Author Topic: Tidalis Inspiration  (Read 6491 times)

Offline Echo35

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Tidalis Inspiration
« on: January 18, 2011, 12:31:07 am »
I was just curious as to what games you guys may have drawn ideas from when making Tidalis. I'm a huge puzzle game fan, so a lot of the stuff in Tidalis, I've seen in a lot of other games (I don't know why, but Puzznic and Magical Drop always come to mind), so I was just curious as to what puzzle games you guys play/drew inspiration from?

Offline x4000

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2011, 12:33:15 am »
Well, Panel de Pon / Tetris Attack / Planet Puzzle League was one obvious inspiration, and a personal favorite of mine and Lars.  Lars has a whole list of more obscure puzzle games that I know he drew some inspiration from.

In terms of the adventure mode, we drew some inspiration from Luxor, Puzzle Quest, and a few others that I don't remember the names of (but which others liked).  In a lot of cases, we were sort of lampooning those, while keeping their overall structure of a map + progression.
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Offline Echo35

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2011, 01:52:10 am »
I do rather love Planet Puzzle League and Puzzle Quest, though Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is probably my favorite Adventure/Story type Puzzle Game. I can't say I've played Panel de Pon.

EDIT: Now I've played it. Oh the glory of modern technology. ;D
« Last Edit: January 18, 2011, 01:58:26 am by Echo35 »

Offline x4000

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2011, 01:58:43 am »
Panel de pon is just the Japanese name for the original versions of Planet Puzzle League, actually.

I enjoyed M&M:CoH, but I thought it got kind of repetitive too fast.  I didn't like starting over with a new hero repeatedly, etc.  However, the core mechanics and ideas there were really superb, and the execution on the story and art was a cut above most fantasy games, let alone puzzle games.  Definitely a good one.
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Offline Echo35

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2011, 02:11:01 am »
Panel de pon is just the Japanese name for the original versions of Planet Puzzle League, actually.

I enjoyed M&M:CoH, but I thought it got kind of repetitive too fast.  I didn't like starting over with a new hero repeatedly, etc.  However, the core mechanics and ideas there were really superb, and the execution on the story and art was a cut above most fantasy games, let alone puzzle games.  Definitely a good one.

Oh, I've only actually played the DS one, I just, ahem, obtained the Super Famicom one.

I do agree with MM:CoH getting a little grindy, but I spent probably 75% of my time playing that game in Multiplayer Mode. Fiona + Skeleton Cloak (I think that's what it's called) is horrifying and fun.

Offline x4000

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2011, 02:17:29 am »
Cool.  I never did get to do multiplayer with that.  I grew up on Tetris Attack on the SNES as a real mainstay at the same time I was playing GoldenEye 007 religiously.  I had played Tetris and stuff before that, and lots of various puzzle games on the 2600, but never really loved a puzzle game until TA. 

PPL on the DS, by contrast... I guess I just couldn't get into it the same way.  It was more featureful and it is really nice to have it on a modern (and handheld) system, though.  Until about a year ago my SNES and NES were still hooked up to my TV, but now they're in climate controlled storage. :(
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Offline Echo35

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2011, 09:13:56 pm »
Cool.  I never did get to do multiplayer with that.  I grew up on Tetris Attack on the SNES as a real mainstay at the same time I was playing GoldenEye 007 religiously.  I had played Tetris and stuff before that, and lots of various puzzle games on the 2600, but never really loved a puzzle game until TA. 

Oh man, I had Tetris Attack on my Game Boy. Didn't like it as much as Tetris but that didn't stop me from playing the hell out of it. Tetris is definitely one of my favorites as far as puzzle games go.

PPL on the DS, by contrast... I guess I just couldn't get into it the same way.  It was more featureful and it is really nice to have it on a modern (and handheld) system, though.

Modern system you say? http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/retro-gaming/bfc7/ ;D
I got one of those for Christmas. Seeing as how impulsive of a gamer as I am, it was probably a bad decision as far as that whole College thing goes.

Until about a year ago my SNES and NES were still hooked up to my TV, but now they're in climate controlled storage. :(

Yeah, I sadly don't have mine anymore but I have turned into a bit of a retro gaming collector recently. Picking up a Turbo Grafix 16 and an Amiga A500 in the near future ><

Offline x4000

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2011, 09:15:05 pm »
Nice!
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Offline Fiskbit

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #8 on: January 19, 2011, 06:19:10 am »
I was just curious as to what games you guys may have drawn ideas from when making Tidalis. I'm a huge puzzle game fan, so a lot of the stuff in Tidalis, I've seen in a lot of other games (I don't know why, but Puzznic and Magical Drop always come to mind), so I was just curious as to what puzzle games you guys play/drew inspiration from?

My original idea for Tidalis didn't really have much in the way of inspiration from other games. Wetrix, a really bizarre N64 game, is my favorite puzzle game and I'd long been wanting to make one as fun and original as it, so I thought long and hard about various mechanics. I spent some time sitting at my computer just thinking, trying to come up with something cool, and while I had my eyes closed, I was picturing a grid of colors with waves of color moving around, and the idea for what we eventually prototyped, Feedback, wound up coming out of that with a lot of thought along the way. It resulted in a weird overhead grid-based game where you place colored blocks (we prototyped it with Tetris-style blocks) that send out waves of color when placed, and those waves of color can travel some distance, reflect off of walls, destroy blocks of the same color, and be blocked by blocks of other colors. The goal was to completely enclose areas of the grid, which was hard because blocks you'd place would destroy themselves or other blocks if you didn't play it right, and there were very difficult hazards (reflectors, beacons, transmitters, and the void) putting the pressure on that were difficult to destroy. If anything, some inspiration for the game came from this interesting tonematrix page, but I honestly can't remember if I saw it before the initial idea or after.

Of course, Feedback wound up being decidedly not fun. :) There was little in the way of consequence if you made a mistake, and the game encouraged sloppy, speedy play that relied on luck of the draw for what block color and/or shape you'd be placing down. In salvaging the prototype, Chris tried experimenting, removing some of the more exotic features and adding in some elements that are a bit more standard puzzle fare: he added gravity and collision, turning it into a side view; he limited the scope of the waves, making them directional particles (via the arrows) rather than omni-directional forces; and he added the match 3 mechanic. Things really took off from there, with features being removed or refined and stuff being added to give the game a good balance of simple and complicated. As an example of something we axed: at one point, there was a notion of color blocking, where blocks of one color blocked particles of the opposite color according to the RGB color wheel; I intend to revisit this in some fashion (as a settable mode, likely) if I do a sequel, but it was a point of contention in this game. It wound up turning into the 6 color-blocking special blocks that are in the game now. As for additions: we added the combo system to address the problem of not being able to do chains across colors. Great games like Puyo Puyo and Planet Puzzle League had screen-clearing, cross-color combos, so why not Tidalis? :) That addition is really the heart of the game for more experienced players and also the whole core of the puzzle mode. It and a whole lot of things in the game have at least tiny roots in games like Meteos (tons and tons of variety), Polarium (the whole game is about pathfinding), Tetris: The Grand Master (block randomization), Bejeweled (zen mode), and the aforementioned Puyo Puyo (combos) and Planet Puzzle League / Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon (combos, the way blocks enter the well, and other odds and ends). Tons of pieces of the game were heavily compared to or contrasted with other puzzle games during development as we looked for good ways of doing things, ways not to do things, and foundations for new ways of doing things.

Hopefully that answers some questions for you. :) As for what I play: Wetrix and Tetrisphere are my favorites, but I also really like Planet Puzzle League, Meteos, Puyo Puyo 1 / 2, Tetris, Tetris Plus 2, V Tetris, Stack Columns, Polarium (puzzle mode only) / Polarium Advance, Puzzle Bobble 1 / 2, Intelligent Qube, Logic Pro 2, Drymouth, Adventures of Lolo 1 / 2 / 3 / Eggerland, Mr Driller (the Japanese version of Mr Driller: Drill Spirits is especially puzzley), and Puzzle Series Volume 5: Slitherlink. Less so, but also worth mentioning: Uo Poko, Klax, Wario's Woods, and Yoshi. I actually haven't played Magical Drop, but I've given Puzznic / Gravnic a decent amount of play on the NES. It was decent fun, but it ultimately didn't really grab me, as I found its puzzles overly obtuse in the same way that I find Planet Puzzle League's puzzles obtuse. I think a big reason for that is that the puzzles are typically many moves, so the complexity is huge and it gets incredibly difficult for me to think about to the point where I can't at all visualize it clearing or keep track of what is happening. Interestingly, I expected Tidalis' puzzle mode to be the same way for me, but I find it a lot more intuitive and interesting. I think a big part of that might be that the puzzles tend to be 1 move each, though, which helps keep it manageable in my mind.

Anyway, as much as I love discussing puzzle games, it's late and I've become quite tired, so that'll have to do for now. :)
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Offline x4000

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #9 on: January 19, 2011, 11:04:12 am »
Lars -- I could have sworn that adding gravity and flipping it to a side view was your idea.  I mean, I don't mind getting credit for it, but I think it was really your idea to do it.  We'd been discussing various ideas, and I know I brought up Tetris Attack a number of times and what I felt the addictive qualities were, etc.

But I think most of my contributions to the gameplay design were in terms of some of the special blocks and items (both of which everyone on the team had ideas for), as well as most of the multiplayer modes that we wound up actually implementing.  I'm pretty sure the core mechanics were your thing more entirely than you led on, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, it was a really cool mechanic, so I don't want to steal thunder from your end on that. ;)
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Offline zebramatt

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #10 on: January 19, 2011, 11:09:52 am »
I still play Wetrix!

Offline x4000

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #11 on: January 19, 2011, 11:13:58 am »
I still play Wetrix!

I got that for my mom as part of a puzzle pack years ago, but I don't think she ever got into it much, and I never had a chance to play because I wasn't living at home at the time.  But I always thought it looked really neat. :)
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Offline Echo35

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #12 on: January 19, 2011, 11:51:36 pm »
I still play Wetrix!

I've got Wetrix+ on my Dreamcast. Very entertaining, even if the Earthquakes are somewhat unfairly strong. ;D

Hopefully that answers some questions for you. :) As for what I play: Wetrix and Tetrisphere are my favorites, but I also really like Planet Puzzle League, Meteos, Puyo Puyo 1 / 2, Tetris, Tetris Plus 2, V Tetris, Stack Columns, Polarium (puzzle mode only) / Polarium Advance, Puzzle Bobble 1 / 2, Intelligent Qube, Logic Pro 2, Drymouth, Adventures of Lolo 1 / 2 / 3 / Eggerland, Mr Driller (the Japanese version of Mr Driller: Drill Spirits is especially puzzley), and Puzzle Series Volume 5: Slitherlink. Less so, but also worth mentioning: Uo Poko, Klax, Wario's Woods, and Yoshi. I actually haven't played Magical Drop, but I've given Puzznic / Gravnic a decent amount of play on the NES. It was decent fun, but it ultimately didn't really grab me, as I found its puzzles overly obtuse in the same way that I find Planet Puzzle League's puzzles obtuse. I think a big reason for that is that the puzzles are typically many moves, so the complexity is huge and it gets incredibly difficult for me to think about to the point where I can't at all visualize it clearing or keep track of what is happening. Interestingly, I expected Tidalis' puzzle mode to be the same way for me, but I find it a lot more intuitive and interesting. I think a big part of that might be that the puzzles tend to be 1 move each, though, which helps keep it manageable in my mind.

I think my top 5 is probably Tidalis, Tetris, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, and... I would have to say Mr. Driller 2 (Yes, Tidalis sits on that list. I really do love this game :P). There's a lot that I do play on a regular basis though. Simon Tathem's Portable Puzzle Collection (Slant and Light Up specifically), the afore mentioned Wetrix+ and Magical Drop 3 get frequent play as well.

Offline Fiskbit

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #13 on: January 20, 2011, 03:04:44 am »
Chris: Your post made me incredibly curious, so I decided to go back in my logs and see what happened to turn the old Feedback prototype on its side. It seems I'd totally forgotten the process we went through when trying to change the game mechanic. :P There was a lot of great discussion back and forth that wound up working really well, and it was less direct from the old mechanic to the new one than I had remembered. I think my favorite part from the logs is that the some ideas, like having small blocks with directional waves, came from my unclear communication of the original idea that gave you an incomplete picture of what I had been aiming for. Awesome. :) There were also some surprising mechanic ideas along the way, like having a side-view shuffling-blocks mechanic where waves would make like-color blocks warp to the top of the well and fall down, making everything settle so that matched sets of colors would clear out. It's interesting to see how the ideas all tended toward what we eventually wound up with. I take back the credit I gave in the earlier post because it wasn't particularly accurate. ;) That said, your role was invaluable and the nature of how the ideas came up makes it hard to attribute to one or the other of us for a lot of it. It's definitely cool that most of the development discussion was logged and can be looked back on later, as it's really interesting to see how the discussions wound up with the game we have now.

Echo: Glad you like the game so much; it's one of my favorites, too. The mechanic clicks really well for me and is just a blast to play. :) Regarding Mr. Driller 2, why that one in particular? I have Mr. Driller and Mr. Driller G for arcade and figured I didn't need Mr. Driller 2, but if it has something cool to offer that the other two don't, I may have to check it out. You mentioned a lot of other games, but I'll comment more on them another day, as I need to catch up on some sleep now. :)
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Offline Echo35

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Re: Tidalis Inspiration
« Reply #14 on: January 20, 2011, 07:53:20 pm »
Glad you like the game so much; it's one of my favorites, too. The mechanic clicks really well for me and is just a blast to play. :) Regarding Mr. Driller 2, why that one in particular? I have Mr. Driller and Mr. Driller G for arcade and figured I didn't need Mr. Driller 2, but if it has something cool to offer that the other two don't, I may have to check it out. You mentioned a lot of other games, but I'll comment more on them another day, as I need to catch up on some sleep now. :)

The only ones I've really sat down and played for any length of time were the original Wonderswan Color version and Mr. Driller 2, so for all I know this could be the case in other games, but part of it has to do with the fact that on my hand held emulator, MD2 is one of the better running titles (The Wonderswan Emulator for that thing is a little sketchy and for the life of me I can't get the MAME rom dumps functioning, MD2 came out for the GBA and is incredibly easy to get running), but most of it has to do with the different game modes. In the Wonderswan version, there was just the level and you drilled, but in MD2, you have several levels (I think the total is 5, but I don't know, because you start with 3 and can unlock more) as well as Endless Driller mode and Time Attack, and a 2 player mode, but being as this isn't original GBA hardware, I can't test that one.

 

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