Puzzle game "Color Match" beta test

[dehodev]

On a side note: The official version is now released and can be downloaded here

The beta is going to continue and will get new features before the official release.



I’m looking for beta testers for my first Windows Phone puzzle game “Color Match”.
Beta testers don’t have to do extensive testing or contact me, I only want you to play the game normally. With this test I want to find out whether the number of moves I grant you to complete a game is correct and not too much/not enough. (Well and of course to find any lingering bugs. I would also appreciate if you could send me quick feedback should you find spelling or grammatical errors)

If everything works as intended the game will be released on about April 15th.
If you are interested, enter your email address and your Microsoft account in this list (can be the same) (or send it to me via PM or Email)
A few hours later you should receive an email with the download link. You will receive no further mails.

Game description:

Color Match is an addictive and simple puzzle game in which you try to color the whole tile board in one color.
Enjoy beautiful background music while you play.

This app is supported by ads that can be disabled with an upgrade package. The upgrade package also includes other benefits and will receive new game modes in coming updates. (free for beta testers)

Instructions
The goal is to convert every tile on the board to one color. Start by changing the color of the tile in the upper left corner to that of an adjacent tile by selecting and tapping that color button below the board. Try to match all tiles in as few moves as possible.

I hope you enjoy,
Stefan

deHoDev
--

And since I know some people want to know what the app requirements are for:

App Requirements Descriptions and Explanations

Data Services
Used for checking for updates, new content, news and contacting the developer.

Media Playback
Playing backgroud music and sound effects. Also needed for some ads that play video/audio when opened by the user.

Media libraries
Needed for some ads. No personal files are accessed. Not used when ads are disabled.

Phone Identity
Used for automated error logging and statistic logging from an external SDK.

Owner Identity
Required for the Advertising SDK from Microsoft, even though it is not used anymore in the current SDK version according to the documentation. Not used when ads are disabled.

 

[Jazmac]

Email address and Microsoft account?

 

[dehodev]

What's your question?
Do you want to know why I need your Microsoft Account? I need to add your Microsoft Account to the whitelist from Microsoft otherwise you can not download the beta.

Or why both? Well they can of course be the same, but in a previous beta test for an app of mine, many people used a different email address than their Microsoft Account. So I give the option for all beta testers to enter a different email address, to where the download link should be send.

Or what do you mean?

 

[hope4wp]

the subscribing list was a bit confusing...since we use the same email id which we use for microsoft account....maybe that was his dilemma

 

[Jazmac]

What Nadia Syed said. Generally the MS id is your live email address.

 

[hope4wp]

can we even win this game in 20 moves?

 

[dehodev]

I released the beta to figure that out. I'm really bad at estimating whether my performance at something is average or not.
I personally win 95% of all games with a size of 11 (and 20 moves). (Played about 100 games)

Unfortunately I don't think I will get enough statistical data to make an informed decision whether I need to change the number of moves or not, before release (with only one beta tester having signed up).

I would like to achieve a win ration of 80% for an average player (so you can't win by randomly pressing some colors and still have to think a little)

Since there still seems to be some confusion about the email and microsoft account stuff, can anyone tell me how to reword that so it becomes clear?

Some additional info:
This game is based on a flash game I played a few years ago while in programming class in school. That game had a size of 14*14 and had 25 moves.

 

[hope4wp]

So I played around 16 games and I won only one! :|
The first time I opened this game and I selected a color tile it just stuck and I had to close the app and restart....however that seem to fix it but!
I added custom tiles and then I started another round and I selected lime green, the second last tile in the palette (in the screenshot) and it turned pink and froze itself :/ again I had to restart the game.
And the spelling mistakes I found was
1) you wrote volumn instead of volume in settings
2) you should change the words in the custom color palette from value to color....it might seem better!!

 

[hope4wp]

I'll try to think and play again because the only time I won was when I thought and planned my moves!

 

[dehodev]

Thank you very much, great feedback!

The lime green button turned pink because that's your accent color and all buttons turn the background to your accent color when pressed. For some reason it seems it got stuck. I'll look into it!

 

[dehodev]

Nadja, I would really appreciate if you could send me the application log so I can see if there is any indication to what is causing the hangs.

You can send me the log this way: Start the app, tap the right-most button at the bottom (about), tap "Send Feedback" button, make sure the checkbox "include application log" at the bottom is checked, hit send and then send the email.

 

[hope4wp]

i sent you the email you can check it

 

[hope4wp]

What's the update?

 

[hope4wp]

Ok I guess I found when it gets stuck....it's when I double tap the screen! :/

 

[dehodev]

I fixed all of the things you mentioned in Version 0.6 (the hang problem was caused by an OutOfMemoryException. edit: well I guess that was just another thing. Double tapping a button causes a hang. Strange because the game never uses more memory than Windows Phone allows. The game should never use more than 80MB Ram. However I improved the algorithm and the problem should not occur anymore)

Changelog Version 0.6
- Bug: Always the same win icon
- Bug: Language selector does not change language of the selector itself
- Bug: Rare OutOfMemoryException when playing and changing an item
- Bug: Played time wrongly displayed if longer than 60 minutes
- Pause music button on main page
- Pause/Settings button on play page

Changelog Version 0.7
- Bug: Pressing the settings button when the game finished dialog is shown results in a game that can not be finished
- Increased number of moves by a little


(both released today, and you can view the changelog - and upcomming changes in future updates - at any given time in "about")

 

[dehodev]

Ok I guess I found when it gets stuck....it's when I double tap the screen! :/

Perfect thanks! That's something I didn't think about. Will be fixed in version 0.8, tomorrow.

 

[hope4wp]

Ok cool yeah I was being a bit silly I read the changelog after I asked what's new! =|

 

[dehodev]

Version 0.8 is now available

 

[hope4wp]

I so it's version 0.9 now...i was searching for the changelog I guess you didn't up update it...anyways here's a bug
I paused the music and accidentally pressed the search button and then I switched the game back and the background music resumed.

 

[dehodev]

Thanks, will be fixed in the next update.

Yeah with 0.9 there is not much to write. I made a little oversight when releasing version 0.8. No ads were being displayed.

(I fixed the problem 10 minutes after I saw that no ads were being displayed. Than I debugged for 2 hours, got frustrated and took an hour of, and debugged another 2 hours until I figured out that on the day before I disabled ads in the developer version and I already fixed the problem 5 hours before - all the while thinking I made a mistake on trying to fix the problem....)

On a side note: The official version is now released and can be downloaded here

The beta is going to continue and will get new features before the official release.