Jewel Match Snowscapes released
Community Forums/Showcase/Jewel Match Snowscapes released
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(1:1 pixel cropped screenshot) (reduced screenshot)  (reduced screenshot)  Merry Christmas everybody ! Our latest game was released today on a german portal : http://www.deutschland-spielt.de/spiele/3-gewinnt/jewel-match-snowscapes/ I hope that the english version will be released soon. As you can guess it is a match-3 (I prefer to mention it for allergic people ;-) |
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| Congrats to the release! |
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| great lookin |
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| Looks lovely, but why such a late release? Anything with a Christmas theme should be released in the run up to the holiday. |
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| The 'aim' is to target winter rather than specificaly 'Xmas', hoping that the product last a bit more than only during Xmas period. That said, the dev was indeed very tight and we were a bit in late... you know that unexpected bug at the last minute, that happens only on the publisher's PC and no way to make it happens on any other PC ;-/ |
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| Looks great so far... on the 1st and 2nd screen there is some kind of "used paper"-texture multiplied on the background: is this used on all backgrounds or just this one (consistency) ? Is there a reason for all the objects keeping their "natural" color instead of the often used "vibrant color"-variants? @3rd screen the "2 and 3" at the 3 areas at the bottom (the portion with the "down arrow") seem to have a offset of "+1" compared to the above one. @Buttons while "menu" and "continue" seem to be "centered", the buttons for "options" and "shop" seem to try to align properly with the "continue" button, but especially for "shop" this looks a bit "odd" - is this done to align similar to the "point"-areas above? For now this is all I recognized when looking at the screenshots: and that you seem to target a higher resolution than "classical match 3" - did you have test players (regarding the therefore "smaller" clickable tile-size). Good luck with your sales - reiche Bescherung über die Weihnachts- und Winterzeit! bye Ron |
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| Looks very nice, good luck with it! |
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| Derron, you have Lynx's eyes :-) The texture is added on the board's backgrounds, but not on the snowscapes scenes that are independent from the board. The object's colors are already quite saturated in my opinion, now it is a matter of personal taste. The target resolution is 1680x1050 which start to be more common nowadays. The game will reduce the resolution if the screen can not handle it, or if the user force it to Low resolution in the options (1024x768). The tiles are 64x64 pixels which makes decent 'real' tile's size on 22 to 27" screens. In Low resolution mode, the tiles are logically bigger. And of course we had some testers :-) |
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| I like the "paper pattern texture" because it removes some "sharpness" of the background - so it makes it easier for the eyes to concentrate on the foreground. @1680x1050 Glad you support "1024x768", think this is the least common denominator. I have a dual screen setup: both 19" with 1280x1024 (because this allows me to switch one screen of if not needed to save on power consumption). I did not like the bigger screen I got (full HD 23" - somehow I prefer 4:3 or 5:4 to widescreen) - now my wife has to use it (2 days after I got it, her old screen broke apart :p). Maybe my favor of 4:3/5:4 is the reason to extend the screen left/right-wise with some decoration when using widescreen (I saw some cas(h)ual games doing it this way). @vibrant colors Of course they are "strong" / saturated but a bit darker than the average casual games color - but they fit into the rest of the scenery, as your backgrounds are a bit darker / calm / night-ish which could find their audience too. This makes the "theme" a bit more serious, hope the upcoming buyers thought so too when clicking the "purchase" button :p. bye Ron |
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| The english version : http://www.iwin.com/games/jewel-match-snowscapes Derron, Yes, some devs put left and right sides to keep the screen ratio. Personally I prefer a 'real' full screen even if it means it has to be streched. Ideally (next games ?), the pictures could be designed on a 16:9 ratio while only the 'center' is interactive, that way the game adapt to most screen ratios. |
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| JMS was released on BFG : http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/28718/jewel-match-snowscapes/index.html |
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| Youch, they missed Christmas by a long way then. Hope it does well anyway. It has a big following so should be noticed. |
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| Yes, they took quite some time to release and several people complained about that ;-/ |
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| Well I recall one year they released a Mac version of Holiday Bonus in January, so yeah been there :-) Hoping they can release Regency Solitaire soon as I need the $$$! |
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| At least Regency is not linked to any season, but I guess you already considered a Xmas reskin... you know, every year there is a Downton episode special Xmas :-) |
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| Well actually someone I know made a Christmas-themed solitaire game. I'm trying to avoid seasonal stuff now. It used to be good but now lots of people are doing it I think it's less viable. |
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| Lol, look who just got the site takeover on iWin ;-) Good luck. |
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| Instead of going "seasonal" I would suggest thinking about "continents" and some kind of travel ... african solitaire, south american inca match 3, european hidden objects, asian whatever... Countries provide enough potential to make nice themes - and they should not be that specific like genre themings (scifi). I know that fairy tales are often used: but what about the national differing "heros" in that tales. Eg. "Jack Frost" is no youngster in Eastern Europe but an equivalent to the diminutive of "father Frost". I assume there are plenty of tales to tell - not loosing their fascination but bringing in new aspects to well known stories. bye Ron |
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| Derron: All been done. All time periods been done too pretty much. Like almost everything has bee match-3-ified :-) |
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| Nah, I have few more ideas for match3s ;-) The problem about continents is the language and the culture. Something that will make french people "resonate" will be totally ignored by britishes or germans. The whole european continent is a market but each countries are quite small markets. It could be extremly interresting to find a way to go on indian or china markets but I guess it requires to well knows the culture and of course have links with the distributors. On the production side, russian teams are dominating the casual market which can be 'feel' thru their picture's style but they made great efforts to mimic the way of thinking of USA peoples about storylines. I am surprised that there seem to be not much china productions on the eastern market, I wonder if its a question of culture (products are too different) or a kind of protectionism from the distributors, because I see no reason why china/japan/indian devellopers would not be able to make nice match3, solitaires, TM... I should not write that, maybe its a matter of days ;-) |
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| There's other early franchises that had their copyrights expire and are now in the public domain: the original Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, etc. |
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| I agree that there are many things done ... but "all been done" just shows that you know/played many games but might not have spend enough time to brainstorm about ideas (yet in that moment). I understand that "women in the 30-70" have a limited area of themes/gameplays they accept, so they wont like a solitaire game which enforces you to win to bring your rebellion forward against a enemy nations myrmidon (war scenery). Maybe a title like "Lara Laboratory" sounds nice for a laboratory/chemical-themed match3 with plenty of ideas for metagames might find some fans (albeit I doubt match3 to be that success nowerdays - there are plenty of them and I do not understand why I should own some dozens of them :p). I do not know how well "unwell mel" (you said it was some kind of "serious" themed) run in the past .. but maybe women would like to see some more serious themes/settings than just "uber-cuteness". Maybe a game about a children's home in the late 19th century, British ... "Save a pence". So the player has to help some children versus the draconic director. In a French themed setting you could play with the tourism at the Eiffel tower, there shouldn't be someone offended. Another "french" themed thing is "Louvre"->Art->Thieves/... maybe some humorous story about a couple of thieves (or to attract more women: mother and daughter thieves). Such things have of course enough potential of minigames. American themed things - if you are not afraid of being an "anti-native-people"-developer - is the North American settings of the the pilgrim fathers. I think women "enjoy" stories about women gaining power in different styles (political, in marriage, ...). Maybe a game about the "survival of the fittest" centered around a family which lost the father? I do not know if above ideas are already used in commercial "successful" apps as I just tried to think a bit about it (while typing, so no deep thoughts). Even if they are used somewhere - just think further and expand ideas until you reach something new ... french thieves already exist? Why not expand into smugglering? I can assume that women would like to play a clever but sometimes bad-ass young female ruling over her myrmidons and outsmarting the police from time to time. @Pingus Sorry for derailing the thread. If someone whishes to publically talk about game themes / ideas / ... we could start a new topic for it. bye Ron |
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| you could play with the tourism at the Eiffel tower, there shouldn't be someone offended. Tourism is a great theme for a casual game. Even if it's a match-3, something with an educational subtext about novel places to travel to (not just the famous landmarks) would be very fun to play or develop. |
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| Also explorations might be a nice theming: The exploration of the Poles, the Mount Everest. Even the exploration of medicine could be a nice setting (if you are afraid of "realism", invent something... like the "Themse Fever" and vibrant colored potions). Can imagine women like to play games in which a woman starts to jump into a man's domain (hope this translates well into English :p). @Asian market I assume Asians just play other games, they often like things to be even more vibrant, crazy, jelly-belly, ... - but this might be a cliche. But I am quite sure they would not like a game about the "crazy samurai" clicking around some asian symbols in a match 3 game - even if some European/US-American players might play such an odd thing. bye Ron |
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| I'm kidding it's not really all been done, but of course I have looked at almost all the match-3 games on BFG (and a *lot* of other casual games in different genres) and brainstormed themes many times over the years. You have to pick a theme which hasn't been done before (or not often) but will appeal to a wide range of people. Many themes haven't been done for good reasons. Also I personally would prefer to pick a theme that I'm interested in and have some knowledge about so that I can make it feel more rich and detailed, which is what we did with Regency Solitaire. Then you actually have to deliver a quality game with the theme. |
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| Good ideas there, Ron. I guess it would worth a thread in General discussion. One important point to me about the themes is that they must be a good pretext of making nice and varied pictures. Some themes are better than others considering this. |
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| And of course also game objects. Like say you did a French one, maybe you'd run out of game objects/bonuses ideas too soon? People say to me I should make a sequel to Spooky Bonus but I spent a long time thinking up the perfect objects to use as game pieces and powerups (and house decorations), and so I don't think I could make a sequel as I've used up all the good ideas, and it would be worse. I could cash in and do that but I don't want to. I need to be inspired to stay motivated. |
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| There is way more than croissants, baguette, pantomime actors and wine in France. There is their landscape, their celebrity-locations, art museums, la boheme, ... many things which on their own open up different sub-subjects and "gameobjects". But you are right, there are surely "themes" not having that much variety, but then you just use this themes for games which do not need that much different objects (eg. a match3 seems to need base stones and powerups - the meta games could then use variations the basics - like a 5x5 puzzle of a closeup of an basic item). In all cases the most important aspect is: you should have fun thinking about the theme, it should in no case just be a product of hard work (just because you want another theme than others). @Sequels Instead of reusing a "spooky house" the paranomal activity could happen at another location, so not a "remake" but a real sequel. In that case decorations will change, other bonus games will fit into the new location (whack-a-mole-grave-digger :p). But as said above: you are right that this does not work well for all scenarios - I just wanted to express that there are often plenty of options to choose, we just have to look long enough. bye Ron |
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