Comments on: Inflate (NeiloGD)

By: ggn

ggn — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:33:41 +0000

20 years ago… back on the Atari ST… chain reaction! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AltbPexTcn8

It even featured up to 6 players (AI or real) leading to pure havoc usually

By: zaratustra

zaratustra — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:13:43 +0000

Most of the early game is automatic, maybe start with 50% or 75% of the board pre-populated?

By: bluecollarart

bluecollarart — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:55:47 +0000

>I think there’s still a lot of ground to explore.

Definitely. Throw in some great art & style, a few variations, and it seems like a ripe, glistening opportunity for a dev looking for something simple to put out on mobile.

By: bluecollarart

bluecollarart — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:54:42 +0000

Holy crap, this is WAY deeper than I thought it was. I had about 80% of the board captured, and the blue only had a few circles, I thought it was pretty much over, but then the chain-capturing started!

Reminds me of a combination of Go & TripleTown. That’s a fucking awesome thing.

By: Buttons

Buttons — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:40:20 +0000

Huh! That looks pretty neat.

This is one of those games that combinatorists like to geek out over, because it’s a realization of a pretty well-known dynamical system on graphs known as a “sandpile model”. I’ve been at more than one math talk where a member of the audience asked if the speaker had played this game. But I haven’t seen much in the way of variations, and I think there’s still a lot of ground to explore.

By: Terry

Terry — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:12:19 +0000

Oh, interesting! I know this game as "Overload" from the C64, and I thought it traced back to a VIC20 game. Didn't know about Hexplode. I've had an unfinished prototype knocking around for several years which is basically an expansion of these rules. It's almost finished actually, I really should get around to releasing it one of these days...

By: Buttons

Buttons — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 12:28:41 +0000

The idea is pretty old (the original version dates to 1982), but I like the graphics in this one. AI could use some work though: since the computer insists on always making a move in a space next to a cell you occupy, you can always respond by clicking on that cell so they will never get a chance to cause a single explosion, with a few easy-to-avoid exceptions around the edge of the board.

By: mdweedoo

mdweedoo — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 10:32:40 +0000

This is surprisingly really fun for how simple it is! An interesting idea.