Arcen Games

General Category => Tidalis => : RCIX April 16, 2010, 04:11:26 AM

: Official Praise Thread
: RCIX April 16, 2010, 04:11:26 AM
I gotta say, This game is great. It's really fun, very good even in beta, and with any luck it will be the next Bejeweled! It's also got great little touches like right clicking dimming out other color blocks (by far better than mentally tuning into a color I'm looking for), and promises to be one of my best puzzle acquisitions for a long time to come.

Feel free to quote me on this X, and to others, let's keep the praise in one thread so as not to skew the new forum's content (or something) :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 April 16, 2010, 11:07:03 AM
Thanks, RCIX!  I've stickied this topic, as you were essentially suggesting.  And I've also added your comment to the Press and Player Reactions page.  As others comment, if they're willing I will include some of those there, too.  Bear in mind that I'm not soliciting fake praise, all. 

I won't be able to use all quotes on the main press page simply because 1) often I don't have time to update the site real frequently when we're in the middle of a beta, and more importantly, 2) typically I try to keep the press page from getting too ridiculously long, which means that I'll skip some quotes that are touching on points that I feel have already been adequately covered on that press page.  It's never anything personal -- and, even if your quote is repetitive, we really appreciate any comments you care to leave in this thread, since people will be looking at this as much as the press page, over time, I'm sure!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: RCIX April 16, 2010, 04:59:20 PM
Makes sense! :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: The 9th Sage April 20, 2010, 12:28:41 PM
I might as well join in...Lars got me playing the game the other night, and it's really pretty awesome, I have to say.  Very addicting, like the better puzzle games seem to be.  The game mechanics (what with the spark and the arrowed blocks) is pretty interesting.  I know I have something good when I accidentally play it for several hours straight. :P
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 April 20, 2010, 01:00:02 PM
Thanks for the quote, The 9th Sage!  That last line makes a great addition for the player quotes section. :)  Glad you're enjoying it!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: The 9th Sage April 20, 2010, 11:47:14 PM
Thanks for the quote, The 9th Sage!  That last line makes a great addition for the player quotes section. :)  Glad you're enjoying it!

Maybe I should rephrase it to make more sense. ;)  I guess you understood what I meant though. lol
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 April 21, 2010, 09:38:41 AM
Nah, it was great. :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Fiskbit April 21, 2010, 09:58:53 AM
That's definitely encouraging to hear, Ian. Glad you're losing so much time to the game. :) I can't wait to see what puzzles you wind up making. I expect something good! ;)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: KingIsaacLinksr May 17, 2010, 01:21:56 AM
While I don't like "bumping" other people's stuff, here is the link to my blog post about Tidalis and my thoughts about this project. 

http://kingisaaclinksr.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/tidalis/

Enjoy!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Fiskbit May 17, 2010, 04:19:26 AM
Wow, that's a really great review and I'm thrilled you're having such a good time with the game. I think it's really unfortunate how much people generally seem to see the puzzle genre as being really stale and as little more than Tetris or Bejeweled clones, so I'm really glad to be playing a role in making something that differs from those in important and enjoyable ways. I think there's a lot of room for innovation in this genre, but it's very difficult to come up with fun, unique ideas. All too often you get something that is fun or unique, but not both, and in the cases where you do manage to achieve both of those, this is a genre where it's so easy to be overlooked because it's such an oversaturated market. There's definitely a trend toward cookie-cutter design with these games because that's easy and can pay off while finding a fun, unique game mechanic isn't easy and often doesn't pay off (I can name quite a few fantastic puzzle games no one's ever heard of that surely completely failed at market).

Regarding your issue with apparent slowdown on the adventure map, I believe that may be related to an issue with the Windows version that causes animation speeds to be twice as fast when the cursor is moving. This was very apparent with things like clouds, since they doubled in speed when moving the cursor. It's largely fixed in the latest release, but still appears in a couple places that should be fixed sometime soon, I'm sure. As for higher resolutions, the issue with that is that the background artwork is only so large, so any higher resolutions would require scaling things up or having a lot of dead space around the background. I'll let Chris speak more on that later (since there's probably more to say about it), but I think there are also some other posts about this on the forums somewhere.

Thanks for taking the time to type out your thoughts!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 May 17, 2010, 12:16:47 PM
Wow, yes, thanks for the early review!  I've linked that on our press and player reactions page.  Lars (Fiskbit) pretty much summed up my reaction to it. :)

The issue with the slowdown on the adventure map is something that I think was fixed in the 0.411 version of the game, but if not definitely seems fixed in 0.412.  It was actually a speedup issue, not a slowdown issue, as the clouds should have been moving the slower speed the whole time.  Of course, if that doesn't seem to be the issue, then please do let us know!

Regarding the larger resolutions, we'll have to go to letterboxing, and that's definitely something on our list for the "polish" phase.  It won't let the backgrounds scale up, or anything of that sort, because there simply isn't anything more to show there (background image wise, etc).  But I think we can work around that so that if you have, for example, a 1280x1024 resolution native, you can see the game in 1280x768 with just some black bars at the top and bottom, and thus at full crispness.  For people on larger resolutions than that, the letterboxing would get even more severe and I'd suggest using a smaller resolution to upscale the game unless things still are legible based on monitor size, etc.  At least that should improve the number of options people have display-wise, when we hit that stage!

Thanks again for taking the time to write that, as Lars said!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: KingIsaacLinksr May 17, 2010, 12:54:44 PM
Thanks for the replies.  I had a feeling that increasing the resolution size probably wasn't fully doable on the game as you had it.  It was only a minor gripe as I have 2 22" monitors so I have up to 1680X1050 that I can achieve.  Its no big issue.  If you can make it bigger, great.  If not, no big deal.  Not all games can hit that high.  As for the slow-down or speed up, I just checked this morning and I could not replicate the issue.  So I guess you did fix it.  :)

As per the Puzzle genre being dead.  I agree with Lars on it.  Most of the time, games released for the genre are pretty quiet in the big scheme of things.  You don't often hear raving reviews of the newest puzzle games through. However, I am also not a big fan of the genre so puzzle games do not often catch my attention.  Probably the only reason Tidalis caught my attention was Ai War and the video you linked on Tidalis via Twitter some time ago.  It also helped that the BETA had a free trial version of it.  

And your welcome :D
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 May 17, 2010, 02:07:48 PM
Many thanks again!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: vonduus June 26, 2010, 04:26:52 PM
I gave the demo a try, and, well, this isn't my kind of game. But I know a little girl who will just love it.

I really liked the music, though.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 June 26, 2010, 04:40:39 PM
Glad you like the music, at any rate! :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Fiskbit June 26, 2010, 05:54:13 PM
vonduus: If you don't mind my asking, what did you try in the demo? I'm really curious about this; it would be helpful to find out more about how people are playing the demo given how much different content is in it.

Thanks! :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: vonduus June 26, 2010, 08:26:25 PM
Hi Lars

I did the tutorial, and then I tried adventure mode. I wasn't able to solve the first puzzle right away, so I quit, and tried a quick game.  I couldn't solve that either. Or probably I could, if I gave it a little thought, but as I wrote earlier, this isn't really my kind of game, I want blood and gore to make strategic decisions on a grand scale  ::), so I just quit after ten minutes and fired up under aiwar instead.

I used to be very much into abstract logical puzzles, I played a lot of Tetris on my son's Gameboy. A bit too much, actually. But I believe I can recognize a good puzzle game, when I see one, and there is no doubt in my mind that Tidalis is one of them. The graphics are very, very cool, the music is extraordinarily cool, and I guess the storyline is cool too, I must admit that I didn't pay attention, because I knew the game was a logical (or rather geometrical) puzzle, so the story was irrelevant to me, as I just wanted to see how it played. And it plays very well, the interface is brillant in its simplicity, only problem is,  the whole thing reminds me of Tetris (on the tactical level), and Mahjong/Shanghai (on the operational level), both of them games that I have played so intensively that I am now quite fed up with the whole puzzle genre. But this says more about me than it says about Tidalis. That's why I mentioned my granddaughter, she is 11 years old, she does not know Tetris (afaik) and she just loves puzzles. So I'll buy the game as a birthday present for her some time in october. (I do what I can to introduce the kids I know to quality software). And I am pretty sure her mother will play it, too. My son is like me: too much Tetris :)

: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Fiskbit June 26, 2010, 09:35:11 PM
That's really informative; thanks a ton for the feedback. The Tetris burnout you mentioned is pretty interesting; hadn't heard that before, but it's certainly reasonable. :)

Out of curiosity, did you only try adventure and quick game, or did you also try some of the puzzles? I couldn't quite figure that out from your post. The former two are all based on having blocks fall from the top, while the latter is based on clearing a collection of blocks and plays very differently. One of the things we were discussing when getting the demo together was how to get players to the different kinds of content, since the game has so much variety in the gameplay where different variations appeal to different people. I'm not sure if this is something we've been totally successful in doing, but it's hard to gauge.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: vonduus June 26, 2010, 10:07:13 PM
Well, it didn't get through to me, I only played adventure and quick. I thought that what I played was the puzzles. But as I said, I didn't really pay attention much.

It is getting very late in this part of the world, so I'll give the game another try tomorrow. But perhaps you should emphasize some more that there are several play modes. Like, if I try to quit, put up a screen saying something like: Do you know that you can also play the game in x-mode, y-mode and z-mode? If the game had said to me: Do you know, that you can play Tidalis with a friend in co-op mode? - then I would surely have checked this out before quitting.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Fiskbit June 26, 2010, 11:17:00 PM
Awesome, that's great. We'll definitely have some more discussion on how to make this clear to users. This game differs pretty heavily from most puzzle games by having such a wide variety of features and play styles (it's a bit like AI War in that regard ;)). The modes can be polarizing. A lot of my friends exclusively like the puzzle mode, where they can sit and think and experiment with a set of blocks to try to clear them all in one move without any time pressure or randomization getting in their way. The more standard falling-block segments like in the adventure mode don't appeal to them much at all. Meanwhile, a lot of other people just like the falling block segments; the puzzle modes can get way too intricate and complicated for many. With Zen mode, the game can also play a bit more like a search game of the sort that Bejeweled is, which works well for the casual crowd.

Anyway, thanks! Hopefully we can make the demo more informative. :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Deme July 09, 2010, 06:29:36 AM
I really like the volcano song, I played it for 2 hours straight  :P
also I am a cat
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 09, 2010, 09:43:54 AM
I really like the volcano song, I played it for 2 hours straight  :P
also I am a cat

I think that has to be my favorite, too. But I'm not a cat. ;)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 14, 2010, 04:02:43 PM
Pretty great user review that came up in my Google Alerts the other day: http://divingbell.aimoo.com/category/Tidalis-Beta-out-now-1-335513.html
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: rubikscube July 16, 2010, 04:28:23 PM
We have been waiting for this day for a long time and surprised that no one said much yet

I was really amazed about the GIGANTIC PICTURE IN THE steam's "news" department, that was AWESOME
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 16, 2010, 04:37:14 PM
News posts are coming!  I'm just running a bit behind, there's a lot going on.  But we're really excited to have this finally releasing!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Thud13 July 16, 2010, 05:17:50 PM
Is this the first review?

http://www.gamersdailynews.com/article-2510-Tidalis-Review-PC-Mac.html


9.0 guys.... X, congrats on a very successful and quality game company :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 16, 2010, 05:52:55 PM
Indeed, looks to be the first of many for the finished game.  Very exciting!  Thanks again for the well wishes and congrats, everybody here is really excited about the release. :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: TheMachineIsSentient July 16, 2010, 06:20:45 PM
Has just been released on steam, and I have purchased it. Finally! Thanks guys for making it happen at steam.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 16, 2010, 06:23:22 PM
You bet!  And thanks so much for your support!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: RCIX July 16, 2010, 07:37:33 PM
I just took a look at it on steam, and however good it looked when i started this thread, it looks 10 times better than that now! One small note: the very end of the first trailer video, maybe it's just me, but it seems a little cheesy ::)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 16, 2010, 07:51:14 PM
Thanks!  Glad you're enjoying it so well, it definitely has improved a ton.

Maybe it's not clear until you play a significant portion of the adventure mode (and just look at my quote for example), but the ending to that second trailer is extremely sarcastic.  :P

It's funnier once you've played more of the adventure.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: RCIX July 16, 2010, 09:45:53 PM
I'll definitely have to play it more then! just waiting for the key activation thing to work with steam.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Huw July 18, 2010, 05:28:02 AM
Hi Chris!  It's been a while since I've been around here.  Just dropped by to say congratulations on the release of Tidalis!  Puzzle games aren't for me but I've downloaded it for my girlfriend who's a puzzles fiend.  I've no doubt that as soon as she's tried it I will be instructed to buy a key.  I noticed a nice piece on RPS about it too.  So congratulations again, I hope that you get all the success you so richly deserve! :)

(And, my God man, take a damn holiday!)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Admiral July 18, 2010, 07:27:03 AM
Another extremely polished release by the small team at Arcen. Excellent first Mac release as well. Well done!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Hertston July 18, 2010, 06:46:02 PM
Well, I don't (usually) 'do' puzzle games; I bought Tidalis partly because the Mrs might like it but mostly, as a big AI War fan and wanting more of it, to support Arcen.  Buy... I CAN'T STOP PLAYING THIS!  Great stuff.. most addictive game I've played since Torchlight.   Can't argue with the price, either.   :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Fiskbit July 18, 2010, 07:11:25 PM
Heh, I've already heard "I don't do puzzle games" a lot from people, but those who've tried it have generally liked it a lot, which is really satisfying. :) Glad you're having such a good time with it!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Martoon July 18, 2010, 10:34:34 PM
My long-distance girlfriend and I love the online co-op.  Gives us something to do while we talk on the phone.

The Turing test I had to pass while registering for these forums was also a fun little quiz.  ;)  Can't say I'm a fan of the password rules, though (every other character must be a digit, no letters that coincide with the letters in the name of the current month, hold one hand behind your back and one eye closed while typing password, etc.).  No way I'll remember my password if I ever clear my browser cookies.  :P
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 19, 2010, 12:02:48 PM
Hey all!

Thanks again for the support.  Huw and Admiral, it's been great to see you again, it's been a while.  Huw, I'm actually on holiday at the moment (took a week for right after Tidalis came out), but of course it's sort of a working holiday, as far as that sort of thing goes. ;)

Glad everyone is enjoying the game, or finding it something that their Significant Other might enjoy.  It's definitely addictive, that's for sure. :)

Best,
Chris
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: vonduus July 19, 2010, 05:39:36 PM
I gave the game yet another try, but... Let my say it this way: Natural calculus and first order logic is also very interesting, I did a lot of formal brainteasers in my university days, but now I am a lot more into applied logic, Clausewitz style.

On the other hand, I told a few people about Tidalis, and those who actually tried the demo are all very excited about it. It seems it has this addictiveness built into it, where ppl wants to play just one more game, and after that just one more etc. for hours. So when the word gets around...

And congratulations with the reviews and all the attention you have got so far, it seems Tidalis gets coverage almost everywhere on the internet, at least those places that I visit. I believe you have hit a gold mine with this game.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 19, 2010, 05:44:06 PM
Many thanks for the feedback and the kind words!  It's not hitting the big-time quite yet, but it's definitely off to a promising start, and from the look of things it does have an addictive quality (as I sit here on vacation typing this, my wife, my sister, and my sister's boyfriend all have their laptops out, playing the game, heh) and it looks to do well with the press.  Fingers crossed!  That said, it's just a given that not everyone is going to be into every game, and we really don't take any offense at that.  Most people wouldn't have even given it such a large try, so there's really not anything more that we could possibly ask for than that!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Deb July 20, 2010, 08:15:46 AM
I'm loving it, but it does make my (admittedly small) brain hurt a bit. :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 20, 2010, 09:43:45 AM
Don't worry, I can't do most of the brainteasers, either. :) my brain just doesn't work that way most of the time. But I love the action modes. Thanks for your support, and glad you're enjoying the game so well!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: regnared July 21, 2010, 04:22:41 PM
From ModDB/IndieDB Tidalis Page comments :

criverbulldog 14hours 5mins ago says: New Comment

Played for an hour and a half today. The game is polished. It's very nifty how it works as a strategic turn-based puzzle and as an intense high-speed block dropping game, just by switching the game type. The random game types I tried were fun (especially the one where the water is rising and you have to drop sponges down to soak it up). Liked the art/music, too.

Vlidi Jun 25 2010, 2:30pm says:

It's really amazing. If someone told me that a genre so used in puzzle game could have been so much revigored, I would'nt have believed it. Arcen Games done it, apparently ! I can't wait for the full release !


Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice.  8)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 21, 2010, 04:36:40 PM
Very cool!  :D
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: CautiousChaos July 21, 2010, 09:32:02 PM
x4000,

I just caught the review at out of eight - a perfect 8/8 score.  This is one of the review sites that I really have confidence in as the author focuses on a wide range of titles and is fair and comprehensive in the write-ups.  After eight was what got me hooked on the 8/8 Dominions 3 title (which is just way cool and bizarrely complex, but way cool). 

When I saw that Tidalis received 8/8 I was both confident that my enjoyment of the title was legit and happy to see that you guys are getting critically strong praise.

Congratulations to you and your team!

-cc
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 21, 2010, 10:15:14 PM
cc, you'd better believe we were jazzed about that particular review, also.  That's one of the reviewers that the staff most reads, for the reasons you mention, and we view him as a really fair broker.  So it was really great to hear what he had to say, especially given what he had to say.  ;D

It's practically criminal that he's not considered by MetaCritic, but it's possible he simply just doesn't review enough of the mainstream games or something.  Ah, well.  And I say that not just because he reviewed us well on this one.

Many thanks for the congrats, the well wishes, and your enthusiasm for the game! :)

Chris
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: keith.lamothe July 22, 2010, 12:21:24 PM
Yea, the Out of Eight review made me really happy.  He's been doing those reviews (on that website) since 2005 and if I'm counting right has done a total of 646 reviews, and Tidalis is the 29th game to earn the honor of an 8/8 score.  So if statistics mean anything that puts it in the top 4.5% of all games ever, right? ;)

And Dominions 3 is an awesome game; really niche but really cool.  Of course, I've still only played the demo and read some LP's here, it's pretty expensive ;)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: SmileyFace July 23, 2010, 12:47:46 PM
Just to chip in: What a high quality game! I'm very impressed.

I am maybe 15 or 20 levels in and really enjoying it so far. Even the cut scenes are fun and worth watching :) It's nice to see a game that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Gameplay wise, this is a gem. I think that calling it a "match 3" game doesn't do it justice, because the game is much deeper. In story mode at least, new mechanics are introduced at a good pace so there is always something new to learn or to revisit and master.

There are some minor issues (erratic difficulty & graphic glitches) but overall this feels like a very polished game. I haven't enjoyed a matching puzzle game this much since, hmm, Puzzle Quest? PQ was an innovative title, imo, yet I think I'm going to get even more play time and enjoyment out of Tidalis.

Good work!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: keith.lamothe July 24, 2010, 06:35:42 AM
Yea, lots of people are struggling with the term "match-3" on this title.  Arcen staff in particular ;)  We (or at least Chris and myself) really hate to see the words "Tidalis" and "Match-3" put together like that because of the connotations of that sub-genre... but I can see why it's kind of unavoidable even for perfect-score reviews to call it that because, well, your basic starting point for making stuff happen is matching 3+ blocks of the same color :)  But it's so different because that's really just the basic starting point, and the variety of stuff you can do with that runs into the simply ludicrous quantities.

I don't think there's any one slogan that could "fit" the game (though James Allen might have been onto one), but "See?  Match Three Doesn't Have To Suck."  might be one; or rather that it can be awesome :)

: Re: Official Praise Thread
: SmileyFace July 27, 2010, 08:24:30 AM
I thought it might be worthwhile to post some praise on the Steam forums, too:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1381551 (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1381551)

Tried to cover everything I like about Tidalis.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: keith.lamothe July 27, 2010, 09:12:20 AM
Thanks for posting that, and I think you covered it pretty well considering the small space :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 27, 2010, 09:23:35 AM
Indeed, many thanks! We definitely needed something like that on the steam side. :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: dumpsterKEEPER July 28, 2010, 04:39:10 PM
You might have already noticed, but you got a very nice writeup for Tidalis over on Dubious Quality: http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2010/07/tidalis.html
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: keith.lamothe July 28, 2010, 04:44:23 PM
That is a very positive review, thanks :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: KingIsaacLinksr July 29, 2010, 05:01:28 AM
Just linking my Blog Review Post.  http://kingisaaclinksr.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/tidalis-1-0-review/

*Shameless plug is shameless* :P

King
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 29, 2010, 10:47:41 AM
No worries, we do appreciate it, actually.  It's linked from our main press page for Tidalis (and more recently in an overall news post), so I didn't link it here. ;)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: KingIsaacLinksr July 29, 2010, 11:58:22 AM
No worries, we do appreciate it, actually.  It's linked from our main press page for Tidalis (and more recently in an overall news post), so I didn't link it here. ;)

Yeah, I saw that last night.  ty :) 

King
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 July 29, 2010, 12:22:13 PM
Of course!
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Huw August 06, 2010, 02:54:35 AM
Huw and Admiral, it's been great to see you again, it's been a while.  Huw, I'm actually on holiday at the moment (took a week for right after Tidalis came out), but of course it's sort of a working holiday, as far as that sort of thing goes. ;)

Heh.  You just can't leave things alone, eh? ;)

As predicted, by the way, I put Tidalis in front of my girlfriend, and five minutes later I was buying a key.  So now we're both Arcen Games fan...er...people!  Any extra content you release for Tidalis will be snapped up. :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: x4000 August 06, 2010, 08:27:52 AM
Many thanks! And yeah, there is more free dlc coming for her. :) It was definitely a working vacation for me, my wife was a bit annoyed. But, we had a good time and I got what needed to be done, done, so all's well that ends well.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: HackerOperJP September 06, 2010, 01:34:05 PM
After sitting down and playing Tidalis for about  20 levels and a few of the puzzles I have to say it's a good game.  It's a new type of gameplay (for me anyway) and I really enjoy it.  Those puzzles really make you think  ;)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: keith.lamothe September 06, 2010, 01:36:59 PM
Glad you're enjoying it :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Junuxx September 10, 2010, 05:31:13 AM
This is great fun!  8) Thumbs up! I'm busy checking off all the achievements with pleasure ^^

However I'd also like to report a crash I had.  I was experimenting with a setup that allows virtually unlimited depth combo's, and when I was at a combo depth of about 80, the application halted and I got the message 'Too many heap sections' after which I had to terminate the program manually. I had been playing for about 2 hours which must have influenced it because I've reached combo depths of over 250 since. Guess garbage collection has some room for improvement?

Oh and one more thing. Sometimes you have to click 'Back' four or five times before you're back at the root menu, like when you finish a custom level in the editor and need to go back to play. A 'Home' button would be very useful I think. :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: keith.lamothe September 10, 2010, 09:35:13 AM
Glad you're enjoying the game :)

And yea, if you go for an infinite-depth setup you are likely to get out-of-memory errors at some point (too many heap sections is one of those); the ones happening at 80 instead of 250+ after 2 hours of play may be due to the game holding onto other memory (the garbage collector itself is totally out of our hands), dunno.  I can take a look at some point to see if there's a better way of tracking all that intermediate data during a combo as just a summary rather than keeping all the blocks in memory, etc.  Strange that such a relatively small number of blocks would have an impact on that order of magnitude, however.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Spikey00 September 19, 2010, 07:32:22 PM
A link to the sound track needs to be reposted--my friend just got a copy of both the OSTs of Tidalis and AI War after I told him you lot had an iTunes album.   I'm sure there are others who would be interested.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Castruccio March 10, 2011, 06:18:36 PM
I am a big AI War fan and I am just now getting deep into Tidalis.  I love it so far, and I hope more AI War fans try it. 
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: abiscuit January 08, 2012, 03:27:40 PM
I'm bumping the sticky, so to speak.

I picked this game up during the Steam Winter Sale and I don't know why it took me this long to discover this game.  This game is deep, fun, and incredibly addictive.  I'll easily put Tidalis in the same breath as Tetris Attack and Meteos as my favorite puzzle games ever.  Soundtrack is amazing too, I'd like to get my hands on that if possible.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: keith.lamothe January 09, 2012, 10:34:33 AM
I'm bumping the sticky, so to speak.

I picked this game up during the Steam Winter Sale and I don't know why it took me this long to discover this game.  This game is deep, fun, and incredibly addictive.  I'll easily put Tidalis in the same breath as Tetris Attack and Meteos as my favorite puzzle games ever.  Soundtrack is amazing too, I'd like to get my hands on that if possible.
Very glad to hear you're enjoying it :)  Financially Tidalis was... a learning experience, let's say.  But the game itself is really quite good :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Stx11 July 19, 2012, 03:27:55 AM
Tidalis has to be one of the most hidden, unknown, under-appreciated games in the known galaxy!!!

I've played it every day since I picked it up and got 3 copies for friends as Steam Gifts.

I've thoroughly enjoyed every moment while playing it and am very sad to see it has never gotten the exposure or recognition it deserves  :(
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: keith.lamothe July 19, 2012, 10:34:23 AM
We tried :)

It's had a few daily deals and whatnot on steam, and there's quite a few purchased copies out there from that.  But yea, not widely known ;)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Oralordos July 19, 2012, 11:28:13 AM
I just got it the other day. I find myself becoming distracted by the music instead of playing far too often for my liking.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Mánagarmr July 19, 2012, 04:26:57 PM
The music is indeed absolutely awesome.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: miss_madmandy August 29, 2013, 03:03:59 PM
This is by far the best game I've ever played and one that I've wanted to see through to the end so thanks so much for making this lady very happy  :D Keep up the good work and am grateful for giving Tidalis the chance  :)
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: OneMoreNameless September 06, 2013, 01:26:21 AM
I normally can't stand playing match 3 games for more than a few minutes.

I can only imagine how many times you've heard that opener, but there it is. This game is stupidly more varied and interesting to play than pretty much any other uninspired quote-unquote puzzle game I've tried before. And it manages this with the simplest of rules, all introduced through clear tutorials or at an engaging pace through the impressive adventure mode. Then throws in a generous helping of brainteasers to cleverly demonstrate and familiarise the advanced tricks in a focused, calmer environment. I mean, insomuch as any part of the game can be considered less than perfectly calm given the delightful graphics and wonderfully relaxing audio.

In conclusion, to heck with my opening statement and I am somewhat surprised that I haven't sneakily taken a break from writing this post to play a few minutes of Tidalis. By the way, did anyone ever finish any new adventures using the editor? Because if not, I volunteer to (probably) design some sort of remix campaign once I (eventually) finish the standard adventure.
: Re: Official Praise Thread
: Fiskbit September 06, 2013, 03:40:46 AM
I'm really glad to read that people are still coming across this game and enjoying it so much. Thanks for the posts!

To my knowledge, no one outside of Arcen ever used the editors for more than a handful of puzzles (we got a few around the time the game released) and to help get achievements (one achievement actually requires a custom puzzle). These are the same editors we used to make the game, so they're fully-featured. If you make a new adventure, I'd love to play through it!