation, NewHit should equal the sprite we're colliding with.. Sadly, it always returns a 0 for some odd reason, meaning it doesn't work the way I want it to. I'm likely doing this awfully wrong, but I've never before bothered working with this many different physics objects that require a sound every time any of them move enough.
Posted: 12th Sep 2011 0:07
Looks great! There was a game a little like this on the Wii, but you used the Wii-mote to balance the beam as various objects fell onto it.

Maybe to mix things up a bit you could have different shaped boxes, so it plays a bit like Tetris and you have to think about how to stack your boxes in addition to trying to balance the beam.
Posted: 12th Sep 2011 0:12
The original idea was to eventually have various sizes, but I suppose a different shape couldn't hurt either..

I was also perhaps thinking of a random item that would appear SOMEWHERE in the gamefield, and if you can hit it with a box it'll reset your gamefield, but only decreasing your points by 25%, meaning it can be quite a blessing after a while.. And some nasty bonusses which make it rain rocks or something. But right now, I'd rather get my sound to work first!

EDIT: just fixed the nasty tendancy of the beam to lean left straight after starting the game.. I don't know why this happened, as the bar was positioned dead center and it's identical, but what the hey. It's fixed now.

Anyways, I'm off for tonight.. So here's my current version for you guys to play with, any feedback would be appreciated! And I know, the graphics need work.. Badly.

Release 2
Download

+ Code Snippet
---
Release 2
---
# Fixed the issue where the game would crash after putting down a specific amount of boxes. It now resets appropriately, and will remove and re-use an existing box. WATCH OUT! THIS AFFECTS LONG LASTING MATCHES! YOUR BOXES WILL RANDOMLY DISSAPEAR!

#Changed the height the beam has to fall to count as a game over, it is now much higher and you will not lose all your blocks, and thus your score if you fail. It is still possible to lose some however, especially if they're stacked quite high.

#Completely overhauled the way placing boxes is handled, you now control a sliding dropper that drops them from up high.

#Modified some physics related settings to compensate for the above change.

#Lowered the game over depth of the beam to compensate for the added difficulty with the new placement system.

#Having a negative score now also means your game is finished.

#The beam will no longer start being affected by physics until the first box has been dropped.

#The beam will no longer lean to the left without any boxes on it after being activated.
Posted: 12th Sep 2011 11:41
I hate to double post, but sadly.. I'm doing it anyways!

Here's some more progress on what I have right now..


Apologies for the graphics in Release 2, they're quite a strain on the eyes. I was just testing something, and forgot to change them back! D'oh!

Anyways, without further ado, here is release 3.. Ready for testing. Any feedback on how I could improve the current mechanics is welcome!

+ Code Snippet
---
Release 3
---
#Modified the object you balance the beam on to be more square, it will now no longer be randomly unbalanced on certain screen resolutions. This also means the core gameplay has changed somewhat again, but with the tweaks below it is still quite challenging.

#More tweaking to the weight of the boxes!

#Upped the penalty for dropping boxes of the platform from 15 to 25.

#Upped the score you gain for the small boxes from 10 to 15.

#Added sound to boxes hitting something, note that it will ONLY make a sound if it hits something other than what it had hit before.. So rolling over the beam will not make any noise unless it hits a different box.


Release 3
Download
Posted: 12th Sep 2011 18:14
Looks very fun

Great idea and work so far!
Posted: 12th Sep 2011 21:58
Thanks! And I'm here with some more news/changes.. and.. Two new box types.

A larger heavier one, and a bouncy ball.. Here's a video of three of my plays after balancing the ball somewhat.. I -think- it works nicely so far, aside from a small bug I hadn't fixed at the time, which means the balls don't despawn when they hit the bottom of the screen, meaning they at times bounce back up.. No worries! This has been addressed after uploading the video.



And the CURRENT changelog:
+ Code Snippet
---
Release 4
---
#Switched the game to always run in 1024*600 windowed mode.

#Changed the scaling physics system into a fixed system, hence the above change. This will allow for more precise tweaking of the game's system and makes it run equal on every screen resolution.

#Added a second heavier box, this box has metal edges and packs a bit more weight than the original box! It's also a little larger than the other one.

#Added a third 'box', a bouncy white ball! Just to pester you! It will bounce around, knocking some boxes away and.. well, just being a nuisance at times.

#Made the scoring system a little less punishing, In my opinion it was impossible to get a decent score.. So here's the updated values:
Box #1 Place  : + 15
Box #1 Destroy: - 3
Box #2 Place  : + 25
Box #2 Destroy: - 5
Box #3 Place  : + 20
Box #3 Destroy: - 4
Will adjust this accordingly should this become unbalanced.

#Completely adjusted the physics values AGAIN, hopefully the last time!

#Removed a lot of obsolete code and cleaned up my functions.

#Lowered the limit on the Box arrays to 75, judging from my tests this shouldn't affect players too much.

#Modified the size of the beam to fit on the screen a bit more, Allowed more boxes to be stacked, but also causing the beam to be unbalanced a little easier.
Posted: 12th Sep 2011 23:22
Look like great fun! The physics in AppGameKit are awesome. Maybe you could add some tetris style or bejewel or 4 in a row functionality, where boxes of simmilar colors pops away, to make room for more?
Posted: 12th Sep 2011 23:37
This looks great. Nice job.
Posted: 13th Sep 2011 3:28
This does look awesome.
I like the addition of the balls but they could roll more, which would affect the beam more, making it more challenging.
Sometimes the beam is getting offest but the ball just sits there when it seems like it should be rolling.
Anyway, this is a great idea and looks like a lot of fun!
Posted: 13th Sep 2011 10:23
Thanks all for your comments! I've just woke up and fiddled with the game's mechanics some more.. Messing it up making everything float instead of falling! I was trying to optimize my code, so instead of switching the physics on/off I'd turn them active/inactive.. But this resulted in a lot of outer space weirdness. It's been fixed! But I find it odd either way.

@Conjured,
I had that exact same feeling.. So I went fiddling about with their physics settings. I've got the friction to nearly zero and they still hardly roll! The beam doesn't tilt all that far before you hit a game over I'm afraid.. And the physics engine only really makes things roll and slide when it gets at the angle you're pretty much a goner I'm afraid. If there's a command I'm missing that doesn't manually set the torgue, but allows for more acceleration on it I'd be glad to hear it!

And now.. I should probably add a gameover screen.. The boring part of programming. Where I don't get to fiddle with new stuff.
Posted: 13th Sep 2011 15:40
Maybe you could apply a force to the ball to encourage it to roll.
If the force was coming from the center of the beam, then it should push the ball either way.
Maybe set the force a little higher thatn the beam though, to force the ball to roll.

"
Posted: 13th Sep 2011 15:43
If the force was coming from the center of the beam, then it should push the ball either way.


Until the ball reaches the edge of the beam, the beam tips the other way due to blocks being dropped on the opposite side, and the ball 'rolls up' the beam.
Posted: 13th Sep 2011 15:45
Well, I've finished the game over screen.. As well as the resetting of the game afterwards.



+ Code Snippet
---
Release 4
---
#Added a game over screen! Fairly important don't you agree?

#Removed the pesky screen right before the main menu.

#Switched the game to always run in 1024*600 windowed mode.

#Changed the scaling physics system into a fixed system, hence the above change. This will allow for more precise tweaking of the game's system and makes it run equal on every screen resolution.

#Added a second heavier box, this box has metal edges and packs a bit more weight than the original box! It's also a little larger than the other one.

#Added a third 'box', a bouncy white ball! Just to pester you! It will bounce around, knocking some boxes away and.. well, just being a nuisance at times.

#Made the scoring system a little less punishing, In my opinion it was impossible to get a decent score.. So here's the updated values:
Box #1 Place  : + 15
Box #1 Destroy: - 3
Box #2 Place  : + 25
Box #2 Destroy: - 5
Box #3 Place  : + 20
Box #3 Destroy: - 4
Will adjust this accordingly should this become unbalanced.

#Completely adjusted the physics values AGAIN, hopefully the last time!

#Removed a lot of obsolete code and cleaned up my functions.

#Lowered the limit on the Box arrays to 75, judging from my tests this shouldn't affect players too much.

#Modified the size of the beam to fit on the screen a bit more, Allowed more boxes to be stacked, but also causing the beam to be unbalanced a little easier.


Release 4
Download

-------
@Conjured,
I did consider such a thing.. BUT I figured that would cause too many issues. One of them being the one Bursar mentioned, besides I don't believe it's all that off in my latest demo above.
Posted: 13th Sep 2011 15:48
Until the ball reaches the edge of the beam, the beam tips the other way due to blocks being dropped on the opposite side, and the ball 'rolls up' the beam.

Good point
You would need 2 other forces as well on each side of the beam to force the ball back to the center.
Then the X and Y coordinates of the ball would help determine which force to apply.

did consider such a thing.. BUT I figured that would cause too many issues. One of them being the one Bursar mentioned, besides I don't believe it's all that off in my latest demo above.

Okay, cool
I was just throwing out a suggestion.