Suggestions

Am I the only one who would like to see the ability to play test your own designs before submitting them into the actual game?

Some of these maps I’m playing seem like total RNG crapshoots and I’ve still yet to see/play my own puzzles (less than 10k from running out my luck bonus). I feel it would lend to more realistically challenging and/or complete-able puzzles.

I supported this on Tumblr, and I support here - it would be REALLY helpful to know if my puzzle is too easy/hard/low on the board/whatever before submitting, especially since some puzzles have been accepted that are total luck-of-the-draw or win-in-five-turns-or-else puzzles, and I'd hate for that to be one of mine! It's hard to tell without actually playing it. So yes. All the support.

i said as much in a similar thread but a test option would likely do a lot to reduce the amount of luck-based or incomprehensible puzzles. i appreciate that the colors don't come up again after you've cleared the board of them, but that doesn't do much when you just can't get the color you need with 6+ colors in circulation.

i also wonder if it wouldn't be best to restrict the # of colors when making a map, or restrict how many rows your design can take up, or have these two variables tied together. like, you can use more colors but you sacrifice line space, or you can make a larger puzzle but you must use fewer colors.

Support

@cactusbee

You know that's not a half-bad idea. Say they set it so that when you choose to create a puzzle - you can select a difficulty value you want to aim for that would limit your options.

The only thing that I could see wrong with something like that off the top of my head is that color doesn't necessarily mean difficulty. You can have 6 colors in large pop-able wads and still have an easy puzzle - you know?

@Zenitha

yeah difficulty is kind of a strange thing to quantify in this game's case. perhaps if they added color amounts/board sizes as suggestions instead of hard limits. unless you've played the game or others like it, you wouldn't really have a good idea of what makes a fun puzzle or how difficult it will turn out.

hopefully a playtesting option will let people determine their own difficulty. it's a pity when you get a weirdly difficult/RNG one because the vast majority i've played so far are quite fun and fair and there's a pretty even mix of simple and difficult puzzles.

boop?

Any other opinions?

I would love to be able to test my puzzle before sending it off to be approved, so I can make adjustments where needed.

I think it might also be a good idea if it forced you to beat your own puzzle before you can submit it for approval.
It would most likely help with the amount of "impossible" luck-based puzzles that are being submitted, and would encourage people to make puzzles that work instead of puzzles that are just pretty.

Support! I was thinking this myself, earlier, while I struggled to design my first puzzle.

Support! I designed a puzzle the other day, but kept tweaking it as I realized that certain bubble clusters needed adjustment (namely filling in a bit of empty space and making sure not to isolate small groups of bubbles).