bontegames

Hi! I'm Bart Bonte, a Belgian independent game designer and bontegames.com is where I blog about new interesting browser and mobile games. My own games are all in the left column (or at the bottom of this page on mobile). More info about me and my games on bartbonte.com.
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May 31, 2013

four

Connect 4 circles of different colors to make them disappear in the html5 puzzler four by Piqnt. Black circles are bombs and white circles are wildcards.

30 comments:

PK said...

Uh, what is the point of this game? It tells me what circles to connect, I connect them, and then it goes to the next level. There's no challenge, no puzzle, nothing. This is worse than Farmville.

jj said...

Well what's the point of Tetris then PK? ;-p

Anonymous said...

@PK That's its tutorial! :)

deCarlo said...

Maybe some written instructions could make it clearer. I couldn't figure out why it was "game over" for me, what did I do right, what did I do wrong? Couldn't grasp the rules.

Dopey said...

Guess I,m stupid too, just don't get it.

tam said...

Level 3
score: 2969

not totally sure that what I'm doing is correct, but I'm improving my score :)

I try to connect the 4 different colours;
I use the black dots to destroy difficult chains of dots (and be quick because the black dot disappears);
The transparent dots can stand for any other colour.
so far so good :P

I like it! Thank you Bart!

Anonymous said...

Try "Cross" mode of this game (mode switcher is in the top-right corner). In this mode new circles don't appear after each turn (like in other modes) and it's easily noticable how well-combined colored chains of circles disappear.

Anonymous said...

The tutorial is nothing like the actual game... There were no "appearing" dots in the tutorial, and only sets of four disappeared. I had whole sets of 6 or 7 disappear in the game and I have no idea why. deCarlo is right, written instructions would have been much more helpful.

corny8 said...

Confusing game.... :|

Anonymous said...

Some instructions would be nice!!!

Anonymous said...

err, is the game trying to figure out if this is a game.

WhiteRose said...

Simple puzzle game, except why the dots changed color sometimes. Will have to try cross mode another day.

Anonymous said...

According to indiegames.com color changing dots are called Joker!

tam said...

Level 4
Score 4064

Life comes without instructions :)

Anonymous said...

Level 5
Score 8373

I might try again later

Anonymous said...

Level 5
Score 12305 :)

deCarlo said...

@tam: live DOES come with instructions. They call it breeding, upbringing or education.

Anonymous said...

Nope, I'm not fond of this game. It should have been more obvious with showing that we were in the tutorial part. I clicked over to "connect", which I assume is the actual game, and I was quite underwhelmed.

Cyn said...

Played "Cross" - stuck with one yellow dot and can't get the page to reset. I even tried resetting my Flash cache and "Cross" still shows just one yellow dot. No way to continue to play; no way to start a new "Cross" game. Any help?

Cak said...

Now I got a little idea of what I might do to get better in this game.

I didn't recognize in the tutorial in which cases more than row of four colours will disappear.

So for those who didn't see it too: You might have colour one in the middle and at two or more sides colours two and three connected. If you connect colour four to the middle colour (colour one) all chains on all sides disappear (because each of the chains is beeing completed in this moment).

Example with two chains:
r = red
g = green
b = blue
y = yellow

You have this:
3-2-1(Middle)-2-3
r-g-b(Middle)-g-r

Now connect y to b. Done.

Cak said...

Ok, that works for 2 or 3 connected chains consisting of three colours (having the same colour in the middle - because with fourth colour connected to the one in the middle booth or all three chains are completed).

So it works for white or black as fourth colour too. White replaces missing colour (complex structure disappears), black "deletes" all connected chains with similar structure.

I believe there is one difference in impact of white and black: Chains deleted/destroyed by black might not require to have the same logical colour structure as if you would use fourth colour or white to make your complexe chain disappear. That is what tam called "destroying difficult chains". Didn't try until now.

Cak said...

Ah!

Obviously chains to be destroyed by black do not have to follow the "normal" colour order, but they have to be symmetric!

Example 1: You have
b-b-g-b-b
Connecting black to g destroys whole chain.

Example 2: You have
r-b-g-b-y
Connecting black should leave r and y, only symmetric part disappears.

Maybe I should sell my findings/assumptions as a game description to the game author who might be more interested in writing source code and making game design;-)

Next one following ... now

Cak said...

As I told first colour might have 2 or 3 connections to the second colour. Max number of connections per colour is 4. You need the fourth colour to complete the chain for disappearing the whole complex chain.

But the 3 instances of your second colour might have up to 4 connections too. One is used for connection from colour one. So you might have up to 3 connections to third colour.

So the max number of disappearing dots by adding one dot in fourth colour should be 14 (including dot in fourth colour).
3^0 (= 1, first colour) + 3^1 (= 3, second colour) + 3^2 (= 9, third colour) + 1 (fourth colour)

This restriction might not apply to black as fourth colour, as chains do not have to be compliant to the "four-colours-requirement" ;-) - but symmetric.

jj said...

Black is just a bomb: it will remove everything you attach it to

Anonymous said...

Cyn, did you try click cross again? You should be able to click it twice and it will ask you to start a new game.

Anonymous said...

level 5
score: 9358 :)

Cak said...

@jj: no, it won't destroy everything .. see example 2 above - i tried this

and i guess symmetric is symmetric in colours, not in structure (but I did'nt proove)

Anonymous said...

@Cak, bombs destroy anything up to 3 circles away.

Anonymous said...

I dont no what i'am doing right or wrong. Not, my game......But thanks anyway Bart...

Bart said...

The developer of the game just sent me a message he set up a faq/help page to answer all comments/questions: http://piqnt.com/4/about/

 

If you are you looking for a solution or a walkthrough for one of the game links, please have a look in the comments.
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