Yep, well, I subcontract. I'm a 3D modeler and animator for their training sims along with TSA and military. Interesting though sometimes a bit linear work.

I'll definitely be making a thread for people to look at the source of this once I had the last few things from my list. There's not a lot going on in terms of puzzle games so hopefully all my trials will help people figure some things out.

Guess I'll keep workin on the graphics while the boss isn't lookin.

Yeah I made it in 98.9 from when I ran through platform school, but I installed 99.42 a couple nights ago. Thanks a ton for taking a look at that, I wish they'd drop the admin requirements for installs so I could have construct here, but that's the cost of working for DHS, even if it is as an artist.

I feel like that was going to be the hardest part, now I just have to implement destruction and combo scoring, but I have an idea of how that can be handled.

Ah, that's why I was getting such unpredictable results. I don't know that trick, this is only the 3rd thing I've done in Construct so there's still a lot of things I'm learning in terms of tackling specific problems. But I'll have to give that a try. Wish I could put it on my computer at work.

I'm having a bit of a hard time wrapping my head around translating your PV method to work with the specific mechanic I want. I'm sure I'll see it better once I can try it, I do better when I can trial and error things.

I appreciate all your help.

If I'm not destroying sprites to add to the PV I'm not sure how I would set it up initially since it's not so much the ones already in the column that need to move but the ones you're moving to it.

If you run the cap I attached you'll see that the pieces I left free floating will fall to fill in below unless they are touching one above them or below them. Obviously falling until there's one below it is correct, but 'sticking' to one above it is broke.

Controls btw are arrows to move the cursor (I put a shortcut in allowing you to click boxes to jump the cursor there for testing sake) space switches the tiles or moves one into an empty space horizontally.

Thanks for the reply.

Would that method work if my board isn't full? The general plan right now is to not have the board totally full and have it fill continuously from the bottom so you can essentially drop pieces down columns that aren't full to match either vertically or horizontally trying not to let any pieces leave from the top.

Ok, so I managed to get a clean way of swapping tiles so the next thing is to cause tiles to fall and fill in if there isn't a tile below them. I've tried a ton of ways and keep getting very unpredictable results.

Best, though messy, way I came up with involves setting a variable to either 0 or 1. 1 if it does not overlap another box (tried with and without offset, identical results). If it is overlapping at offset of (0,3) set to 0. If it's 1 move vertically 1.

Obviously this is way messy and over-complicated. Also it's broken. The offset doesn't seem to recognize positive/negative, so it only falls if there's a gap both below and above.

The use of a variable seems redundant, but if I don't use it, nothing happens. The same conditions that set it to 0 or 1 don't do anything when just told to move the tiles.

I'd really really appreciate some help.

The .cap

you're right, I was just about to post, what I said worked, but it seemed convoluted and was wondering if there was an simpler way.

Ok next step, make the blocks swappable and able to fill in open space. I'm thinking of setting it up to function a bit like puzzle league, or henry hatsworth in terms of movement mechanics at least for the time being until we come up with what will make it unique. Thanks for the help. I'm sure I'll have a bunch more questions as I get deeper into this.

Here's an updated .cap with the random colors and animations, 2 animations, each with 4 colors, each block is filled in with a random color from a random tile. PuzzleFudge-01.cap

Awesome, thanks, I'm glad that worked. Also I can't believe all the random weird events I left in my .cap that I meant to leave blank. oops.

I got the random frame number to work, now to figure out how to call a random animation, only way I can think to is to assign a private variable, have it pick that at random and assign different values to different animations, ie if x=1 set animation to blueShine if x=2 set animation to redShine etc...

Can't believe this idea eluded me but would the way to do it to put each color as a separate frame of animation then tell it to change all of the blocks to a random frame number on layout start and for each subsequent one created?

I can't test this now as I'm at work, I'll throw it together when I get home.

Yeah I played your game over the weekend. It came out well. I tried a bunch of different things to produce random sprites on the board but I can't seem to find any event actions that will create a random sprite so I'm not sure how to even get it rolling. essentially I'd like it to start off similar to yours, though I'm thinking of having it fill up slower from the bottom (similar to how collapse does) rather than all at once.

Is yours filled in procedurally or is some sort of place holder object replaced with a random skull color?

I've been searching few about a week around and haven't had any luck finding anything on puzzle games with construct. I'm familiar with the basics of Construct and have made a break-out clone and a platformer and now want to try my hand at a puzzle game, but i need some help jumping off because I just cannot think of how to get started. Basically I'd just like to populate a 320x480 gameboard with blocks 32x32, 4 different colors, randomly each time.

For now I'm just trying to get a basic engine in place, build initial board and cause blocks to fill in to spots that are not occupied while I finish nailing down the concept so this isn't another bejeweled clone. But I'd honestly be happy if someone could help point me in the right direction to get started just filling in the board the first time. I feel dumb, but there's just some concept I'm missing and I'm just drawing a complete blank over how to begin.

I'll attach a sample .cap of just a blank board with 4 different color blocks in case it'd be easier to show by example. PuzzleFudge.cap

Thanks a ton in advance, loving Construct a ton.

Really nice so far. Haven't come across anything yet that you haven't mentioned. Keep it up.