What is Reddit's opinion of
Flow Free?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
Popularity Score: 54
This app was mentioned in 80 comments, with an average of 1.78 upvotes
Best Comments
> It's a complete non-issue in everyday life.
Speak for yourself, it's been messing up my Flow games for weeks.
I do agree that Red/Green contrasts are never an issue for me. Multiple close shades of red or green on the same page/graph? Frequently causes me confusion. Don't do that.
It's pretty rare that you can cause anyone with colorblindness serious issues on the internet, if I can highlight whatever you've made or download it to my computer and manipulate it I won't have an issue. I might be annoyed that I had to do it but I think it's unlikely to cause people to send you angry emails.
It's not so bad. Looks like it could be a cute farming "plat your crop" or gardening kind of game, with some graphical updates.
> The objective is not as obvious as I thought it would be.
Plant all of your flowers/crops so they are connected and will have the largest yield.
> Ten cells across is too cramped for touch manipulation on a small screen;
There is plenty you can fit into 5x5, 6x6, ect grids
> most of my board is really, really boring. It's just an inert, dull and gray space waiting to be painted. That was part of my initial vision, a dull world that you liven up and fill with color as you paint flowers. But the reality fell far short from the vision. I wanted a relaxing game, not a mind-numbingly boring one!
Make them actual flowers or plants, or better images of flowers on the tokens? Have the starting spots be seed bags and the final spot a full/largers image of the flower?
The grey box is probably the worst offense in the gif. It's just... there. No theme, no flavor, no juice. Even something as simple as a garden plot needs something to it. And browns and greys of dirt are still 'bare' and dull enough to have a good effect when livened up with plants.
>Backtracking is also not very intuitive. You can click on a colored spot to return the bag to that spot, but I don't know how to teach the player or help them discover that. Drawing a line from to help the player visualize the path taken by the bag should help that, and that's probably the next thing I'm implementing.
Make it a shovel. Boom, instant intuitiveness. Maybe a one-time popup or something that says it is to help rearrange the plants. Once they use it once, and their whole line of flowers are gone, the reasons to use it and the mechanics are solidified.
I believe it's Flow Free?
Also, in the play store app you can access your library of apps, so if you downloaded it onto an android device with the same account, it'll be listed as off-device, toward the bottom of the list.
Check out the game Flow Free on App Store or Google Play if you want more of these puzzles on your phone/tablet.
Do you mean Flow Free? If so, then yes its the same basic idea: connect up two points without overlapping the joins.
The difference in Synapse is that the layout of the puzzles can vary hugely, and incorporate all kinds of geometry! The puzzles can loop around in circles and warp around the space, while Flow Free is largely grid based.
I'm a huge fan of Flow Free, and I wanted to create something that shakes up their formula a bit.
I think designing a solid standard set of levels is a good choice for this. You probably don't even need any additional mechanics, just good level design. It reminds me of the android game Flow, which had really minimal mechanics but got HUGE mileage out of them. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigduckgames.flow&hl=en
Can we assume that the words won't require sharing letters? Do we care about the complexity of the finding the words? If not, simply Snake the words along columns or rows?
If you don't mind ignoring diagonal crossing then you can simplify it down to creating a Flow Free level which is discussed on StackOverflow
Play the smartphone game "Flow". Really! It's the essence of PCB layout, turned into an amusing pastime. And it's free.
I'm technologically inept. I'm just going to sit here and play Flow Free while everyone else courts each other on ten thousand disparate apps.
I think he means the game app Flow, which is where there's several colored dots and you have to connect them without crossing any lines. It's actually very similar to what OP asked for.
The cool thing about abstracts though is, when they do hit, they can easily eclipse any other type of game. Fortnite may be awesome, but it will never get close to Tic-Tac-Toe numbers! Unlikely it even gets close to Tetris numbers before the heat on it starts to fade as the next big thing comes out. Candy Crush fairly is fairly mindless, imo, but garnered a couple of billion downloads. Flow Free reached 100 million downloads recently on Google Play with almost no paid marketing, and it's not even a wholly original puzzle--they just made the best software implementation (cared the most) and kept it freemium.
So, while failure is the most like outcome for any given game venture, abstract or otherwise, don't worry about that.
You're doing this for love of games primarily, and that's what produces the greatest games, including the ones that persist for generations or millennia.
---------------------------
PS: Be prepared for a lot of "mehs"--nobody cares, nobody cares, nobody cares is the reality--but you will find it eminently rewarding each time the eyes of a player who "gets it" lights up.
(I guarantee you almost everybody thought Richard Garfield was crazy, up until the point when it was clear he'd schooled just about every game designer in history ;)
My usual order of doing things:
1) Play FlowFree on phone
2) Watch movies
3) Try to do work, fail to do work
4) Make convo with neighbor
5) Stare out of window at random shit on ground
6) Walk around cabin because back is killing me
7) Read a book
Flow Free | 4.5 ⭐️ | Free with IAP | 15MB | ▶️
> Flow Free® is a simple yet addictive puzzle game. Connect matching colors with pipe to create a Flow®. Pair all colors, and cover the entire board to solve each puzzle in Flow Free. But watch out, ...
^(Legend: |🏠: Family Library| ▶️: Play Pass|)
|Feedback|PunyDev|
Yep my job is great - I get to mentor dozens to hundreds of hardware startups from all over the planet and help them make sure their thing does what it says on the box wrt electronics and firmware - you may even have heard of some of the projects I've helped with.
Sometimes I need to do design and layout for a few teams which is basically like being paid to solve a really good flow free puzzle.
For a really well executed simpe concept, Flow Free is a cool, free puzzle game. It contains Ads, but they aren't too bad (a small banner and one pop-up after each level), and any purchase (such as new level packs) will remove them entirely.
It's been ages since I've purchased the "unlock everything" option, so I can't tell if they've changed things afterwards, but back when I first installed the game, there was plenty of free content to try out, so you can try it out for yourself before you have to spend money on it.
Think it's on both android and iOS. It's a puzzle game where you have to link up pipes Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigduckgames.flow
Any flow free games are amazing (classic, hex or bridges). daily new levels, only in game purchases are cosmetic color packs or perma ad removement. I play this game for a couple of years now and I still love it.
There was Flow and Cube Connect which is the same gameplay style.
I love these kinds of games, and it looks like you are nailing it. I have a few pointers though.
My eyes hurt after staring on that orange/blue combo for too long. Those colors need to be changed. Also, orange on blue does not go well with reading. I would suggest looking into Googles Material Design, and their color palette: https://www.google.com/design/spec/style/color.html#color-color-palette
The "draggable object" locks up very often. I don't know how you detect a mouseover on another grid square, but I would suggest making it bigger. It especially locks up when you change your mind and want to go a different route.
The unlock button hangs the game.
I had a hard time navigating out of "About". It took some time for me to actually find the close button.
You should check out "Flow Free", that has a similar playstyle to your game. You could probably learn som tricks there - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigduckgames.flow
>Flow Free® is a simple yet addictive puzzle game. Connect matching colors with pipe to create a Flow®. Pair all colors, and cover the entire board to solve each puzzle in Flow Free. But watch out, pipes will break if they cross or overlap!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigduckgames.flow
it's easy at first but gets harder as you progress. more pipes, bigger boards, bridges... etc.
I just started playing this yesterday after getting the ad that gave me 48 crystals. Game seems super shallow. It was fun for maybe an hour, as it's basically just a bunch of randomized Flow Free levels where you get extra points for completing the whole grid in a single move. Really annoyed at the randomization after playing for a while though, as some grid layouts simply can't be chained together, leading to losing some battles you'd otherwise have won if it relied on skill alone, and you can't level up your monsters past a certain point without paying for packages.
Cu63 - a minimalist puzzle game about circuit boards
(I've already posted this is in a few other threads but I love sharing my game and getting feedback.)
The concept is a clone of Flow Free; you must connect pairs of matching nodes on a circuit board.
There are 100 levels, all made by hand!
Gameplay gif: http://i.imgur.com/YHHnG3h.gif
Title / logo: http://i.imgur.com/ItDLOef.png
First level: http://i.imgur.com/iWdOxzZ.png
Later level: http://i.imgur.com/pmL3Yba.png
Somebody also uploaded this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADGRBwNcWqA
Download (Windows / OS X): http://gprosser.itch.io/cu63
Any feedback is really appreciated!
Bonus: I've watched a bit of CS:GO and The International, but I don't really have the time to follow any tournaments.
Flow. Seriously addictive.
Super Hexagon - Because, of course I'm going to play it.
Unium - A gift from a friend. It reminds me of a single-colour version of Flow (Free) for Android. It's a good puzzler, although I fly through some puzzles, and get really stumped by others, then suddenly I'm back to puzzles I can one-shot as soon as look at them. It just feels... inconsistent. But, it's a nice game that scratches my puzzle brain-itches.
Hexcells Infinite - *Shakes fist at Cara Ellison* Damn her review making me wanting to buy and play it all this time ago. So, I'm doing the randomly generated puzzles every so often. It's a time-sink. I just sit, play and let thoughts flow through me. It's like a little meditation, or at least a space-clearing exercise.
Pivvot - It's still fun and swooshy. It's fun. But I still can't one-shot the Expert track without dying once.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - I've picked that back up again. Mostly so I can just shoot stuff and listen to the radio. Sometimes I just drive around doing a pickup grind run; you know hit spot X for a Desert Eagle, then grab an M4 in spot Y, then head to spot Z for satchel charges, then do a little shimmy-shuffle at the airport to get in without a pilot's license for the heat-seaking rockets, then back to spot X where the Deagle has re-spawned, and I can restart the run (and listen to the radio as I go).
Fallout 3 - Given all this hype about the new Fallout game, and given I've never played any fallout game (despite it being in my library), and despite that I was the one keeping my gamer colleagues in work in the Fallout 4 loop, I figured I'd better play it. I'm not too far in, I've just pretty much gotten out of the really fucking long and overly elaborate chargen, and into Megaton, but I like it so far. I like the idea of VATS, but I've got a feeling I've either not skilled up in a way I can properly use it, or I'm just too familiar just doing straight up aim and shoot stuff. Still, I like the world so far. But I'm half-thinking of rerolling and redoing that bloody escape quest. It was only when I realised items were tradable, and that I only took what I needed for the escape that I should've possibly grabbed more.
In other news, that fucking foreshadowing trope, with Amada telling me, "I hope you don't have to see your father killed in front of you", when so far this game appears to be "Fallout 3: Quest for Daddy". Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if I stick with this, I will see my in-game doctor Dad killed right before my eyes... "Fallout 3: Orphan Quest"
Analogue: A Hate Story - I haven't played much but Christine Love does a lot to pull you into the story, and telling it in the style she did must have taken a lot of skill and patience to put together. The thing is, I reckon that more than Super Hexagon, Unium, Hexcells, GTA and even Fallout, this game will require a lot more mental space to fully appreciate the game. I'll need to have my wits about me to properly appreciate it. Still, I look forward to getting through it.
Looks an awful lot like Flow Free...
This is essentially your game, I suggest you give it an hour or two of play. The larger tile sizes where the more interesting puzzles are and you will get an idea of the limitations that exist in that core gameplay of connecting two points.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigduckgames.flow&hl=en
My thoughts on it:
I think pushing the aesthetic of growing plants is where you should focus to set it apart from other games in this style.
I would take a step back from individual tiles and go with only the lines between your start and end point as you mentioned, to go alongside this, have your start point be a seedling and the end point a water source/partner plant/whatever.
Tie the gameplay of completing the connections to your theme/visuals, if you are starting at a seedling and drawing a vine that connects it to water, having the vine bloom into vibrant flowers when you finish it will both reward the player and communicate that they have done the right thing. A step beyond that you can use this visual as a release valve for difficulty, communicating if they have connected two points but blocked another connection, by playing a slightly different animation.
being able to start at either point of a single set feels very good, though with the visuals I've been talking about it will likely take more time than it is worth to produce.
The company has produced a variety of slight variations of this style, with bridges, warping from one side of the board to the other and others that add interesting changes to the basic puzzle. For a plant themed game the hex grid might mesh better with the vibrant/flowery visuals I am imagining that the more uniform square grid.
Some general gameplay thoughts:
Backtracking to an earlier section on your line isn't that important for the game, it is implemented in flow but I found it to be mostly useless as if I had made a mistake resetting the board state to the beginning was always the better choice, this is connected to the next point.
Grading players based on how many actions it took to complete a level pushed me into a very specific style of play. Flow requires players to connect each pair of points and fill every tile on the board, then grades how many actions it took to complete the puzzle. I found the most effective way to get through each level with the perfect score was to rapidly test ~2-3 of 8-10 pairs, check if that was the correct final layout, reset the game and complete the full puzzle, this created a disconnect between when I had solved the puzzle and when it was completed and feedback for that solution was given in-game.
the game does occasionally activate tiles beside the ones I intended, but it took little time to fix and was not frustrating by itself. However the systems grade on actions taken overly punished this type of input error and required game restart when aiming for perfect scores. The second way this caused issue was redrawing over sections that have already been completed, and the being punished for having to correct them.
really, fuck that grading system.
I don't value spending much time on the witness, the focus of that game wasn't really the puzzles themselves, and more an artsy way of communicating the process of how an idea develops, and I'm not sure a mobile game is the place for it. Maybe a couple of the specific puzzle mechanics can translate, the Tetris shape set in particular, but the environmental puzzles, the auditory set, and the progression of puzzle zones in general are not going to work.
I find the Android game Flow Free to be more than a little bit like PCB design, specifically, placement and routing.
Are you talking about this connect-the-dots kind of game: Flow Free?
I've written a a solver for a similar game called Hashiwokakero/Bridges using the CLP(FD) library. CLP(FD) stands for "constraint logic programming over finite domains" and is a library implementing a propagation algorithm for constraint satisfaction problems. In constraint logic programming, you describe the constraints of the problem before you start the search, then CLP(FD) is able to prune branches of the search tree based on the constraints. In cases where there is only one solution, CLP(FD) can sometimes reduce the search space to the single answer before you even start searching.
CLP(FD) is definitely the library you want to use. It can take a while to get used to but becomes one of the most powerful tools in Prolog once you grok it.
In SWI (and others), :- use_module(library(clpfd)). Here's the docs.
My Hashiwokakero solver is in these comments. The way to solve these kinds of things is to describe the game as a graph theory problem and hand it to CLP(FD) to do the work. As for the GUI aspect, that's not really Prolog's thing.
Edit: phrasing
Edit 2: For the GUI, perhaps you can write a renderer in OpenGL and pass data to it with Google's protocol buffers. There is a [protobufs package for SWI](http://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/doc_for?object=section(%27packages/protobufs.html%27\))
Flow Free | 4.4 rating | Free with IAP | 100,000,000+ downloads | Search manually
> Flow Free® is a simple yet addictive puzzle game. Connect matching colors with pipe to create a Flow®. Pair all colors, and cover the entire board to solve each puzzle in Flow Free. But watch out, ...
|Feedback|PunyDev|Lonerzboy|
Here you go!
What kinds of deductive reasoning? I'd recommend practice and study of a specific application of deduction over reading about it in general.
I've played several games that require deduction:
- Flow Free: Android iOS
- Hashi: Android iOS
- Slitherlink: Android iOS
- Paint By Numbers/Hanjie: Web (can be printed for pencil and paper), Web
- Electric Box: Web, requires Flash
Other examples are Logic grids, Sudoku, and many others.
I find that deduction is a skill that's easy to develop in a particular domain (like any of the above games), but hard to generalize. Playing the above games for fun, I've developed a better understanding of how to use proof by contradiction, but not much else.
Those kinds of high-level ideas are probably best learned from a logic textbook like Introduction to Logic, but the abstract knowledge may not translate to practical skills without domain-specific practice and study.
Flow.
It doesn't look like much but it can keep me entertained for hours on end on flights.
How about puzzle games to pass the time? I like to play these:
I have three nominations, each of which have kept me occupied me for a while.
Flow Free - a simple puzzle game - connect each coloured dot with their partner, and fill in the whole grid while doing so.
Has small banner ads and single big images after every other level, but removes them after any purchase, such as extra level packs.1010! - Another puzzle game - Each round you get three random tiles you have to fit on a 10x10 board. Completing a horizontal or vertical line removes it and nets you extra points. I've heard a friend describe it as "2D Tetris" and it isn't that far off from that.
Simple Solitaire Collection - A completely ad-free, very solid, albeit sometimes slightly unintuitive implementation of several different solitaire games, including Spider Solitaire, Freecell and the classic Windows Solitaire (Klondike), and several others.
My biggest complaint about this game is that everything related to the menus (changing games/game settings, looking at a game's rules, etc.) feels slightly clunky, but I wouldn't know how to improve on them. The creator also isn't a native english speaker, which shows sometimes, as a few phrasings in the game's rules are slightly off from proper english, but they're still easy to understand regardless.
Flow is really fun, and kinda relaxing.
Take a look at the flow free games. I would love to see a simular feature to the daily puzzles with a day streak.
Flow Free | 4.4 rating | Free with IAP | 100,000,000+ downloads | Search manually
> Flow Free® is a simple yet addictive puzzle game. Connect matching colors with pipe to create a Flow®. Pair all colors, and cover the entire board to solve each puzzle in Flow Free. But watch out, ...
|Feedback|PunyDev|Lonerzboy|
In Google Play Games, I play Flow Free, Flow Free: Hexes, Flow Free: Bridges, and Flow Free: Warps. I like the different color themes for the dots and the lines I connect them with, and I think the honeycomb theme fits Hexes. I also play Alto’s Odyssey, the follow-up to Alto’s Adventure.
If she likes puzzles, check out Flow Free. There's an IAP to get rid of ads
Simple offline time killer :https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigduckgames.flow
Flow.
Flow Free maybe?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigduckgames.flow
or
or
All are very easy to learn color/shape based, spatial ability type game that will challenge his mind without throwing confusing things like words and numbers at you.
Also, if he is into word games Alpha Bear 2 had me hooked for a while.
Flow Free. About a thousand puzzles. Good stuff.
Looks similar to Flow Free.
I found the Flow Free games to be very relaxing.
Game play is you drawing a line on a grid, connecting two points. There are multiple colored points that you match up and you need to fill in all of the grid as you draw the lines.
There are tons of levels. The game play is simple initially, but slowly ramps up in the really big levels.
They are free games. The IAP is for more levels. But there is something crazy like 1,000 levels in the base game without buying anything.
There are three:
Flow Free
Bridges
and Hexes
edit: there are no timers or anything. You take as long as you want drawing the colored lines, filling in the puzzle.
The Flow Free games, including Bridges and Hexes are a series of puzzle games where you connect multiple pairs of colored dots by drawing a path between, but you have to completely fill in the grid and do it with as few moves as possible.
It starts out easy and gets progressively harder as the grids get bigger and bigger. Each game is free with a crazy number of free levels, like 1,000+ free levels in each hand. There are additional levels available for IAP of like $0.99. There is a small banner ad at the bottom and occasional an ad between levels, but you can immediately close it and keep playing. Buying any of the IAP disables s.
The Bridges game has points where the lines cross. Hexes uses a hex grid.
The easier levels are very relaxing to play.
These two are a little like match 3, but instead of swapping tiles, you slide the entire rows up/down or columns left/right to make matches. The sliding makes the game play feel different to the usual match three games. 10 Million and You Must Build A Boat. As you play, you collect money and building materials for upgrades. This gives the games kind of a RPG feel as your character improves. Like you upgrade your weapons and then the weapon tiles do more damage.
In 10 Mil you improve your character and your little base. You try to reach 10 million points to win.
In YMBAB, you improve your character and your ship, that you use to travel to different areas and add to your crew. You try to collect everything to build your ship to win.
Both are premium games, no ads, no IAP.
Check out the current mobile Humble Bundle. It's all mobile version of board games right now.
All of them can be played single player and a bunch of them have a very puzzle feel.
Couple examples:
"Splendor" has a challenge mode that is very puzzle based. Some of them are timed, but most are not and are instead turn limited or resource limited. It ends up being all about the order you get the things in. Felt like a puzzle to me. The single player mode is also fun, turn based, not rushed.
"Take It Easy" has a mode where you just try to do well, placing the tiles so they line up and you get the best score. You take as long as you want.
"Ingenious" also feels like a puzzle. It's all about placing your pieces to get the best score while trying to kept the computer from getting a better placement. Again, turn based. "Carcassonne" as well.
"THE aMAZEing Labyrinth" is a straight puzzle game. You have to move the pieces the right order. You get a better score if you use less moves.
There's a bunch of other stuff too. But they are more of board game feel. A lot of which are great games. Also included:
Catan
Scotland Yard
Ticket to Ride
San Juan
Galaxy Trucker
Small World
https://www.humblebundle.com/mobile/board-games-mobile-bundle
It's at least $5 for everything or at least $3 for all of the ones I mentioned had some puzzle stuff to it.
There are no ads in any of these, although some of them allow you to buy extra content like Catan expansions through IAP.
I also really like the "Flow Free" games:
Flow Free
Bridges
and Hexes
Straight puzzle. Tons of levels. The game play is simple initially, but can be hard on the really big levels. I find the game relaxing in general. The IAP is for more levels. But there is something crazy like 1,000 levels in the base game without buying anything. Pretty sure there aren't ads, but I beat the first two completely awhile ago and I'm not 100%.
Finally, "The Room" series. These are like an interactive puzzle. You look at things from different sides, push, pull, etc. There are three of these. Really good. No ads, no IAP.
Have you played Flow or the Flow: Bridges games? They both have like ridiculously high number of free levels with an option to buy some more.
My wife likes Blendoku and Blendoku 2. Like the Flow games, there are free levels and if you want, you can buy more. Flow and Bridges has more free levels, though.
Edit: I just reinstalled Flow to check and there are 1170 free levels. Bridges has a similar amount. Blendoku has less.
I'm rather fond of Flow Free but not the Bridges variant.
Two things that came to my mind - the game design is hard to read and overbloated. I believe the current trend is simple, uniform colors shapes and clear letters - examples:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigduckgames.flow
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.balysv.loop
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gramgames.tenten
It seems as "less in more" is a very strong trend right now.
Second, in terms of marketing, I would look into gleam.io which is a fantastic giveaway/contest platform in which entries to the draw are earned by completing specific actions - it might be twitter follow, it might be app download. You can offer say a tablet or a smartphone as the prize and with a bit marketing of the contest itself you might be surprised how quickly you can build audience.
Last but not least I would reach out to smaller streamers on Twitch.tv and offer them an incentive to either play your game on stream or promote it with stream graphics/text, etc. It can be a bit tricky but you can offer a $10 Google Play credit to the streamer to use as a giveaway in exchange for pushing your game for a month, etc.
Just get creative and stay active - going to gaming forums and subreddits and posting screenshots/videos or even just an intro can go a long way.
Don't give up - it will get better. Getting big in mobile gaming takes time and depends on 1000s of different factors.
Flow Free is an addictive, simple puzzle game that works well with S pen.
If you've ever played the game Flow This one's easy by comparison...