You're welcome! I hope you enjoy the game, and please post back to give me your thoughts. Thanks, Ken Mind Juice Media
I am face planting my self on the floor!!!! I have had one of my more stupid moments in my long gaming history. So i am playing the lite, and I'm thinking it is kind of cool that HUD all rotates around as I tilt a little each way. Then I am creating empty spaces due to unfillable areas, but I am thinking it is like jewel quest that you can slide some items over to the empty areas if you want. On level 3 there are large areas of blank to fill, and I'm constantly swiping thins over as fast as I can because some get matched just by chance. I'm thinking this is not fun. Then I read @jasonsmith review and he is talking about how cool the tilt/slide factor is, and it all comes together. Doh!! Ok I'll be replaying this with tilt and it should be much better now. As an aside, the lite Osvaldo highly polished. Graphics are gorgeous, and I love the sound effects, they are perfect for me. I'm not sure about the scoring and how it all works, but I think I'll look at the help screens now.
Just started playing, I'll leave some impressions in a minute. I'll warn you in advance though, I freakin' hate Bejeweled and if someone were to cover it in acid and bees I'd go slightly euphoric.
Hi MidianGTX, Wow, I never heard of anyone that hates Bejeweled that much! Hopefully Charmed adds enough new elements that you don't hate it! Ken Mind Juice Media
Bejeweled Killer is the ultimate goal! More modes are planned for a second major update, but online features are coming first. I am nearly done integrating AGON for online leaderboards, acheivements, Facebook integration and Twitter integration. The first major update will enable a host of about 30 awards/achievements many of which require Freeze Time to achieve. Love that comment...that says it all for me! We are considering additional powerups for the second major update. Thank you for your review!
Goodluck with your game. After 1 year Bejeweled is a Top Ten game with 9k+ ratings and a 4 star average. So a few other people do like this type of game.
Alright so I've played a few minutes. You're right MindJuice, it does add enough to prevent me from hating it. I love the graphics, the whole game is as clean and sparkly as it gets. As for the gameplay... I like it. I won't lie and pretend it's the best game I've ever played, but it's definitely one of the better match 3 games I've played. My problem with Bejeweled is that it's just too much of such a simple premise, but the gravity aspect combined with the immovable blocks keep it varied enough to prevent that from becoming an issue in Charmed. I don't generally class match 3 games as puzzle games, but Charmed is far closer to that category with the way the immovable blocks and gold squares change around with each new level. So... I'm gonna keep on playing (after dinner ), if it's good enough to please me it should go down a treat for anyone who was already a fan of the genre. You mentioned plans for an endless mode, how is that going to work in regards to immovable blocks and gold squares? For the gold squares you could just have more light up every time you clear a group, but the blocks... I'm not sure. Falling in from the edges with the normal pieces? Or maybe just materializing in random places and shattering whichever piece was unfortunate enough to be sitting there? Several ways to go about it, I hope you find one that works well cause multiple modes is probably the most effective way of keeping someone like me interested
So I got a chance to play the full version - and Charmed is really a nice game. Now, I am a fan of the genre - so perhaps MidianGTX carries more weight - but if people like the genre - this is one to seriously consider. @jasonsmith posted some nice comments and mine will probably reiterate some of his and @MidianGTX as well. Firstly- this game is really professionaly done - while there are some great updates coming - this can stand on its own as it is. The extras could make it one of the premier match 3 if implemented correctly I believe. Slider options on music and sound efx. Option to use your own music if you like. Has proper resumse. Options for having hints turned on or off. The game play has a nice couple of twists on the matching genre. Like in Trism - the holes that open up due to locked blocks can be filled in by tilting your device in whatever direction you like, or spin it around. The HUD all rotates as well to keep you oriented correctly. You also have the option of manually moving pieces into the empty spots, and so these 2 things alone create a pretty powerful method of getting combos, and also getting the gold blocks uncovered. The main goal on each level is to get the gold tiles to go away. This is done by creating a match 3 or more with one of the matching tiles being on the gold square. There are cleverly placed locked squares that hinder your progress. Each level changes the location of the gold blocks, and also the configuration of the locked blocks - so every level is another puzzle to try and figure how you are going to get matches on those gold blocks. Another unique aspect is the collection of snow flakes matching - and then having the ability to freeze time, the pieces, and you can quickly swap a bunch of things around and so when the board "thaws" - you not only clear a number of gold tiles, you also have a large number of matches. My current game I am up at level 12 and about 72K - I don't know how that compares, but the dev is putting global scoring in - so I'll see. I so far have not had any problems with the timer - so while an endless mode as required might be nice - right now, I am not seeing a need for it - perhaps things are going to get more difficult. However, true endless modes are also nice due to just the mindlessness of playing a game you enjoy with no pressure on having to start over. I know the dev has some other ideas floating around, and I'm anxious to see what they come up with, as nice as this is currently. I think the only things I would like to see is: - ability to drag and drop tiles while in freeze mode - tiles otherwise have to be moved one by one, and ability to slide longer distances would really allow some planning for huge combos... It might change the game play too much, but its a thought. - consideration for being able to make matches while other combos are being played out. Otherwise you have to wait until the board is quiet before you can start in again. Not a major issue - but I know some people enjoy ability to do that. As far as Facebook, Twitter - I personally avoid those forums - personal preference. I would ask that incorporation for those is done in a tastful manner as the rest of the game is, and put those in the option screen rather than out front as seems to be current trending. I stopped playing Bejeweled a long, long time ago while it was still on the Palm. Bejeweled 2 became a much better game, but the iphone port was poorly implemented. I am not sure how it maintains its popularity, unless people did not care about the other / better modes of playing it. Regardless - it is hard to become a brand name like Bejeweled - but I think that gameplay wise Charmed at least is a serious contender for a fun alternative.
Pluto6, I'm considering a few tutorial style pop ups on level 1 to let players know about things like rotation. Hopefully that will prevent others from "faceplanting"! Ken Mind Juice Media
MidianGTX, Thanks for your review and your honesty. Regarding your puzzle category comment, I actually have a "true" puzzle mode in Charmed implemented as well, but I haven't got enough levels to make it worth releasing yet. As for endless mode, that is still being designed, but I aim to make it a different experience than just playing the normal timed mode. Stay tuned!
pluto6, First, thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review. Regarding the timer, it is really easy to pass the early levels without worrying about it as you say. It does get harder as the levels progress; however, I erred on the side of the casual gamer in the first release. I will probably something like add 3 or 4 difficulty levels later which award less time for matches, and give extra points for time left when you complete a level. There will be different leaderboards for each difficulty level. I like your idea of dragging pieces around, but perhaps not in Freeze Mode, as I feel Freeze Mode is already very powerful. Maybe that could be a separate power up. I'll think about that. The ability to make matches before the current cascade is done would require a fair bit of work to implement. Maybe in a later update though. It needs to be done carefully, and really affects how you approach the game design of the code in general. The Facebook and Twitter stuff in AGON is very nice in that if you want to avoid it, you almost don't even know about it. I think it will not bother you at all. I know some people who live on Facebook and Twitter and others who purposefully shun it! Regarding Bejeweled on the iPhone, I think it is OK, and I pick it up to play once in a while, but I think you are right, Bejeweled 2 on the iPhone should have been much more than it is. Bejeweled stays on top because everyone knows the name. There's nothing wrong with that either. I just want Charmed to overcome that and become a household name itself! Thanks again for your review and suggestions!
I'd like to see this idea work. In almost every match 3 game I play I always try to make my next move while the previous blocks/gems/whatever are still falling... just out of habit really (and impatience)... so having it actually work for once would be a bit of a novelty on it's own. I'd make for some real fast gaming. It'd probably have to stop for rotations though... otherwise I can see that getting complicated.
Currently I have it implemented so that the code waits for the current cascade to complete before allowing another swap. Part of the reason for this is that you can reorient the device in the MIDDLE of a cascade and the charms will fall in the new direction. I could probably make it so that this kind of rotation is still allowed, but if you had made another swap, then the game would ignore the rotation until the other swap was done. I'll have to think about the best way to deal with that, because you are not the first person to ask for that swapping behavior. Maybe I can figure out a way to allow both in a clean and intuitive way. Thanks for the input. Ken Mind Juice Media
Charmed On Sale for $0.99! Hi all, To celebrate the great reviews coming in for Charmed, we've put it on sale for a limited time for $0.99 in the iTunes App Store. Get it now! http://itunes.com/apps/charmed Ken Mind Juice Media
Thanks! Sales are moving along slowly at the moment...need to get the word out, since I think if people could see if they would buy it! Will be doing a banner ad on toucharcde for one thing, but a review would be great too. ;-)
Hi jasonsmith, You that mentioned that the pieces seemed a bit smaller than other match 3 games? I was checking games like Bejeweled and most have 40x40 pixel pieces, which is what Charmed uses as well. The difference is that Charmed adds an extra row of pieces vertically, so it has 72 pieces instead of 64. I think visually this ends up looking like a lot, but it really helps having those extra pieces since adding the immovable purple blocks removes some opportunities for matches. The actual pieces images are also 40x40 images, but they don't all take up that full width. We could, perhaps, scale the pieces up 1 or 2 pixels. I'll try an experiment and see how it looks.
New Gameplay Video for Charmed Check out the new gameplay video on the Charmed page: http://bit.ly/charmedmj Reply in the forum to let us know what you think of it. Thanks, Ken Mind Juice Media www.mindjuice.net
