ShifTris by hippy dave

[raw]
made by hippy dave for LD35 (COMPO)
First solid idea I had for the theme was a Tetris variant, where instead of being given a piece and being able to rotate it, you're given one with a particular rotation and are able to shapeshift it between the different tetrominoes. So not the most exciting/original idea, but I didn't have any others and it seemed feasible in scope - and I've never made a tetris game before.

I lost hours chasing bugs around in circles, so it doesn't have the intended menu, difficulty settings etc. But you can play it, so, you know, please play it :)

Arrow keys or WASD to move, Z and X or , and . (comma and full-stop/period) to shapeshift.

Made in Unity with the very handy usfxr plugin for sounds. The single box png was drawn in Photoshop, and the background tile was from some generator on the web. Music made with Terry Cavanagh's Bosca Ceoil.

Monday edit: fixed a couple of bugs as per comments, and added builds for Mac, Windows and Linux (the latter is untested).
e: I posted a post-mortem: http://ludumdare.com/compo/2016/04/18/post-mortem-80/

Ratings

Coolness 45% 1350
Overall 3.00 636
Audio 3.13 271
Fun 2.78 702
Graphics 2.70 636
Innovation 3.17 420
Mood 2.44 723
Theme 3.48 385

Feedback

馃帳 hippy dave
18. Apr 2016 路 01:57 UTC
Ah bugrit, I've just discovered that the web build doesn't detect game-over, or play sound effects. Annoying, but I'm not fixing it tonight tbh, mebbe tomorrow :)
馃帳 hippy dave
18. Apr 2016 路 12:49 UTC
Ok it's a bit fixed :) Detects lose state, and most of the sound effects work. There's still some awesome glitches for you to find!
gameXcore
18. Apr 2016 路 13:35 UTC
A nice twist on the classic, however I didn't like that there were already bricks in place at the start of the game, that kind of ruined it (or was that a bug)
Reisen
18. Apr 2016 路 13:41 UTC
A bit buggy, blocks can go through other blocks (and the game boundaries) while shifting.
馃帳 hippy dave
18. Apr 2016 路 14:00 UTC
Thanks for the votes & feedback! :)
Yes I decided to have bricks in place at the start to stop the player from just placing loads of squares to get lines. It was meant to be configurable tho, I ran out of time to do a menu.
And yes still some movement glitches, I didn't have time for the extra logic to fix that either.

I wish I could have got it finished up a bit more, but I thought I should upload it anyway rather than hide it away in shame :)
Interface
18. Apr 2016 路 14:19 UTC
Great entry. I like your randomness in the shapeshifting animation; my tetris blocks always shift to the same position. Some bugs with shape shifting and colliding, but then again I have something weird in mine too :-)
This looks to be your first entry so don't be discouraged by running out of time. You'll get better with each LD.
edve98
18. Apr 2016 路 14:25 UTC
Pretty nice twist. I just don't get it, do I have a limited amount of time to get as much score as possible or something? The game restarted even though I didn't lose(Web version). Also, it's impossible to lose if you only use the O (or cube) shape :P
jeroenwimmers
18. Apr 2016 路 14:54 UTC
I like the idea of the shapeshifting instead of rotation. but when I was playing I noticed it's initialy a lot harder to play than tetris. and I imagine it gets too easy once you get past that, but I'm not sure about that.

maybe something like a cycle where you could see which shape comes would help.

but congrats on getting so far! saw you quit earlier, so I imagine it was pretty tough. Hope you learned a good deal!
csanyk
18. Apr 2016 路 23:41 UTC
Solid! I like the twist on the classic Tetris. I found it hard to play, not being able to rotate is a serious handicap!
Munchy2007
19. Apr 2016 路 00:13 UTC
Interesting twist on Tetris, but seems much harder to me, not being able to rotate or know what shape is coming next.

Good fun.
ALobker
19. Apr 2016 路 17:15 UTC
I enjoyed the part where I made things worse for myself.
馃帳 hippy dave
19. Apr 2016 路 17:38 UTC
Thanks everyone!
ALobker, that's always the best bit :)
jeroenwimmers, showing the order of the shapes' cycle is a great suggestion, I'll put that in when I finish up a post-jam version.
edve98, you said it restarted when you didn't lose - did you clear all the blocks from the well? Because I put that in as a win condition. No feedback to tell you that is a bit useless I know, more things to be fixed in a finished version.
Fartenko
19. Apr 2016 路 18:37 UTC
I enjoyed playing it! Sound effects and music are nice as well! Good Job!
LudumAnthony
21. Apr 2016 路 01:12 UTC
Good idea, but I think there was a reason for rotation in Tetris :P The blue 4x1 piece for example should have either been oriented vertically in my opinion.
Good concept but needs more mechanics (unfortunately you didn't have time because of bugs :P)
schizoid2k
21. Apr 2016 路 01:13 UTC
I tried to download the Windows version 2x and there is no Data directory included... just me? I'll check back and try again later.
馃帳 hippy dave
21. Apr 2016 路 21:51 UTC
schizoid2k you're right, sorry! Fixed Windows build uploaded to the same url, will hopefully work now.
PickledBrain
22. Apr 2016 路 06:10 UTC
Tough game but I enjoyed it. Nice work
TheMeorch
23. Apr 2016 路 17:49 UTC
This is a cool idea -- I could see something like this being a mode in Tetris. It could definitely benefit from having the speed increase over time, as in normal Tetris.

The lack of rotation really makes you think in a different way than you do in a typical game of Tetris. Always having access to square blocks and either a vertical or horizontal line block seems to take away from the variety and interesting decision making of Tetris. What if you only had 2 or 3 shapes to choose from each time? I think you've got a really interesting game here, and I'd love to see how you expand on and refine it. Nice work!
馃帳 hippy dave
24. Apr 2016 路 08:03 UTC
Good thoughts, thanks!
Marc F.
28. Apr 2016 路 14:05 UTC
Needs some polishing but I like the interpretation of the theme. And who doesn't like a decent tetris version!
sP0CkEr2
29. Apr 2016 路 04:37 UTC
solid idea but lacked rotation - add that and it will make the first few levels easier - nice game