GCPP:Proposal-Snapper

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Puzzle Codename: Snapper

Contact
Username: Tanonev
Additional contact info: Sage: Tanonev; Email: tanonev (AT) stanford (DOT) edu
Project forum thread: http://forums.puzzlepirates.com/community/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=117945
Gcpp big logo.png A prototype is available for this proposal.
Check it out and contribute to the design!



Game concept

Assemble solid pieces of furniture from square sections of the outline. An extension of Mariggle by DreadedChris.

Objective

Drop pieces with lines and colored regions to create closed figures.

Gameplay

As in Mariggle, one piece at a time is presented to the player to drop into the playing field, with no time restriction.

There are four basic line patterns: I, T, L, and +. These lines divide the square piece into 2 or more regions, which are filled with different colors. When the pieces are arranged so that the lines create a closed figure, all of the colored regions within that closed figure are cleared. Once a piece has no more colored regions, the piece itself disappears, and the pieces above it will fall down in the space it creates.

To prevent junk pieces from accumulating, the player can drain all of the colored regions that are connected to the edge of the board (where "connected" means that there is a way to get to the edge of the board from that region without crossing a line). Pieces that lose all their color as a result of draining are also removed from the board.

Keyboard controls are 'a' and 's' to rotate left and right, left arrow and right arrow to move position left and right, spacebar to drop, and x to drain. Mouse controls are wheel to rotate, left-click to drop, mouse-movement left and right to position piece, right-click to drain. The piece is positioned in the distinct area at the top of the screen and then dropped into the playing field.

The playing field is 5 wide by 9 high, with the tenth row being the positioning area.

DISCLAIMER: The colored regions are colored regions for ease of prototyping. The different colors are supposed to represent different types of materials used in a furnisher.

Scoring

Larger regions are worth more points, with a base score of 2 points per quarter of a piece. There is a penalty for including white (already used) regions in the figure; the effective size of a figure is (actual size - 0.5 * (total size of white) ^ 2), with a minimum size of 0. There is a bonus for using fewer distinct colors in the figure; the figure's base value is multiplied by (# of non-white colors available in the level) / (# of colors--including white--used in the figure).

When a cascade causes a subsequent clear, that clear is worth (base score * (1 + 0.5 * cascade level)) ; so a double is worth 1.5 times what a single clear is, and a triple is worth twice what a single is.

When multiple closed figures are created simultaneously, each of those figures is worth (base score * (-1 + 2 * # of figures)) ; so creating 2 figures at once multiplies the total worth by 3.

There is a penalty of -1 points per drop to encourage efficiency.

There is no penalty or bonus for draining color from the edges.

Variability

Differing proportions of piece types change the style of gameplay. Special pieces TBD.

End criteria

The game ends after 20 closed figures are cleared.

Difficulty scaling

Increasing the number of colors offers greater scoring opportunities subject to more careful planning. Some pieces (+) are much easier to use than others (I) to create closed figures, though the latter are more useful for creating larger figures.

Crafting type

Furnishing

Known problems

Scoring not balanced.

Notes

Images