I really enjoyed the game. Thinking a few steps ahead and trying to keep track of which moves were safer than others was a lot of fun.
However, you might want to implement a mechanic by which hens can move diagonally or only spawn on the diagonal. There are ways to manipulate the board so that the player can never be caught (as long as they don't let any new eggs hatch).
To illustrate this: suppose there were only one hen on the board and it was right next to you:
[ ][ ]
[P][H]
P = Player H = Hen
No matter how many times you moved however you like, that hen could never land on the same square as you. (If you colored the board with a checkerboard pattern, when the player is on black, the hen is on red and vice versa.) Conversely, if there is a hen on a diagonal to the player:
[ ][H]
[P][ ]
P = Player H = Hen
that hen could land on the same square as the player. Let's call these "safe" and "dangerous" hens, respectively.
Now, because of the way new hens spawn, a safe hen will always spawn a dangerous hen, and a dangerous hen will always spawn a safe hen. This is because the new hen appears in one of the four cardinal directions to the egg whence it hatched:
[ ][X][ ]
[X][O][X]
[ ][X][ ]
H = Old Hen/Egg Position
X = possible spawn location
Combined with the fact that, if the player has collected a helmet, they can kill hens they collide with, the player can cull all the dangerous hens, leaving only safe hens. (I found that a good number of safe hens to keep around is 3)
The method I used for getting to 3 safe hens:
collect a helmet so that you can start to cull dangerous hens as soon as safe hens start to spawn
Let the 2 dangerous hens you start with spawn a safe hen
Cull one dangerous hen (you should have 1 safe and 1 dangerous hen at this point)
Follow the safe hen around and prevent it from spawning a dangerous hen. Get another helmet.
Let the dangerous hen spawn another 2 safe hens.
Cull the remaining dangerous hen. You are left with 3 safe hens and as many eggs as you care to eat.
All of which is to say, I liked your game enough to do math to it and write it all up. I love the mechanics and the aesthetics and it shows some real work. I know I wrote a lot and that this may seem like criticism, but please don't take it as being negative. I really did enjoy the game.
Woah!! How could I take this negatively?! This is the exact kinda feedback I was hoping for! :D You explained what you appreciated about the game (thank you!!) but then also took time out of your day to document a significant flaw in the game in detail and how to potentially fix it. I really, really appreciate that.
That said, you’re right — it is a game breaking flaw. I seem to remember implementing that function (hen moving right after spawning) at some point during development so that the hen wouldn't be hidden under the other hen and players immediately understand that it just hatched. I think I implemented that function, called it a day and then forgot to check whether this actually causes problems. And after testing the game a hundred times myself, I just didn’t see the "safe" hens. Just goes to show that playtesting AND documentation are fundamental even with smaller projects...
That said, the way you described your method for the 3 hens is so impressive that it almost feels like a pro strategy rather than a flaw/bug. :D I will fix this, of course. But just out of curiosity: Do you remember what your high score was?
Again, thank you so much for this comment and writing all of this up! You made my day.
Image Caption: A score of 641950 with 3 hens in safe positions. The dog has a helmet in case another hen spawns
So I revisited my approach (I'm not avoiding work, you're avoiding work), and it's certainly difficult enough to pull off: it took maybe 15 attempts to actually get 3 safe hens. I found that the main ways that I died while getting the strategy to work were starvation (due to not eating an egg while trying to turn it into a helmet or a hen), hen explosion (if the number of hens gets over 4 or 5, good luck preventing the entire board becoming an army of angry hens), or just being pecked to death (death comes for us all).
That being said, once I did get it to go off, the game didn't exactly become boring. It's a very different sort of game, but it's still fun. The challenge shifts from "don't get pecked to death or starve" to "how long do I want to let these eggs gestate to maximize my score and avoid a dangerous hen from spawning." I even had a few close calls where a dangerous hen spawned, I had to kill it, and when I was trying to get a helmet, another dangerous hen spawned! This combined with the fact that the only way to make the score increase at a reasonable pace is to get the eggs dangerously close to hatching means that this always threatened to happen.
Anyway, thanks for making this game! I've really enjoyed playing with it and I look forwards to seeing both what you do with it as well as what you make in the future!
Thank you for taking time out of your day (and DEFINITELY not out of your worktime or anything!) to get into this whole thing and document it. The way you described it (and I will have to try that out myself more later as well), it almost comes off as a strange gameplay-emergence-thing, so I'll do some thinking on whether I want to "fix" this or turn it into an actual feature for the next version or for a bigger "remake" of the game, if I get around to that.
In any case, thanks for all this and your encouraging words! It means a lot!
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Fun!!
This game looks great! May I suggest you to submit it in our Mobile Summer Jam 2021 that’s launched today? Jam Link
Hey, thanks for bringing this to my attention! Will definitely consider it.
I really enjoyed the game. Thinking a few steps ahead and trying to keep track of which moves were safer than others was a lot of fun.
However, you might want to implement a mechanic by which hens can move diagonally or only spawn on the diagonal. There are ways to manipulate the board so that the player can never be caught (as long as they don't let any new eggs hatch).
To illustrate this: suppose there were only one hen on the board and it was right next to you:
No matter how many times you moved however you like, that hen could never land on the same square as you. (If you colored the board with a checkerboard pattern, when the player is on black, the hen is on red and vice versa.) Conversely, if there is a hen on a diagonal to the player:
that hen could land on the same square as the player. Let's call these "safe" and "dangerous" hens, respectively.
Now, because of the way new hens spawn, a safe hen will always spawn a dangerous hen, and a dangerous hen will always spawn a safe hen. This is because the new hen appears in one of the four cardinal directions to the egg whence it hatched:
Combined with the fact that, if the player has collected a helmet, they can kill hens they collide with, the player can cull all the dangerous hens, leaving only safe hens. (I found that a good number of safe hens to keep around is 3)
The method I used for getting to 3 safe hens:
All of which is to say, I liked your game enough to do math to it and write it all up. I love the mechanics and the aesthetics and it shows some real work. I know I wrote a lot and that this may seem like criticism, but please don't take it as being negative. I really did enjoy the game.
Cheers!
Woah!! How could I take this negatively?! This is the exact kinda feedback I was hoping for! :D You explained what you appreciated about the game (thank you!!) but then also took time out of your day to document a significant flaw in the game in detail and how to potentially fix it. I really, really appreciate that.
That said, you’re right — it is a game breaking flaw. I seem to remember implementing that function (hen moving right after spawning) at some point during development so that the hen wouldn't be hidden under the other hen and players immediately understand that it just hatched. I think I implemented that function, called it a day and then forgot to check whether this actually causes problems. And after testing the game a hundred times myself, I just didn’t see the "safe" hens. Just goes to show that playtesting AND documentation are fundamental even with smaller projects...
That said, the way you described your method for the 3 hens is so impressive that it almost feels like a pro strategy rather than a flaw/bug. :D I will fix this, of course. But just out of curiosity: Do you remember what your high score was?
Again, thank you so much for this comment and writing all of this up! You made my day.
So I revisited my approach (I'm not avoiding work, you're avoiding work), and it's certainly difficult enough to pull off: it took maybe 15 attempts to actually get 3 safe hens. I found that the main ways that I died while getting the strategy to work were starvation (due to not eating an egg while trying to turn it into a helmet or a hen), hen explosion (if the number of hens gets over 4 or 5, good luck preventing the entire board becoming an army of angry hens), or just being pecked to death (death comes for us all).
That being said, once I did get it to go off, the game didn't exactly become boring. It's a very different sort of game, but it's still fun. The challenge shifts from "don't get pecked to death or starve" to "how long do I want to let these eggs gestate to maximize my score and avoid a dangerous hen from spawning." I even had a few close calls where a dangerous hen spawned, I had to kill it, and when I was trying to get a helmet, another dangerous hen spawned! This combined with the fact that the only way to make the score increase at a reasonable pace is to get the eggs dangerously close to hatching means that this always threatened to happen.
Anyway, thanks for making this game! I've really enjoyed playing with it and I look forwards to seeing both what you do with it as well as what you make in the future!
Well, that is an amazing score... haha.
Thank you for taking time out of your day (and DEFINITELY not out of your worktime or anything!) to get into this whole thing and document it. The way you described it (and I will have to try that out myself more later as well), it almost comes off as a strange gameplay-emergence-thing, so I'll do some thinking on whether I want to "fix" this or turn it into an actual feature for the next version or for a bigger "remake" of the game, if I get around to that.
In any case, thanks for all this and your encouraging words! It means a lot!
Pretty fun simple game
Thank you :)