[Phaser 4] Snake in Ellaz

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Sharing a small Phaser 4 build: the Snake game inside Ellaz, a free 43-game site for kids in English, Hebrew, Spanish and French (no ads, no accounts, works offline as a PWA). Happy to talk through the RTL/Hebrew board handling if it’s useful to anyone else building with Phaser - it turned out to need more care than I expected. The site is https://ellaz.fun and the source is MIT: https://github.com/Sigmafier/ellaz

Yatir

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The classic snake game, free in your browser. Eat, get longer, and do not touch yourself.

That is unfortunate wording. I would change it to “do not touch your own tail” or “do not run into your own body” or really just anything else hah.:wink:

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The game works…

-Interface looks like not a part of the game.

-If I die, what’s my last and highest scores?

-It looks meh.
Why would anyone play this game?

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thanks for the feedback! im open to hear any suggestion and idea and feedback you have. i added flag icon in every game where players can give their feedback and we will fix and improve anything:)

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if you have suggestions i will improve the game

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Will you really?

First of all design need to be improved.
I saw this game today, and it looks way better than yours:

This has arcade feel, but I think even this is not good enough.
I would really like to see a snake, not just squares moving.

Next is the game itself. Everybody played snake on their Nokia phone, so it’s boring, it needs some kind of twist.
Option 1) you treat the game as a puzzle, so there are levels with different obstacles/powers and you need to gather certain amount of dots or whatever to go to another level.
Option 2) there is a bot snake that competes with you. You win not by gathering dots, but buy killing the enemy.
Option 3) there are different types of dots: some make you longer, others flip your buttons etc.
Option 4) Multiplayer. Don’t recommend, but there is such option.

Basic snake is the game of the past and you need to think what is popular today: roguelike, puzzle, tower defense, deck building, slot machine, vampire survivor and add that to the game.

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Nice!

I’m going to build your suggestions and update, thanks!

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@NePo you were right on all three, so here’s what changed:

  • When you die, a card now shows your score and your best, with a “New best” badge when you beat it, and Play again starts the next run in one tap.
  • The score, stage and best moved onto the board itself instead of sitting in cards on the page around it.
  • New look: a glowing snake with eyes that follow where it’s going, a pulsing apple, sparks and a +1 on every apple, a rising pop sound through each
    stage, and a shake when you crash.
  • There’s also a “Today” board now: the same walls and apples for everyone, new each day.

@johnSSG the description now says “never run into your own tail” - thanks for catching that one.

On the bigger point, that plain snake is the game of the past: agreed, so we built a second one in the vampire-survivors direction you mentioned. It’s
called Snake Survivors. You steer freely through a crowd that chases you, and when you close a loop with your body, everything inside it gets crushed.
Your tail is your health, the crushed shapes drop gems that grow it back, level-ups offer you cards (fangs, a spiked tail, a magnet and so on), and a
boss arrives after three minutes. It’s in beta, so tell me what feels off:

A puzzle version with hand-built levels comes next.

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Free Snake Game

It’s better, but there is still place for improvement.

-When you start a game it goes straight into a wall unless you react fast. There are two options: 1) Player has to click the button for snake to move 2) There are no walls (like in pacman) and snake just comes out of other side.
-When you lose, it shows your score for the level unless you were trying to take a corner, which means, that you were clicking a button so instead the score you see start to play window. You should test you game :slight_smile:
-I manage to reach stage 4. What is the difference between stage 0 and stage 4? I didn’t feel or saw any.

Snake Survivors

I like the look.
How do you actually play it?
-I never seen anything like that (and most people probably too), so you need to add tutorial or some kind of hints for people to understand what todo

-I tried to surround the bats in a circle, but instead I lost a life and the length of the snake, which means I am no longer long enough to surround anything, so how can I win? How do I get any points or xp?

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@NePo thanks for playing it properly - all of that was fair, and all of it is changed now (I really appreciate your effort here):

Free Snake Game

  • The snake no longer sets off on its own. After Start it waits on the board with arrows around its head, and your first direction sends it off - backwards turns it round.
  • The score card was being skipped because the arrow you pressed while crashing counted as “play again”. Arrows now only steer, and the card ignores every input for a moment after you crash, so you always see your score.
  • Stages now look different: every new stage drops a few walls onto the board, and they flash as they land.

Snake Survivors

  • The first time you play, a short practice run walks you through it: loop your tail around one slow bat, eat the gems it drops, pick a power. You can skip it, and “How to play” on the start screen replays it.
  • What happened to you was the real problem: the bats reached your head before the loop closed, and a shorter snake can’t draw a loop. So the first 20 seconds are calm now (the shapes drift instead of chasing), and gems also lie on the floor, so you can grow and level up before your first loop.

And the puzzle version is live too: Puzzle Snake, twelve hand-built levels where nothing moves until you press, with undo and no way to lose:

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Free Snake Game

It works.
It would be nice to know how much I need to the next level, but I think you can leave the game as is.

Snake Survivors
I like the idea, but it doesn’t work.
I passed tutorial even through, I wouldn’t say it was easy for me. But in real game I lost my length and lives very fast.
I like the gems appearing randomly. I really like the booster cards. However, if I already have a magnet why do I get the same card second time?
I tried crushing bats at variuos length and I only succeeded when I got to 50. I didn’t manage to crush a bat at 46 or any lower size. Gathering gems till you 50 is boring. Also it takes a long time and boss arrive way too early. Finally I crushed some bats, got to size 60 tried to crush the boss and died because I bit my own tail. Wow.

You have good idea, but you have to rework it.
+Keep the gems.
+Keep the cards, add more cards
-There are way too many bats.
-It’s too hard to kill them.
-Maybe boss shouldn’t arrive on time, but on some kind of trigger e.g. if you reach size 50 or if you killed 10 minions.
?Maybe there should be option to shoot bats as a booster card.
?Maybe there should be different type of gems e.g. blue gives +1, red gives +2, yellow gives +3

Snake Survivors

It works. It’s not interesting.
Levels 1-6 and 2-2 I like because it’s challenging but not too hard. But other levels feel boring and samey.

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@NePo thanks again - we went through your last post line by line:

Free Snake Game: the band now shows how many apples are left to the next stage.

Snake Survivors

  • Loops snap shut at about three quarters of a lap, so you can crush from the starting length instead of 50, and a big crush hits hard (CRUSH x8, flash, shake).
  • A bump costs 1 segment and the start has fewer bats; it gets harder stage by stage.
  • The boss comes on a trigger (length 50 or 10 crushes), and there are three stages with three bosses.
  • Gems: blue +1, red +2, yellow +3. Sixteen cards in three rarities, including Spit, which shoots. A card you own shows its next level, so Magnet no longer looks like a repeat.
  • The “bit my own tail” at 60 was the boss lunging with no warning. It now glows red and pauses before it lunges.

Puzzle Snake: 1-6 and 2-2 kept exactly; the other ten rebuilt, and world 2 now has keys, one-way tiles and portals.

And your option 2 from earlier, a bot snake to beat: Snake Arena (beta), 90-second rounds against 3-5 computer snakes.

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Snake Survivors

I like the changes you done. However it still need an improvement.
-I like the loop that shows you where to go to kill enemies and how many enemies are in the loop. However sometimes the loop is too big. Like in the screenshot:

image
image1337×748 143 KB

-For some reasons I got two big enemies slime and bat at the same time. You should fight two bosses at the same time.

-I got double gems bonus, but there are way too many gems. It’s not interesting.

-The game is too easy. I have 60 size and all my lives. It’s boring. For the game, you need to feel like you barely made it, like you had to try.
To be honest, I am really impressed with what you have done. Still game needs some work :slight_smile:

Puzzle Snake

I like arrows, portals seems a bit strange at first, but I like the idea. However I can only play the next level, which happened to be 2-4, so I can’t test other levels you have changed. There should be a meniu option to replay levels you have already won.

Snake Arena

I like this game a lot. However I think there are a few cosmetic options that could help.

-Ability to choose your color. I don’t think that most will use it, but a few might appreciate it.

-Different difficulty levels: Easy could be 3 opponents or maybe 2, hard could be 4 or 5. Also the speed could be different, it could be slower on easy.
-Different maps. Base map is good as is, but there could be hard map with a few obstacles, not too many.
-Snakes could leave a slime trail. It should be just visual effect that fades with time, but I think that would make a game look cooler.
-I don’t know if these days two people play on the same computer, but maybe?

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@NePo thanks again, everything from your last post is in. Here is what changed:

Snake Survivors

  • The loop guide no longer turns into a huge circle. It was a bug: when the closing point
    sat almost straight behind the head, the guide drew a circle across the whole map.
  • No more two bosses at once: the stage boss now waits until the mini-boss is down.
  • Double Gems is gone. In its place is Gem Merge: gems near each other pull together into
    one bigger gem worth the same, so there is far less to chase.
  • It is harder on Normal and Wild: bats come faster in stages 2 and 3, a bump costs more
    length later in the run, and the bosses take more crushes. Our careful test bot now wins
    Normal a lot less often than before.
  • Rare cards are rare now: gold and blue cards show up about half as often.
  • A cleaner screen: lives top left, length top right, the boss bar at the bottom, and one
    start screen instead of two.

Puzzle Snake

  • You can replay any level you have won: the Levels button opens the level map, and the
    “level solved” card now has an All levels button too.

Snake Arena

  • Easy, Normal and Hard: Easy is 2 opponents and a slower snake, Normal is 3, Hard is 5.
  • Pick your colour on the start screen.
  • A Rocks map with a few obstacles.
  • A slime trail behind every snake that fades after a couple of seconds.
  • Two players on one computer: player 1 on the arrow keys, player 2 on W A S D.

https://ellaz.fun/games/snakesurvivors/
https://ellaz.fun/games/snakearena/
https://ellaz.fun/games/puzzlesnake/

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Snake Survivors

-At first it seems that enemies really hurting me, but after awhile it seems that they can’t do any damage to me. Even the ones that are shooting.

-What’s the point of double head? I don’t get it.
-Max length is 60. It’s fine, but maybe I want to get so long that I could do double or even triple loops?

-There is no score or time so what is the goal of the game?

-If there is nothing in the loop, maybe, closing loop shouldn’t be shown.

-I like the idea, but it still feels like something is missing and I am not sure what.

Other games are fine as is :slight_smile:

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@NePo thanks, these were great notes. Five of them are in now:

Enemies stop hurting after a while. You were right, and it was two things. The hearts were
drawn as a share of your whole tail, so a hit on a long snake did not move them at all. Now
every hit drains part of a heart and the hearts flash red. And from partway into stage 2, every
hit on Normal and Wild takes at least half a heart, however long you are, so shooters and
bumps hurt late in the run too.

What’s the point of Double Head? It lets your tail close loops as well as your head. That
was not clear, so the tail tip now looks like a second head, the card says “Your tail closes
loops too”, and a crush made by the tail flashes there.

Max length 60. It is 100 now on Normal and Wild, so there is room for a double loop around
a crowd.

No score or time. The top of the screen now shows how many you have crushed, a run clock,
and BOSS 1/3, which is the goal: beat three bosses. Your best is on the game over card.

The loop guide on an empty loop. It only shows now when something would be caught. (The
first-run tutorial keeps it on, since that is where you learn the loop.)

“Something is missing.” We think it is a reason to play the next run. Next up is a career
for Snake Survivors: gold from each run, a shop of lasting upgrades, and a map of levels to
unlock. If you had something else in mind, tell us.

I’m as usual open for more notes and feedback.

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What? How does that work?

Okay, so I tried to play, got black hole. The idea is super cool, but now I am going in circles, everybody is sucked into black hole, I don’t lose life, I get longer. Black hole should be like power-up: there is a limit of time how long you can use it and after using it you have to charge it again with time or gems or kills.