DaveM

Uploaded a short video to YouTube demonstrating Time Rush gameplay: I'm currently working on adding the enemies and power ups to Arcade Mode. This is slow going, and I haven't had much time this week to work on it, but I am making progress. As always, I'll post a ROM when I have an update!

Thought I'd take a break from working on the game this weekend to write up a back story for the game that's been floating around in my head. There's a quick reference to a bonus round that I'll be adding to the game later to give the players a break from solving puzzles. Anyway, here's the back story for the manual: It was quite possibly the most beautiful sunset Yavlin had ever seen. How ironic, he thought to himself, that something so beautiful could be the result of so much devastation and horror. The bright and beautiful colors made ever so much more resplendent thanks to the soot and the dust and the smoke that infested the air following the battles from earlier in the day. And yet as his homeland lay in ruins around him, the sight of this sunset gave him hope that better days may lie ahead; but he didn’t have time to think about that now. The enemy army was approaching quickly. Yavlin could hear them in the distance. He had met up with a few members of the Resistance a short time ago, and they had paused for a quick rest. If they remained there much longer, they would surely be captured by the invading forces, and all would be lost. Their only hope was to get moving now, continuing their retreat towards the city center. With any luck, there they could meet up with the other remaining members of the Resistance, and perhaps, with just the right element of surprise, they could put up enough of a stand against the invaders to last another day. Yavlin began to gather his possessions, ready to move out. But none of this mattered to Snuggy the Unicorn. Snuggy was busy having the time of his life bouncing around a hyperspace trampoline park on the other side of the universe, completely unaware of the great war raging millions of light years away. Snuggy loved to spend his day bouncing around trampolines, matching patterns, picking up goodies that floated past, and holding the occasional unicorn dance parties with his sisters, Snowy and Rosey. There was so much fun to be had for Snuggy the Unicorn, and no reasonable explanation for any of it. Meanwhile, on the other side of the universe, Yavlin was going through his provisions, and noticed he was out of onion dip.

I may not have gotten an interview, but at least I got in the background of one! 🤣

Big update time! The game's main game mode, Arcade Mode, is now playable! There's still much work to be done though, as I've yet to add the enemies, power ups, and bonus objects. But, you can play the arcade mode and get a sense of what the main game is going to be like. For now, the left difficulty switch functions in Arcade Mode just as in the other modes. Switch it to "A" to play with Wild Cards, switch to "B" to play without Wild Cards. This will be changed shortly, as Wild Cards are one of the power ups, so you'll need to earn them. Arcade Mode has five starting difficulty levels selectable from the main menu. For now, the level difficulty number corresponds to the number of puzzles (or "Rounds" as they're called in-game... mainly because I couldn't fit "Puzzles" 😄) that must be solved to successfully complete your first level. Each level consists of anywhere from 1 to 9 rounds, and anywhere from 30 to 100 seconds to solve them. As you progress, the better you do, the more difficult it will become. If time runs out on a level before you complete all the puzzles, the game will get a bit easier. As you get better at the game, you may notice that no two playthroughs are exactly alike. Since the power ups and enemies are not in the game yet, I'm going to hold off on tweaking the # of rounds and the clock for now. Once everything is in the game and it's ready for play-testing, if the game proves too difficult, I'll add time to the clock or whatever is necessary to make the game a better experience. In Arcade Mode, the object is to complete as many levels as possible, as quickly as possible. The more rounds you successfully complete, the more points you'll score. If you fail to complete a round, you'll be assessed penalties. Accumulate 50 penalties, and the game's over. At the start of each level, the game will show you how many rounds you must complete in that level. Scoring: Successfully complete a round: 1000 points for the first round, an additional 200 points for each round after that, up to 5000 points per round. Upon completing a round, the game will flash the number of points you receive, then show your total score. Successfully complete all rounds in a level: You get your normal round bonus, plus 5 points for each tenth of a second left on the clock. Upon successful completion of a level, the game will flash the combined total of the points you get for completing the round, plus the time bonus, then it will show your total score. If the clock runs out before you complete a round, you'll receive 100 points for each matching square. There will be other opportunities to score points as the game is completed. Penalties: If the clock runs out before you complete all the rounds in a level, you'll be assessed penalties. You'll receive 1 penalty for each non-matching square in the round you're currently on. You'll receive 10 penalties for each unattempted round in the level (for example, if the level has 3 rounds, and you've completed one of them, you'll get 1 penalty for each wrong box currently on screen, and another 10 for the round you didn't get to). If time expires, the game will flash the number of points you receive for the matching squares, then show you your total score, then display the number of total penalties you have (this is shown between a pair of "X's", so if you see "X23X", it means you have 23 penalties against you. As long as you have less than 50 penalties, the next level will begin with the game showing you how many rounds you need to complete. If you beat the previous level, you may have a higher number of rounds. If you failed, you may have less. Penalties max out at 50. When you reach 50, the game ends and your final score is displayed. Pressing the button will bring up "AGAIN?" Select "Y" to restart the game at whatever difficulty you initially selected, select "N" to return to the title screen. For what it's worth, you may notice the score and clock have no leading zero's. Other changes: The clock was previously running a bit slow. I fixed it. In Arcade Mode, the clock will flash red with less than 10 seconds left in a level. It will flash faster under 5 seconds. The playfield colors will change as your difficulty level changes. There's currently four color patterns. The game's finally taking shape. I'd love to hear some feedback! I think I'll be adding the power ups next. There's three power ups that I'm planning on, so if you have trouble solving the puzzles, hopefully the power ups will help you out. Of course, the wild cards are sorta already in there. If you haven't played the game with wild cards on yet, flip the left difficulty switch to "A" and try it out. Makes things A LOT easier! Enjoy! Frazzled_20230823.bin Frazzled_20230823.a

Well, this didn't work. I mean, it could've worked... but, although doing this freed up a whole bunch of ROM, displaying two sections like that takes up far too much of my precious little remaining RAM. Instead, I went through how I was storing the data, moved some stuff around, and freed up ROM space that way. Not quite as much as I had hoped, but it should be enough for me to get most of what I want in there. None of this changed anything observable from the player's perspective, so no need to post a new .bin file. As I've been watching others play what I have of the game so far, it seems people fall into one of four categories: 1. People who don't understand how the puzzles work, get frustrated, and never want to play the game ever again. 2. People who don't understand how the puzzles work, but make an effort to figure it out, and generally improve a bit over time. 3. People who enjoy working the puzzles, but don't know the patterns and take a while to complete them. 4. People who know the patterns and complete lots of puzzles very quickly. I decided I can't do anything about people who fit into category #1. But for the rest, it presents a HUGE gap between the ability of the people in each category. So I've been trying to think of ways to make the game fun for everyone, no matter what the skill level. Keep it easy enough for beginners, yet still challenge those that can solve the puzzles very quickly. One way, of course, is to have a selectable difficulty level at the start of the game. But still, you might get someone who gets bored out of their mind for level after level until the game finally gets challenging; or even worse, ramp up the difficulty too quickly for the beginning player. So, I had an idea. Rather than increasing the difficulty with each level played, ramp up the difficulty based on how the player is playing. In other words, when the player does good things, increase the difficulty. When they have trouble, make things easier on them. Rather than set a fixed number of puzzles and a fixed number of seconds on the clock for each level, it could vary depending on how the player is doing. For example, the plan is for the first level of the game to give the player 100 seconds to solve 1 puzzle. If a player fails to solve the puzzle, their next level could be the same - 1 puzzle in 100 seconds. But if they successfully solve the puzzle in say, 10 seconds, the difficulty would ramp up quickly and perhaps their next level would give them 50 seconds to solve 3 puzzles. I'm trying to work out the details on how this would work, and it would probably need to be tweaked a whole bunch through play testing, but I think it would work better for this game rather than set each level with a fixed clock and number of puzzles for every playthrough. Some exciting news... a Frazzled demo will be on display at this year's PRGE!

UPDATE! What's New... Game now starts up showing the title logo and version date. Press the button to go to the main menu. The main menu is currently limited to just two choices: Practice Mode and Time Rush Mode. As I complete the regular version of the game, other choices will be added. But for now, you can choose either of the existing modes and play those. The left difficulty switch controls whether you use wild cards in either mode. Set to "A" to use wild cards, set to "B" for no wild cards. You can change back and forth during a game, however, the setting only takes effect when a new puzzle is generated. If you select Practice Mode, you can exit out of Practice Mode and back to the main title screen by holding the button down for roughly 3 seconds. It you select Time Rush Mode, when your game ends, your final time will flash as it did before. Push the button, and it will ask "AGAIN?" Selecting "N" will take you back to the title screen. If you select "Y", it will launch you into another Time Rush game with the same number of rounds you previously selected. Note that while the number of rounds will remain the same, it will give you a new set of puzzles. I'll try to work in an option to run the same puzzles again later on. The ROM is now 16k in size. I needed to do that to accommodate all the graphics I'm using in the scoreboard/menu area. That little area takes up the entire 3rd bank. Currently, the 4th bank sits empty. I'm planning on using that bank for the audio. What's Next... Speaking of the scoreboard/menu area, I'm going to have to redesign it a bit. It's currently loaded in there as one large 20 scanline chunk. That means the graphics are loaded in 20 byte chunks. That makes it very difficult to store that data efficiently. I'm going to break the scoreboard up into two 10 scanline segments, allowing me to store the data in smaller chunks. Hopefully, when all is said and done, you won't notice any difference visually. It should all look the same, I'll just be able to pack more graphics in there. After that, I'll finally be able to start working on the main game. As always, if you find a bug, PLEASE let me know! I tested this the best I could, and it seems to work fine, but there's almost always something that I miss. And finally, to answer a question some of you may have been wondering... Why a blue unicorn named "Snuggy?" Snuggy is based on a plush unicorn that was given to my fiancée as a gift a short while back (she loves unicorns). While I was developing Mr. Yo-Yo, she suggested that Snuggy would make a good character to use in one of my future games. When I started working on Frazzled, I was trying to come up with a main character, and decided that Snuggy fits this game pretty well. So that's why the game features a bouncing blue unicorn. Frazzled_20230720.bin

Last day in Vegas. I've had enough of The Strip, the casinos, and the people, so I decided to drive around town and check out the local retro video game stores. At my last stop, I find this... I've been looking for H.E.R.O. since it came out! NEVER been able to get my hands on one! FINALLY! I don't even remember what the guy charged me for it, I didn't care. This makes up for not cashing in any tournament at the WSOP. So briefly, in my last tournament, I played almost 8 hours. A good portion of that was right next to the TV table. By coincidence, at my table was one of my favorite poker tv commentators. Had a good time talking to him and playing against him. I did good yesterday, but not good enough. Nevertheless, it was quite exhausting. So to get this thread back on track... FRAZZLED... Right before I left, I changed the bankswitching scheme to open up a couple extra banks, bringing the game to 16k. It's looking like that scoreboard area might need a bank all to itself with everything I want to display there. I'll get back to working on the game when I get home in a couple days. I also had some ideas of what I could do with Kick Ice. I think I may turn that into a Mario Bros type of game. The bird could drop the enemies into play instead of them coming out of pipes, the platforms could change with each level, and there could be a couple large ice blocks to kick which could act like the turtle shells in SMB. I need to play with this idea more, but I think this is a way I can salvage that game.

Spent a good portion of the day at the Pinball Hall of Fame today, where I found this beauty amongst the games: Gave it a few plays, and it played pretty well! Paddle was slightly jittery, but otherwise good. Set the score you see above, then followed it up with 4560. Unfortunately, most of the games there were unplayable and in a state of disrepair. One funny story though - I'm playing the arcade game Wacko, and next to me is Donkey Kong. The DK machine is running, but the colors are all off - everything's red, except the ladders, which are INVISIBLE. Despite this, people keep coming up and playing it. So this 20-something woman is playing, and keeps saying, "How do I jump up? I can't get to the next level! How do I jump up?" She's trying to jump from the bottom beam to the next beam because she can't see the ladders and isn't familiar with the game. I see she just happens to be standing right where the ladder is, so I explain that the game's messed up and there's ladders, and she's right where one is, and she should just push up, etc , etc. Then of course, a barrel comes and lands on her head. Well, Mario's head in the game, not her actual head as she's standing there playing DK. That would be tragic, and quite weird, but probably very funny nonetheless. Anyway, I don't think anyone's interested in the poker stuff, so I'll just say I lasted 7 hours last night, had 3 top pros at my table, combined with a lack of cards made it really tough going. So no cash again, one more try tomorrow.

Well, it's been a frustrating trip so far. Busted out today holding KK vs QQ vs KQ. Literally couldn't ask for a better spot to get my money in. QQ rivers a dang flush. I could rebuy, but I've had enough today. Tomorrow's a different game - Razz.

Just stumbled across this thread, and now it's gonna cost me money. 😄

This update hopefully fixes the kernel bug that popped up on ZPH. I'm writing to the PF2 register 2-3 cycles earlier here, so hopefully that does the trick. If you were seeing the playfield error (as shown a few posts above), I'd appreciate it if you could test this out and see if you still see the same bug or not. There's another bug that I noticed that I can't quite figure out. After the screen flashes "READY!", there's maybe 1 frame as it switches over to start the clock where the bottom grid briefly moves down 1 scanline. If anyone can figure that one out, I'd appreciate the help! I've also added a new feature to the game - Wild Cards! These will be power ups in the main game when that's complete, but I'm bringing them forward into the Time Rush mode to help players who have trouble solving the puzzles. After watching a few friends really struggle with the game, I thought it might be a good idea to implement this early. For now, if you want to use Wild Cards, set the Left Difficulty Switch to the "A" position. Set it to the "B" position to play without Wild Cards. Wild Card boxes will flash as you hop about the grid. You'll have up to 3 randomly selected Wild Cards on each board. The same boxes will flash on both grids. These boxes will ALWAYS match, meaning you may only have to worry about as few as 6 other boxes. You can still hop on a Wild Card box and click it like you would any other, and that will change the status of the surrounding boxes as normal. You can switch them on and off during a game, but the Wild Cards will only change upon completion of a puzzle. Hopefully the Wild Cards will make it a bit easier to complete the puzzles! Let me know what you think of them! This will probably be the last update on the game for a few weeks. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm going on vacation starting June 7. I'll be driving up to Vegas to go play in the World Series of Poker. I last played in the WSOP back in 2011, so I'm very excited to get back there again. I plan on playing in 2-4 events, depending on how things go. The plan is to play in Event #18, the $300 Gladiators of Hold'em event starting on Thurs, June 8. Then on Friday, I'm going to play in Event #24, the $1500 Razz event. Saturday will be day #2 of the Razz event, if I make it that far. If not, I'll most likely spend Saturday at the Pinball Hall of Fame. Sunday will either be day #2 of the Gladiators event, or the Final Table of the Razz event, or if I don't make it that far in either of those events, I'll buy into Event #26, the $800 No-Limit Hold'em Deepstack event. If I do well enough in those events to clear a decent profit (a long shot, for sure), then I'll jump in Event #28, the $1500 Freezeout No-Limit Hold'em event on Monday. I'll be returning home Weds, June 14. I'll post updates here, or you can follow along on wsop.com. I've played in the WSOP 3 times previously, but have never cashed (though I came VERY close once). This will be the first time though that I'm able to buy into multiple events, so I'm hoping for better results this year! Frazzled_20230529.zip Frazzled_20230529.bin Frazzled_20230529.a

Update! Time Rush Mode complete! Well, except audio. The attached ROM is Time Rush Mode ONLY. Continue to use the previous ROM to play the Practice Mode. Both modes will be available in the final product. I haven't yet addressed the kernel issue discussed earlier. I'll be doing that next. The "first puzzle is the same all the time" problem is fixed here. You should get a different first puzzle each time you play. To start, select the number of rounds you'd like to play, from 1-9. Complete those rounds as quickly as possible to get your final time. When you're done, push the button to start a new game and return to the round select screen. The clock can count up to 999.9. If you max out the clock, it's automatically game over, regardless of the number of rounds you have left to complete. FOR NOW... The round select screen will always start at 1 round, regardless of the number of rounds you just played. I'll probably change that later, as I'll also have to implement an option to return to the main menu. You'll get a different set of puzzles each time you play. If I have the room/time at the end, I may add an option to replay the same puzzles. But, since this really a secondary mode to what will be the final game, I may just decide to leave it as-is. UP NEXT... Addressing that kernel bug that popped up on ZPH. Implementing the main menu. A much-needed vacation. I may get the kernel bug done before I leave, but the main menu will have to wait until I get back from vacation. I'll be leaving June 7. I'll fill everyone in on the details of that probably next week, as I'm quite excited about what I'll be doing. My latest 9 round time: Frazzled_20230524.bin

Thanks! I knew it would be something unbelievably simple that I was missing. I was focused on the wrong branch and trying to rush things a bit.

Got a bug I can't figure out. Thought this was pretty darn straightforward, but it's not working like I'm expecting. I'm implementing a round select menu. Pretty simple: Push up or right, and you increment RoundNum. Push down or left, and you decrement RoundNum. RoundNum can range from 1 to 9. So I'm checking here to see if RoundNum = 9, and if so, I want to branch so it doesn't increment. For some reason, it's always taking the branch, and I can't figure out why. This starts at line 2415. It's the first beq that it seems to always take. I tried changing it to a bcs and a bpl, and it doesn't work for those either. I even tried a completely different type of logic, but any check for RoundNum = 9 doesn't seem to work. What the heck am I doing wrong here? Frazzled_RoundSelectError.a

Thanks everyone! That's all good info. I'll see what I can do with it before the next release.

Done. She's doing a bit better today. I watched the show after I got home last night. Hope your foot heals up! So, question.... Watching the game on the show last night, there was a graphics bug that popped up that I thought I had fixed: I don't see that bug at all on anything I've tested the game on. I code on 8bitworkshop, and it works fine there. Tested it on Stella, no issues. Tested it on Flashback Portable, no issues. So I was very surprised to see this bug pop up last night on the show. It's caused by not writing to the PF2 register in time. Is this something that you see often with your setup? Could this be a HarmonyCart thing? Can anyone else test the game on an actual system and confirm that this graphics bug does/doesn't appear? It's gonna be tough to fix a bug that I can't duplicate on my end, but I suppose I could work on writing to the PF2 register a couple cycles earlier on those lines and see if that fixes things. Onto responding to other comments... Merlin - Yes, you nailed it! Had one as a kid, loved it. My original VBA game was an attempt to add a clock and power ups to the Merlin game. Just figured more people were familiar with Lights Out. Patterns for corner boxes - I haven't yet figured out any patterns to flip a single corner box. Honestly, if you know the patterns from my earlier post (and they're pretty simple to remember, a plus sign and a short "T"), you don't need patterns for the corners. I just start by setting the four corners, look at where that gets me, and then work the other boxes. Setting up your own patterns - Yes, 512 combinations per grid. The first 8 boxes of each grid are stored as one byte, with an additional byte used to store the one bit needed for the 9th box. I am considering adding an option where you can set up your own grid patterns and then try to work them out. I was thinking of using the difficulty switches in the practice mode. Flip the left switch to A to set up the top grid, right switch to A to set up the bottom grid, then flip them back to B to play it out. But then it wouldn't be couch compliant, so perhaps I should just make it a separate option. Anyway, if I add that, it will be something I tack on at the end if I have the room. So thanks for featuring it on the show! I'm hoping for another update in the next couple weeks.

Fiancée taken to hospital. Will have to catch show later on YT.

Thanks James! I'll be visiting my fiancée at the rehab center about that time, so hopefully we can catch the show from there!

Thanks! I realize the puzzle aspect of it might not be everyone's cup of tea, so hopefully the extras I'll be throwing in there will make up for it. When I created the original game in VBA, it spread around my office, and some people had trouble with it because they didn't understand how the puzzles worked. I'm hoping now to give the player enough tools to help complete the puzzles, even if they're not a puzzle game player. In the meantime, I'll give you a few hints - It's really a pattern game. If you can learn a few patterns that will switch certain boxes, it makes things much easier. So here's a few to get you started... If we number the boxes like this... ...and we only want to switch box #5, that can be done by switching boxes 2, 4, 6, 8, and 5, in any order. At the end of that sequence, you'll be back where you started, but box #5 will be flipped. If you want to switch any of the middle boxes along the sides, just switch the three boxes against the opposite wall and box #5. For example, say you want to change only box #8. To do that, switch boxes 1, 2, 3, and 5, in any order. The end result is that only box #8 will end up switched. So with these patterns, all you have to do is set the four corner boxes, then run these two patterns as needed to take care of the rest of the boxes. And lastly, as in the example in my original post, if all the boxes are wrong, switch the four corner boxes - 1, 3, 7, 9, and the middle box, 5. That pattern gives you the exact opposite of what you started with. Yes, I guess I didn't make that clear in my original post. For now, it will start up with the same pattern each time. That's because the random number generator would have the same seed value (zero) on startup every time. Even if I tried to have a random pattern at startup, it would just be the same one. So I gave it a set pattern to start, and gave the solution above as well, so that everyone can see what the game does when you make a match. Going through that process changes the seed for the random number generator, so each puzzle after the first is random. This will change as the game is developed. As soon as I put a menu or title screen in, I can then start the game with a random puzzle.

Here's my newest WIP homebrew, Frazzled! As you may or may not know, a while back, I suspended my work on Kick Ice. I began almost immediately developing Frazzled, a game based on something I did a long time ago in VBA. Before I posted anything here, I wanted to make sure I had something playable, something I never had with Kick Ice. Well, I finally have something playable, so it's time I start a development thread and share the results! Frazzled is a bit like Q*bert meets the old Lights Out puzzle game. You control Snugford the Unicorn (aka "Snuggy"), hopping around the grid in the lower part of the screen. The grid up top shows a pattern that you must match on your grid below. Each time you push the button, the square you're on changes, but so do all the squares attached to the square you're sitting on. The object is to come up with a match - or come as close as possible - before time expires. There will be enemies to mess you up, power ups to help you, and bonus objects to add to your score. There will be three game modes - The regular game, with selectable difficulty levels, a practice mode, and a time rush mode. The attached ROM has what is basically the practice mode. No enemies, no power ups, no bonuses, no timer. Just you and the puzzle. Solve the puzzle, and a new randomly generated puzzle will appear a few seconds later. That's it for now. I'll be adding the Time Rush mode next, which will basically be the same thing, but there will be a timer, so you try to solve the puzzles as quickly as possible. So what happened with Kick Ice? Well, I made the mistake of trying to do too much without first coming up with a working kernel. It got to the point where I lost all enthusiasm for the game, and when I got to a problem I couldn't solve, I just gave up. I had planned on doing Frazzled for a while, and I found I was more excited about Frazzled than Kick Ice. So I set Kick Ice aside, and started on Frazzled. I'm happy to say that the Frazzled kernel is complete and tested. Special thanks to Dennis Debro who helped me out with a problem I had along the way. With the kernel all done, now I all I have to do is take care of the game mechanics. So a few things to start you out... Keep in mind the pseudo-3D perspective. The top row on the upper grid is the row closest to you, and that must match the row closest to you on the bottom grid, i.e., the bottom row. The rows farthest away from you - the bottom row on the upper grid, and the top row on the lower grid must match; and of course, the middle rows must match. When you fire up the ROM, you'll get a simple puzzle. To solve this first puzzle, you must switch the center box, and the four corner boxes, in any order. Once you switch those five boxes, you'll have a match, and a new, randomly generated puzzle will appear. If you can't solve a puzzle, for now, just hit reset. You'll start with that first puzzle again, but get a new one after that. At the start of a new puzzle, the grids are guaranteed not to match. You'll always have to switch at least one box. Once the full game is complete, there will be multiple power ups at your disposal to make matching the grids easier. Rather than give the player a set number of lives, the plan is to work on a demerit system - similar to that in Pressure Cooker. So, if you don't solve the puzzle before time expires, you'll pick up a few demerits, but the game will continue. A lot more to come! Hope you enjoy the game! Frazzled_20230508a.bin

FRAZZLED is coming soon! I've completed the kernel, so unlike Kick Ice, I got the tough stuff out of the way first, so I know I'll be able to complete this one. I should have something playable fairly soon, and will start a new thread and post a binary when I do. I'll save the gameplay description until then, but for now, here's a proof-of-concept screenshot...

Yes, I finished work on it in April, 2021.

I've made the tough decision to suspend development on Kick Ice. I just can't figure out the latest issue, and looking ahead at what I need to do with the game, there's just too many areas where I just don't know what I'm going to do to accomplish what I need to do. And in the end, I'm not even sure it'll make a decent game. So I'm going to set it aside for now, and start fresh on another idea I had. This one is an action-puzzle game, based on a game I did in VBA years ago. That game worked as a point-and-click game, so hopefully this will work as a game where you move a character around the screen instead of pointing and clicking. This will be a much simpler game to put together than Kick Ice, and I already know how I'm going to do everything I need to, so hopefully there won't be many issues. Just did the playfield today, and here's screenshot of what that will look like: Not much to look at yet, a little blockier than I was hoping for, but hopefully when I get the various characters in there and get some of the gameplay started, it'll start looking better. The black area between the grids is where the scoreboard is going to go. Hopefully that'll give it a bit of a unique look. Anyway, I'll start piecing stuff together on this one, and start a new thread when I have something worth posting.

So in thinking about this idea, I think I had considered this approach, but the reason I went with the array like I did is that at some point in the game, there will be multiple blocks dropping at the same time. So I'd need a way of keeping track of multiple blocks and multiple spaces. There's also the issue of blocks crossing over between two different PF objects, but that can be taken out if necessary. Unfortunately, I'm still seeing the issue of the blocks being split as they drop, so that's not solved. What I think I'll do is give myself another few days on this, and if I can't figure it out, I'll set this game aside and start on a different game. I have an idea for an action/puzzle game that I think would be much simpler to implement than what I'm trying to do here.

Not harsh at all. It's all good info. This is still just my 2nd game, so I'm still learning, and with not really having the time I want to devote to this, some of my solutions to my problems will be a bit off, or at the very least, not particularly optimal. I'll look into your suggestion over the course of the week, and I'll probably come back with a question or two in a few days. Thanks!