Hello,

I'm finally ready to beta my baby: The Beam Machine (I need to think of a better name, but for the moment this will have to do).

The server is humming away next to me, the network cable gaffer-taped to the foot of the table so that, even if I do trip over it again, I'm not going to unplug it. Everything you'd expect from a true production environment.

If you can pull yourself away from GW2 for a few minutes, please do give it a go and let me know what you think.

Youtube Video

Screenshots

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Game Client Windows Installer
https://sourceforge.net/projects/beammachine/files/BeamMachine_Beta.exe/download

Controls

A - Move Left
D - Move Right
S - Move Down
E - Rotate Clockwise
Q - Rotate Anti-Clockwise
SPACE - Drop
1 - Block Bonus (shortcut)
2 - Shell Bonus (shortcut)
3 - Unbreakable Bonus (shortcut)
4 - Magnetic Bonus (shortcut)
ENTER - Chat Console
Left Click - Select / Place bonus
Right Click - Colour Switch
ESC - Back/Quit

Disclaimer: the music is not my own, it's stolen until I get round to sorting out the music/sound myself. Apologies (and thanks) to the original Author.

Cool game. Love the effects. Looks very polished. The British accent is rather charming as well. Is this an Allegro game or did you use some other library? Also are you attempting to monetize the game or is it just for fun?

Thanks.

It's written in C# using OpenTK which is a C# wrapper for OpenGL and OpenAL.

It's just for fun. I wanted to make a framework for creating fun online PvP games, and this is the first game I've made with it. Hopefully it will be a lot easier to make more games with it, and perhaps I'll polish the framework up enough to release it as open source. That could be some time away though.

[edit]

Wow, close to zero interest - how depressing.

This looks a lot like an old Sonic the Hedgehog franchise game, something about a Mean Bean Machine. I'm assuming you're familiar with it since the name and gameplay of your game are really similar. I really like your take on it though; the graphics and particles are pretty nice. Also, the ways you've extended the gameplay is great; online PvP and power-ups to use on your opponents make it a lot more interesting

Yeah, the original was actually called Puyo Puyo, though my favourite version was what you mentioned : Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine..

That's an incredible polished videogame. You have to distribute it on Desura at least. Don't let it die in Limbo... What platform have you thought?

Thank you.

It's still got a long way to go though. I want to make a single player story mode (with various characters), and a tutorial. The purpose of the beta was to get feedback on the gameplay, since I really need to be happy with the core gameplay before I start tweaking the AI (especially if I want to add quirky AI) for the single player mode.

I posted it over in the Puyo Puyo forums but haven't had much feedback yet, and the feedback I have had has been very negative purely because of the controls. It seems that they don't like my idea of : WASD + mouse (they're used to console-style of left hand rotating, right hand moving the beans). So I might need to totally rethink the bonus mechanics if I want to get it accepted and played by the serious Puyo Puyo PvPers.

Anyway, at the moment I'm feeling a little depressed about the whole project. I've not had nearly as much interest as I hoped, but I suppose I just need to be patient. Maybe when it's complete, and if I actually do some sort of marketing, I'll get people playing. Admittedly in it's current state (no tutorial / story mode) it's very hard to get into, so maybe that's the issue.

It's written in C# without any Windows dependencies, so should work on all PC platforms. I've only tested it on Windows and only created a Windows installer so far though.

Well, we have already had a conversation using your amazing chat system, but I'm going to finish what I was writing before chatting.

As, I said there, I think the game is ready for a first version. So, if I were you I would do this:

1. I have played the game and currently I don't know how to throw the "powers", you know that stuff to screw your opponent, probably you said how to do it in the video but I couldn't see it completely because my internet connection is too slow I need to way until they recharge it again with full speed. So yhea maybe in this kind of game is a good idea letting the users modify the controllers settings and an instruction section would be good too. I know that you're implementing that so...

   
   

2. Let the people save the password, so they don't need to re-typed all the time you want to play online, it's an auto-generated password so that make it even more difficult and annoying. Covered too

   
   

3. If you're not planning letting the people save their password there, as the email, then try not making it case sensitive, my experience tells me that the kind of casual users that will play this game will have some problems with that. Well, I'm going to let this one.

   
   

4. The split-screen multiplayer, let you control both "panels" but the right one is still controlled by the AI? It's like there are actually tree persons playing; you, your friend and the AI I forgot to mention this one.

Well... that's it... Don't give up! Keep going!

Overall it's pretty nice, and looks quite polished. I'm not much into puyo puyo / columns kind of game though.

My big gripe are the controls. With the those key binds, all control goes to the left hand, which is pretty bad. I finished puting mi rigth hand on w/s/a/d and and my left fingers on q and the numbers (so I couldn't really turn right).

I'd also like that maintaining the down (s) key would keep dropping the block. Same with right and left: maintaining any of those should keep moving the block in either direction (probably with a small delay for the first repeat).

Other than that very good job . I'll try the on-line later, I don't have time now.

Very nice looking game. Love the shaking effect, love ALL the effects, I am very impressed. I would love to see what else you cook up.

You really should try selling something like this, you don't have to ask for a lot. I think you could earn something from it.

I agree. This is polished enough, that when you're done tweaking controls (and adding whatever else you want to add), that it would probably sell for a couple bucks on somewhere like Desura. If you go for Desura, make sure you haggle them down on minimum payout limits. Mine was originally $500 (> 3x the next highest anywhere else I've seen.)

Crashed on my computer. It changes the mouse, then pauses for a couple seconds, then crashes. Windows XP 32-bit SP3, Geforce GTX 550 Ti, Intel Core 2 Duo 3.2 GHz.

Could you send me the logs? I'd really really appreciate it.

Click Start -> Run

Then enter:

%APPDATA%/BeamMachine/Logs

It should open a folder in Windows Explorer with log files in the form:

BeamMachine_DD-MM-YYYY.txt

If you copy the latest one and email it to me (james_lohr@hotmail.com), that would be a massive help.

Sent. Sorry to get back to you so late, I had classes this morning. I'm looking forward to playing it, it looks fun .