Post date: Jun 28, 2010 1:20:59 AM
Pascalcula was on furlough for a week while our main development machine was out for repairs. As soon as it came back home, though, we implemented and deployed a bunch of improvements to 3qual:
* Competition mode is now faster. In recreational play, the game intentionally delays for fractions of seconds when cards change, to help the player follow the action. To satisfy speed-runners, Competition mode now completely eliminates all of these delays (except for a 'punishment' when the player chooses an incorrect match). As a result, it is now possible to clear a set in 2.0 seconds. Since points are awarded for speed, fast players will see higher scores as result.
* In Recreational mode, there are a couple of visual buffs: When the player clicks a matched set, the cards glow briefly with a green aura to give success feedback. In the (rare, we hope!) case where the played clicks a not-correctly matched set, the cards glow red for a moment, instead of popping up a distracting scolding text.
* There are fewer notification messages, since these distract from gameplay. Also, the notification popup moved to an emptier part of the screen, to make it more distracting.
* The ad-supported version of the game was occasionally displaying bad ads that crashed the game. We have disabled the provider of these bad ads.
* The game is now compatible with Froyo (Android version 2.2). The game can be installed on the SD card, saving space on your internal phone storage.
* Unfortunately, Froyo seems to have introduced a glitch in its drawing code. The "tray" that separates the cards from the background is no longer rendered. We will investigate and look for a fix. Let us know if you find the new look distracting (or if you like it better!)
Download the new version or Play Online now!