https://marwansabihgmxde.itch.io/ninja-ballo

For now I'm mainly intererested in:

a) Is the game idea fun? (scale 1-10)

b) How difficult are the current levels? (scale 1-10)

Just a bit of explanation about the current weapons implemented: 

(later versions will pop up descriptions)

  This is a powershoot ... it will fly in the arrow direction and directly destroy all ballons on its pass

This is a circular powershoot... it will perform all it steps in on turn. It move: UP LEFT DOWN RIGHT (Changing direction every time it hits a ballon)

This is a circular powershoot... just on the diagonal 

This piece moves in the red direction first ... hits a balloon or "the end of the board" then waits a turn before doing the next move

 Same behaviour as the piece above

 This pieces moves: Up, Left, Down, Right ... so it basically moves in a circle, it performs one direction every turn.

Similar to the piece above: But it start moving in the direction "right up" first

This is a bomb it always flies like a tower in a chess game always to the oposite boarder... it will destroy a 3x3 fields of balloons
(there is a time bomb version... if it has a number on it it will hit the first balloon ... and afterwards rest for the indicated number of turns before exploding)
This is a smoke bomb it moves like every other bomb and adds smoke to a 3x3 field after exploding. It will delay balloon movement for 1 turn.
This is a windbomb, it moves like every other bomb, but it will shift all "connected ballons" 1 step in its movement direction, when exploding. The shift of balloons is performed before every other step

You are quite productive :)

I played this game a little bit. The basic idea seems to have potential, I remember several vaguely similar games but none exactly like this.

I understand that is very early prototype, but please add some easy QoL improvements before investing further in playtesting / balance.

• Show number of current stage
• No not clear previously placed “weapons” upon reset
• Show ‘trajectory’ of weapons during placement
• Allow to start the stage without placing all weapons (this is useful both in early stages when I want just to see what a weapon does, and potentially in later stages for ‘achievements’ of using less weapons than given).
• Maybe add simplest ‘pop’ sound

Also, I do not quite understand the rule about balloons with arrows. Do they auto-pop when leaving the field? If so, are stages with such balloons too easy? I suggest making it so that (maybe special kind of) balloon leaving the field counts as a loss.

I like the changes, the game is instantly much more pleasant.

Unfortunately, I am stuck at level 4 and I see no way to logically deduce a solution for it except for brute-forcing. Maybe I am being stupid, but even then it may be a good idea to push that level later and provide smoother learning curve for beginner players.

just how i handle “testing out weapon pieces I’m not sure yet…”

Why not just remove the requirement to put all weapons before enabling “Start” button? It is very easy to implement and I do not see any downside.

Both music and sound is good, but please provide volume controls.

Also, I suggest to remove the timer for auto-restarting the level. Several times the timer expired just as I was about to click “Reset”, which resulted in me clicking newly-refreshed “Start” button instead.

Thank you AI again for your Feedback,

that level 4 is to hard... is already very good feedback... maybe many of my levels will be to hard then. 

Will then add some volume controlls (probably tomorrow)

(regarding the timer... ah good to know... will simply deactivate the start button for a short amount of time in the beginning then... when reseting ... i  simply "recreate the entire scene... since otherwise i run into a lot of anoying race conditions")

The reason, why i don't like the "enable the start button solution" is, that you will frequently run into some "infinite loop" situation which forces you to reset, where I can imagine, that some beginners will just click (after for example setting only one row and overlooking the other ones) get confused and leave the game frustrated... with play only active when you can actually win "chances are quite high you get a loss"if you make a mistake - which is easier to understand and handle. If i would have a mechanic that detects "loss after some moves" played and prevents the "infinite loop" ... then i just might go for it (still like the idea of an instruction area because i can prepare it in a way that best introduces new pieces.

Here a Hint for level 4 if you want to read it (otherwise of course skip :) ):

Hints for level 4:  

- Smoke bombs freeze moving ballons exactly for one turn

- The movement pattern of the circular piece, that wents upwards should hit the red balloons.

- The other one should hit all violet ballons and the green one.

(If you think turn wise where every ballon is after every turn and place the smoke bombs carefully you should be able to beat level for on your on) 

(at the bottom is a spoiler image)

Warning Spoiler image below