Nonomino
Place pieces on the board, either on all white or all black
Hello tournament players! Note that Nonomino development is ongoing. I'm keeping the core game the same during the tournament, but you can expect to see new features (and bugs?) popping up while the tournament is running. Any feedback on the game is still very welcome!
My own top score is 2568. No unfair creator's advantage apart from hours of practice :)
A late entry, because I just made this game this month (haven't even fully finished it) and it seems to fit the theme! So I'm sharing a rough alpha version as it stands right now.
The game itself doesn't provide instructions yet, but it's simple enough:
- Place each piece on the board. It can either go on all white squares, or on all black squares.
- The squares you place the piece on will flip their colour.
- You can stash one piece away for later use (or to avoid imminent death).
- Pieces are worth squared their size in points.
- New in tournament version: clearing the board to all black or all white tiles grants you 100 bonus points.
- The game is over when neither the current piece nor the piece in the stash can be placed.
Right now, the random seed is fixed, so high scores are comparable.
I'm aware that the balancing might need some work since I introduced the stash.
Made in TypeScript, using raw DOM and HTML5, no libraries. Works great on desktop and mobile alike.
Comments (9)
Excellent idea and nicely polished in practice! In terms of presentation, all it lacks is sound and it would make a great little mobile app.
The core mechanic is plenty of fun, and blends the familiarity of tetrominos with original gameplay - it reminds me of Block That Matters because of that.
Currently the game is slightly slow and easy at first, but becomes more interesting as the game progresses (I understand the Stash is what broke the balancing a bit). To get things started the stash is a very welcome mechanic, but after a while I'm not too sure it's needed given how many moves ahead we can see. Now I'm sure it helps smoothen out the RNG's angry moments.
To give some pace and manage the difficulty curve better, I would suggest you trade some of the piece randomization for some untold rules. The main one I can think of would be that every block out of 5(?) could be made significantly harder. It means that we eventually get into the rhythm of preparing our next 5 moves in advance, to make room for the bigger piece.
Another random idea would be to make the score system more exciting by squaring not only the points of the piece itself but also all the adjacent ones of the same color. It would make it more satisfying to "clean up" the board if you get rewarded with a whopping 25^2=625 points :D It also adds a (small) element of risk vs reward (ie. do I optimize for score or safety? both are close but not exactly identical goals)
Props for making this in raw DOM!
Thank you all for the comments! I half forgot that this Kajam was on, but I'll try to play and rate all of your games today in return.
@Theras What do you mean "would" be perfect for mobile, it already works flawlessly ;)
@Tipyx I love that you are suggesting that because it's very near the top of my to-do list already! :D It would give experienced players something to do in the otherwise easy early game.
@Wan Sound will come. Mobile app will come. I think the stash adds a lot of depth in the late game, so it's worth it even if it makes the early game a bit easier. The piece randomization is already far from random! It works like this: each piece size (1…9) has an associated "strength" value. The strengths get replenished each turn, the piece size with the largest strength is chosen to be the next piece, and its strength is set back to 0. The formula for how much strength is replenished uses a normal (Gaussian) distribution dependent on the piece size. Its mean and variance both gradually increase over the course of the game. The upshot is that I have very precise control over which types of blocks appear at which stages, but not whether they appear shortly after each other. So something like your suggestion is definitely needed.
@voxel Well, it wasn't originally conceived as a jam game, although I did the bulk of it in two days…
This is a lovely game. I like how the lack of a timer makes it a lot more tactical and forward-planning than what is possible in something like tetris. The music is perfect for that mood as well.
Even with the transparent view of what's ahead, and even with the static seed (in the tournament version at least), this game gets hard and does require you to really think ahead. Good stuff!
@dollarone I'm sorry about the music: I removed it because it annoyed me. Similar games like Threes, Topsoil and Triple Town also don't have music during play.
Edit: by popular demand, the music is back!
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High scores Submit score
| # | User | Score | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @toasty | 6252 | |
| 2 | @dollarone | 5235 | |
| 3 | @M2tias | 4274 | |
| 4 | @laaph | 3382 | |
| 5 | @Wan | 2768 | |
| 6 | @Ztuu | 2459 | |
| 7 | @Aurel300 | 2435 | |
| 8 | @Thrainsa | 2204 | |
| 9 | @Adam | 855 | |
| 10 | @devharts | 414 | |
| Total submitted scores: 10 | View all 10 scores | ||
Realy liked the idea that both sides of the board (black/white) are playable. With the simplistic controls this game would be perfect for mobile devices. Increasing the complexity by adding more and more complex shapes is neat. But I think it might be good if the difficulty curve would be a bit tighter. It takes quite a while before you realy have to think about the placement of the tiles.