Quantro: tetromino/tetracube game for Android

[Taciturn]

Hi Harddropers!

Anyone with an Android device interested in trying a new tetronimo/tetracube game?  The most recent updates for Quantro, my first game release, added Internet multiplayer and global leaderboards for single-player.

Quantro on Google Play

Quantro features "Retro" games with gameplay you'll probably recognize, and "Quantro" games, which is where most of my game design effort was focused.  "Quantro" games features tetrominoes falling in an 8x18x2 field (i.e., pieces in either the foreground or the background), falling tetracubes that have both foreground and background blocks, and a set of special pieces that interact with the 3D field in unique ways.  Controls are pretty standard --  move left or right, rotate CW or CCW, drop the piece quickly -- and there are options for gesture (drag) or gamepad (tap) controls.

You can read more about Quantro on the Google Play page, but if there's anything specific you'd like to know, I'm here to answer questions.

I'm also interested in any suggestions or requests you might have for improving the game.  And thanks to Sisu for cluing me in to these forums!

Here's the launch trailer!  It says "Internet multiplayer open beta coming soon," but it's actually happening right now    

[myndzi]

I've played this game and it's pretty interesting. Link spam is not welcome, however, so I've edited it out.

Edit: BTW keyword stuffing and anchor link spam are both old hat

[Taciturn]

Sorry about the link spam; thanks for the edit!

[caffeine]

Hey Taciturn. Quantro is pretty cool. I'm glad to hear that there's an online leaderboard now. All in all, it's a very fresh take on the concept. Well done. Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Rotation with I/S/Z
  • The I-tetromino has 4 orientations, but S and Z have only 2. It seems logical to give them either all 4 or all 2. (Pro tip: having 4 would be easier for players to adapt who are coming from that other falling blocks game).
  • The player rotates clockwise with his right hand and CCW with his left. That's good, but the I-tetromino rotates into the rightward orientation for CCW and the leftward for clockwise. It would be more intuitive to switch these. That way, when rotating with the right hand, it goes to its rightward vertical orientation (and vice versa).
• 180 rotation
  • As far as I can tell, you have to hold down one rotation button and then press the other one to activate this. Here's a breakdown of what's happening:
    • Press and hold clockwise
    • Piece rotates clockwise
    • Press counter-clockwise
    • Piece rotates 180 degrees
    • Let go of both buttons
  • The problem is that I could've just pressed counter-clockwise to achieve that functionality. That's why we want it to rotate 180 degrees from the starting orientation. But, even if that were the case, there's still a technical issue. The flip won't activate by just pressing both rotation buttons real fast. There's a slight delay before it kicks in. So, it seems like it would still be faster to just rotate with the same button twice rapidly than to go through the trouble of doing the current 180 maneuver. A solution might be to make a 180 button by itself. Or, have it 180 rotate the instant both buttons are pressed together.
• Locking animation
  • It's pretty slow. I think the game would feel much more responsive if this was sped up or even eliminated.

[Taciturn]

Thanks caffeine!  Most of your suggestions are about issues I struggled with during the design, but didn't come to any satisfying conclusions on.

• Rotation I/S/Z
  • During the initial prototyping I had 4-state rotation for all three of these pieces.  I didn't particularly like it since at a glance it's impossible to tell where a S piece is going to end up after a rotation (this is a problem for two reasons: 1: Quantro has fairly limited 'wall kick' rules, which would mean inconsistent behavior for turns in tight spaces, and 2: games can be saved and loaded with a piece currently falling, and I don't expect anyone to remember whether they rotated a piece CW or CCW the last time they played).
    2-state rotation of I-pieces is necessarily asymmetrical -- it will either prefer left or right -- but with both S and Z pieces the symmetry issue takes care of itself.  That was my thought when I implemented the current rotation, anyway.
    If keeping a consistent policy of either 2 or 4 states is what's most important here, would it be better to use 2-state for everything (moving further from the standard and getting asymmetrical I-piece rotations), or 4-state, with a set of specialized S/Z wall-kick rules to compensate?
  • Good point!  I'll probably include this change in the next update.
• 180 rotation
  • That's exactly how 180-rotation works.  I hoped you could use the current system by:
    • Rotating a piece away from its current orientation by pressing and holding clockwise
    • Moving the piece to a new position that it couldn't have reached in its original orientation
    • Pressing CCW to perform a 180-rotation
    You can also use the current system to get 180-turns in situations where a 90-turn is impossible (and the first button press won't do anything).
    I like the idea of a dedicated 180-degree turn button, though.  I've been thinking about including more options for controls configuration in a future update.  I'll also do some testing to see if timing a simultaneous press of both buttons is feasible, or if it would require too much of an input delay.
• Locking animation
  • What about keeping the current animation, but bringing in the next piece immediately, so you're controlling the next piece while the previous animation is playing?  Obviously you'd still wait for row-clear animations to finish; only the final 'locking' animation would play concurrently with gameplay.

[Lucho]

• Locking animation
  • What about keeping the current animation, but bringing in the next piece immediately, so you're controlling the next piece while the previous animation is playing?  Obviously you'd still wait for row-clear animations to finish; only the final 'locking' animation would play concurrently with gameplay.

I think it would feel weird that way, my vote goes for speeding it up  

[caffeine]

If keeping a consistent policy of either 2 or 4 states is what's most important here, would it be better to use 2-state for everything (moving further from the standard and getting asymmetrical I-piece rotations), or 4-state, with a set of specialized S/Z wall-kick rules to compensate?

Okay okay. I see now. The S/Z is meant to just rotate into the center. (Btw, I just realized the red S currently rotates off-center.) I think that makes sense. The only reason I tend to favor the 4 orientation system is due to how it can be more efficient in terms of inputs per piece. (e.g. moving the S/Z to the wall and then rotating it off the wall.)

You can also use the current system to get 180-turns in situations where a 90-turn is impossible (and the first button press won't do anything). I like the idea of a dedicated 180-degree turn button, though.

Ohhh I see. So it's more intended to function like an advanced wallkick than a time-saver. Makes sense.

What about keeping the current animation, but bringing in the next piece immediately, so you're controlling the next piece while the previous animation is playing?  Obviously you'd still wait for row-clear animations to finish; only the final 'locking' animation would play concurrently with gameplay.

I think that's a good idea. This is how they've handled the problem with Cultris 2, and it works very well.

Oh yeah, I just remembered one more thing. When swapping out the current piece for a special piece, is it intentional for the swapped piece to appear at the same height as the previous piece was at? I imagine this is kind of brutal for newer players who will be expecting the piece to spawn at the top of the field (and might not have but a couple of seconds to place it now).

[Taciturn]

Okay okay. I see now. The S/Z is meant to just rotate into the center. (Btw, I just realized the red S currently rotates off-center.) I think that makes sense. The only reason I tend to favor the 4 orientation system is due to how it can be more efficient in terms of inputs per piece. (e.g. moving the S/Z to the wall and then rotating it off the wall.)

All good points.  I'll definitely be taking a close look at the initial position of pieces and their rotations for the next update.

When swapping out the current piece for a special piece, is it intentional for the swapped piece to appear at the same height as the previous piece was at? I imagine this is kind of brutal for newer players who will be expecting the piece to spawn at the top of the field (and might not have but a couple of seconds to place it now).

My initial thought was that this allows you to position the piece where you want it and then swap with one that might not have been able to make the journey, so to speak, but I'll admit that I've never actually encountered that situation in gameplay.  Your advice about this being brutal for new players is probably correct (I watched a very new player try the game out yesterday, actually, and this behavior caught him off guard, as you predicted).

I think that's a good idea. This is how they've handled the problem with Cultris 2, and it works very well.

I think it would feel weird that way, my vote goes for speeding it up

Haha, so one vote for, one against?  I'll probably try prototyping both approaches before I release an update for it.

[vipjun]

I need IOS ver

[livingtech]

I need IOS ver :(

+1 from me. This is actually one of the only game that has me wanting an android device. ;)

[MarioThePhenom]

need more pple
i vote for having faster line clear delay, and faster animation when the blocks are being locked into place, the game feels all too sluggish to me :/
and i might be the only one, but having the area of the move right/move left switched with the rotate right/rotate left switched would be cool. and by that i mean an option to do so, cause for some reason, it feels more natural to me to have the rotate option at the bottom and the move button ontop

[Taciturn]

Unfortunately, an iOS port isn't feasible at the moment.  Quantro is implemented entirely in Java, and uses a lot of native Android API calls.  Porting it to iOS would require rewriting most or all of the code, and would monopolize the time I'd need to spend fixing bugs, adding features, and improving what's there.  I'm not ready to do that until Quantro is complete and relatively bug-free (i.e., version 1.0 or higher).  Sorry...  

Speeding it up: I'll be working first on reducing the typical delay between pieces (when a piece locks but doesn't clear a row).  Speeding up the row clear animations more than a few milliseconds would be tricky, though.  Because a row can clear in the foreground, in the background, or both at the same time, it's important to make it clear which one is happening (especially to new players, who may not realize that clearing one doesn't necessarily clear the other).  That's why "Quantro" mode row clears are longer than in "Retro" mode: in "Quantro" mode the blocks to be cleared first become more opaque to emphasize them, then the standard clear animation plays.  One possibility would be a user-preference to use truncated animations or skip them entirely, so expert players who want a much faster game can disable these extended animations.

Controls: more customization options for controls is planned for future updates.  I'll be sure to include an option to swap the "turn" and "move" buttons.

[XaeL]

need more pple
i vote for having faster line clear delay, and faster animation when the blocks are being locked into place, the game feels all too sluggish to me :/
and i might be the only one, but having the area of the move right/move left switched with the rotate right/rotate left switched would be cool. and by that i mean an option to do so, cause for some reason, it feels more natural to me to have the rotate option at the bottom and the move button ontop

agree

[yellowjack]

Can you give some insight about what's happening with the two layers of blocks? I can't figure it out.

Your app looks like it has a lot of potential! Good work so far.

[XaeL]

The interface is beautiful, though the controls don't feel quite comfortable.

used to playing *that other game* where the previews/hold are swapped. Obviously if you swapped urs you might get sued...