Game Mode Explanations

[ProdigyXP]

Is there an explanation to the different game mode settings some place that I am overlooking? I see "Tug of War", "Battle" and "Puzzle Race" in the multiplayer. What are the differences in these modes? What is the significance of 'rubber banding' in this context? Same for 'Block bad moves'.

Like I said, if I am missing the place where this is actually explained, please point me in the right direction. Otherwise it would appear that it was just assumed that people who have never played before are going to know this information.

Thanks

[ProdigyXP]

Would love to get answers on the game modes. None of the reviews or your website explain them or those settings.

[alex_schearer]

Hi sorry for the slow response, I'm currently in the process of writing a more in-depth user manual to answer your question. To give you a short answer:

Multiplayer Modes:
Puzzle Race: Each player gets the same puzzle and races to solve it first.
Battle: Each player gets a non-puzzle set of blocks. Removing a set of 3 pushes a new row on an opponent.
Tug of War: Each player gets the same set of mini-puzzles. Solving a mini-puzzle pushes a mini-puzzle on an opponent.

For the Settings:
Rubber banding: When enabled this will make things a bit tougher for the player in the lead. This way players who are behind are more likely to catch up. This makes for close matches.
Block bad moves: When enabled in puzzle mode we won't allow players to make an obviously bad move. For example matching 2 blues and a red. If you turn off this setting players can make mismatches.

Hope that helps and I will update this thread when I've completed the full manual.

[ProdigyXP]

Thank you for the reply! I didn't mean to rush you, I just thought that my question slipped past when I saw newer questions being answered. Certainly wouldn't have bumped if I knew it was seen.

The only question I still have is what is a "non-puzzle set of blocks", as mentioned in Battle mode?

Your abreviated descriptions above would be awesome in a 'bubble' pop-up when highlighting the different game options, in-game.

Thanks again... I'm looking forward to playing with friends once I pester them to buy the game.

[alex_schearer]

No problem at all. To answer your latest question:

In Battle Mode each player is given a set of effectively random blocks. They are trying to remove all the blocks in sets of three, but mismatches are allowed and there is no guaranteed solution. In contrast in the other multiplayer modes the boards have been created by so that they have at least one valid solution and mistakes are not allowed.

Also I've completed the a user guide, I hope you find it helpful:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=723854535

Finally, if you boot up Tumblestone you should find an option on the title: "Give a Friend a Key". This will generate a special key which will let your friends play with you for free up to five times per a day.

[FroBodine]

So, can you only play this game online with your Steam friends? Or, can you play with anyone on the internets via full matchmaking?

[Treefarmer]

Hi, Can you explain what the weights do? Haven't seen anything written.

[FroBodine]

Regarding the "Block bad moves" setting - why would you ever want to make bad moves? Isn't the point to make good moves and remove sets of three blocks? I'm just trying to understand this setting.

Why would you want to BLOCK bad moves, and why might you ALLOW bad moves?

Thanks!

[alex_schearer]

Originally posted by TheG5 -V-:

Hi, Can you explain what the weights do? Haven't seen anything written.

Good catch, I will update the guide in a bit. To answer your question directly: adding weights makes the game harder from the start. Think of it like being rubber-banded the whole time.

[alex_schearer]

Originally posted by FroBodine:

Regarding the "Block bad moves" setting - why would you ever want to make bad moves? Isn't the point to make good moves and remove sets of three blocks? I'm just trying to understand this setting.

Why would you want to BLOCK bad moves, and why might you ALLOW bad moves?

Thanks!

Most players will want to block bad moves. When enabled it prevents you from doing something silly like blue-blue-red when there was a third blue piece. The feature exists to help players who are new to the game and in particular who are playing very quickly. This is why the default is to block bad moves. But for very competitive players / settings who want to play very quickly and want to remove every safety mechanism we've included the option.

Regarding online play, you can only play against other players on Steam. By default a "Quick Match" will try to find a game with anyone else on Steam who is playing online. If you start a "Private Match" by default only your friends can join.

[ProdigyXP]

I think FroBodine might be meaning that it sounded like you *could* make bad moves, which shouldn't be possible. I take it to mean that if you *attempt* a bad move with the option enabled, the game will not force you to restart the level (maybe makes a visual and/or audible warning). If it is not enabled, the game would automatically penalize the player that *attempted* to do in illegal move (ie red red blue) by forcing them to restart.

[alex_schearer]

Thanks ProdigyXP that sounds right. Based on all of our discussion here I will update the guide with more information. Keep the questions coming!

[ProdigyXP]

Another quick question for you... I was just playing Battle mode against some bots. I kept winning the round, but had no idea when it was about to happen (ie I hadn't cleared the board or anything). I am assuming winning the round means I have to clear X amount of blocks? If so, is there some visual clue I am missing that tells me (and my opponents) how close any of us are to winning the round? Something to give a greater sense of urgency?

[pressea]

The trailer says the bots were trained with machine learning. Can you elaborate a little on that? Why is that preferable to a bot not trained with machine learning? I'm not looking for technical details here; just curious why that's being mentioned as a selling point.

And an alternate way to unlock all the multiplayer features with the multiplayer starter pack would be nice. It's super irritating to be told I need to play story mode when the pack was billed as for people only interested in multiplayer.

[alex_schearer]

Originally posted by ProdigyXP:

Another quick question for you... :B1: I was just playing Battle mode against some bots. I kept winning the round, but had no idea when it was about to happen (ie I hadn't cleared the board or anything). I am assuming winning the round means I have to clear X amount of blocks? If so, is there some visual clue I am missing that tells me (and my opponents) how close any of us are to winning the round? Something to give a greater sense of urgency?

So if you are playing "Round Based" then a round ends when the other player's boards are full. If you are playing "Not Round Based" then it ends when a player gets the target number of matches. In any event that's a great suggestion and I will talk with the team about how to incorporate it. At present we show the current number of triplets for a given player just above their character in the board, but doing something to highlight that the round is drawing to a close would be an improvement.

[Ty_Taylor]

Hi pressea, good question. The bots in Tumblestone were created using a Support Vector Machine (a machine learning technique) that optimizes their movements based on various metrics based on the current state of the game board. For instance, when all blocks of one color are along the bottom, it's always okay to clear those blocks since there's no other colors blocking them, and thus it's preferable to remove those. As another example, if a single column contains two blocks of the same color that are not touching, it's preferable to choose from that column, as at least two different triplets will need made in order to clear those two same-colored blocks, as they can't be made in the same triplet. These are just two weighting examples of dozens that the bots use to determine which move they should make next. This is heavily preferable to a human simply guessing at what these weights should be, as a SVM by its nature completely optimizes these weights. And interestingly, the SVM is capable of combining weights of different heuristics to "think" in a way that the human programming the AI (me) wouldn't have even thought to manually have an AI do (for example, I've learned some really subtle tips and tricks from watching my machine-learning trained bots play and learn the game, making me a better player).