4DTris - Tetris in 4D

[simzer]

4DTris - Tetris in 4D., Logic/puzzle game

This game inspired by the old 3D tetris game, Blockout. I had written the first version 10 years ago in Pascal than I forgot about it for a while. Two years ago I had rewritten the game in C using openGL and GLUT and released under GPL. That version wasn't a full game but a "demo" instead. It was playable, but it lacked menu, etc. Now I had some time to complete it and create a new version, 0.3.0 (alpha).
You can find a sort introduction on the project blog: http://sourceforge.net/apps/wordpress/dtris/help/

Since it is an alpha version, it should be full of bugs. Here I could use some help from beta testers.
Besides that developers are also welcome. I've very poor openGL skills, so the "graphical evolution" of the game is a little bit slow
I plan to replace GLUT with SDL, and have some ideas for further versions also.

Links:
Project blog: http://sourceforge.net/apps/wordpress/dtris/
Project site: https://launchpad.net/4dtris
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmWRtz97lfU
Screenshot:

[charlie]

It looks very cool but only a few people will really ever grasp the 4d concept which will make it's appeal, and subsequent pool of users, rather limited.

[snowdrop]

Looks really good and would probably interest most of the tetris fans.

After building it on Ubuntu Karmic (64) and giving it a test drive I have the following to share based on my first impressions. after playing it only for 30 min:

• My biggest problem is understanding what goes on when the piece is falling: It's confusing, as it seems to change size(?), which is probably a feature and part of the 3d-thingie, but it makes it hard to understand where it will land and what it's relation in size is to the already placed pieces. This maybe relates to the next one:
• The shades of gray used to mark the "cube" area and the area/outlines of the falling piece are very similar. This makes the above confusion even greater, especially since they appear "meld" together. I'd suggest making the colour of the falling piece's contour/area, while it's falling, being some kind of orange instead of the gray you use now.

Other thoughts that came to mind:

• It would be very nice if there was an option to totally shut off the varying size/perspective/scale-changing of the falling piece. It think that alone would make it way more intuitive, at least for new players. (I'm an old gamer and I still suck at 4dtris after 30 min at easy... this says plenty about how untrained my mind is for the task at hand, but I don't believe the average joe that will try this will have the same patience as me). if he doesn't grasp the game within 15 - 20 min and has a hard time even understanding what's going on, he'll leave. This brings me to the next point:
• I don't know if the variation of pieces are different in the different game modes. But in my opinion, there are already too many variations included in the "Easy" mode of the game, and it's really not easy = P I suggest you narrow the number of pieces to a handful, the most.
• It would be really nice if you created a tutorial mode in the game for new players where each tutorial is one level of it's own. You'd start at the very basics, just super simple cubes falling, and with only 1 or 2 rotation buttons activated, along with short instructional text on screen. Take it step by step, letting the player get used to one control/axis/piece geometry at a time. Giving the whole package to the player from the start is overwhelming, at least for my mind. (I'm sure people used to CAD or 3dMax/Maya/Blender would fare better than me though, but then again, I don't think you're really aiming for only those.)
• Make it optional to display the x, y, z axis, all of them at the same time.
• Some clearer and optional grid system to help out.
• If it's not already on a roadmap, adding timer would be nice, and also online highscore support etc, which would help you get followers and a little more likely to get contributions maybe.

Hope there is something constructive and usable somewhere in the above. I think you have a very interesting thing going on and will keep an eye on it.

[simzer]

Thanks you very much for the testing and the ideas! I added them to the project's todo list and I'll try to implement them to the next version.

[simzer]

A new beta version (0.4.1) released. Beta testers are welcome!

Announcement: https://sourceforge.net/apps/wordpress/dtris/
Download: https://launchpad.net/4dtris/+download
Video trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO9SNW5T ... r_embedded
Screenshot: