[Coda]

I'm working on adding touchscreen controls right now. I'll post again when it's done.

[Coda]

Touch screen controls!

[Lawtan]

Originally Posted by Vincent

Tis on the first page lawman. x3

*headdesks excessively* Sorry...

[Vincent]

@ Coda ;
did you just seriously do it that fast? XD dam.

@ Lawman ;
pf it's okay. you're human o_o; -petpet-

[Coda]

That fast? I thought I was taking my time. XD It only took me an hour or so of actual work, and most of that was tinkering with the graphics.

[Vincent]

xD Oh. Well still that's pretty good.

I just mean, I saw you post 'adding touch screen controls, will post when done'
then immediately below that
'done'
XD

[Coda]

I've done some heavy-duty code cleanup. It shouldn't really make a difference to performance (it might actually perform slightly worse but not enough to actually notice), but the code is nicer now.

I also added a Pause button -- press escape. It'll also automatically pause the game if it lags too much, because this probably means you left the window.

And then I also added high score persistence -- if you're in a browser that supports it, it'll remember your high score across pageviews.

[zosa]

would any of these games ever be implemented here?

[Coda]

Welllllll... you can play any of them from links I posted here, does that count? XD

In more seriousness, I do have games for Trisphee in the works, but none of the games I've linked here are really good for hooking in with the Pandora Tokens. It would be too hard to make sure that they're fair, well-balanced, resistant to cheating, and have a good prize structure.

Cheat Resistance: The crane game is cheat-resistant; at best, a cheater who knows what he's doing could potentially skip the process of actually using the crane, but he wouldn't be able to get any better rewards than anyone else. If I were to style up Gravity Runner, Invader, or Shells in such a way that it fit the Trisphee style, though, there would be no way for the server to tell the difference between a really good player and a cheater. (Also Shells would be legally problematic because I don't actually own the commercial rights to that particular piece of code since I wrote it for hire.)

Balance and Fairness: I could make Same Game and Lights Out cheat resistant without TOO much difficulty. But would they actually be fair and balanced? I don't think so. Lights Out isn't balanced; some puzzles are way easier than others. I can't even solve some of them and I wrote it so I KNOW that there's always a solution. And Same Game isn't fair -- not every initial board configuration is solvable, and the maximum possible score varies rather widely from board to board even if you could have perfect play.

Prize Structure: It's also hard to derive ways to give prizes to players that's reasonable. The Crane Game is a good example of the RIGHT way to do it. You know what the prizes are before you spend a Pandora Token, and the prizes are worth the price of admission but not worth TOO much. If we added another game we'd want to make sure that the prizes are good enough that you would WANT to play the game, but not TOO good or else no one would ever play the Crane Game anymore. I honestly can't think of a way to give out prizes for Lights Out or Same Game that would make them feel like they're worth playing, except to give out aurum based on your score in Same Game and that would be TOO good compared to the Crane Game. (I CAN think of how to do it for Gravity Runner and Invader, but I've already established that those games wouldn't work for other reasons.)

Now, this isn't all doom-and-gloom here. I actually DO have ideas for games that would actually be able to address all of these requirements. I've got the writers working on one already.

I've got two other Trisphee games in the works as well, but neither of them would be played with Pandora Tokens so they're under a different set of needs. They still have to be fair, balanced, cheat-resistant, and have good prize payouts, but they don't have to be balanced for playing with limited resources.

[zosa]

well would it work if instead of giving scaling prizes you just got a single prize for playing to completion or playing by stage? then it does not mater if you did well or not as long as you play?

[Coda]

That becomes better than the Crane Game at that point -- who would want to play anything else if you could just put in your token, die without even trying, and get a prize? At that point it's not even a game, it's just a gashapon machine.

Or from a different perspective, it's worse -- who would want to play if you don't have any control or foreknowledge of the prize you might win, when you could just play the Crane Game and pick the one you like best or not even spend your Pandora Token at all and come back later when the prize selection has changed.

That's the kind of balance stuff that we try to keep in mind while we're working.

[zosa]

i did not say die i said to completion, that means succeed

who wants to play more than once or twice when you already know what all the prizes are without playing?

[Lawtan]

I will say, Zosa has a potential point...hmm...

[zosa]

XD thanks. i know i play switchem on gaia and i dont mind that i dont know what the prize is or that the prizes are only won by surviving to certain levels, it is fun to be surprised

[Coda]

The crane game is still random -- the prizes change up randomly every hour. But since Pandora Tokens are a limited resource (you only get three per day) we want to make sure that they're worth spending, and that every game is EQUALLY worth spending them on.

I do apologize about misinterpreting what you meant by "completion" -- for games like Gravity Runner where you play until you die, dying IS completion.

The mechanism I was seeing for Gravity Runner was to show a list of possible prizes before you start the game, then give you three lives with which to collect them from where they've been scattered in the level, then you get to pick one of the ones you picked up to keep at the end. This would be fair, it would work, and it would reward skillful play, especially if the higher-value items were held to where they wouldn't show up until later. But as I had mentioned, it's impossible to make a game like Gravity Runner uncheatable. You literally only have to type one command into your web browser to turn gravity off and then you'd hover at the top edge of the screen eternally. Alternatively, one command and the game tells the server that you got a score of two million points without ever having to play. I could make it more complicated, but it won't stop cheaters. (It is for this reason that I refuse to even implement so much as a leaderboard. It WOULD get hacked.)

The same thing would be true of Invader -- destroying enemy ships could cause item balls to drop, and you have to shoot them or collect them to win the prize. But Invader likewise could easily be cheated.

... actually, I suppose I did just think of a way that Invader and/or Gravity Runner could be done to make cheating no more of an issue than it is in the Crane Game... I can't keep cheaters from cheating, but I CAN make it to where cheating doesn't give you much advantage.

... hm. Now I have to think about this.

[zosa]

i am glad our conversation has given you ideas~ you should share any good ones you come up with