Fizzles – Original Puzzle Rescue Game With Playable 5-Level Demo

[HPWsoft]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to share Fizzles, an original puzzle rescue game I'm developing under the HPWsoft label.

Fizzles is inspired by the spirit of classic guide-and-rescue puzzle games, but it does not use any Lemmings, Pingus or other existing game assets, characters, levels or code. The goal is to build something clearly independent, with its own tiny round creatures, visual style, abilities, world and mobile-first interface.

The current demo includes five playable handcrafted levels. Each level introduces one Fizzle ability:

* Level 1 – Digger
* Level 2 – Floater
* Level 3 – Blocker
* Level 4 – Climber
* Level 5 – Planter

The demo also includes player profiles, difficulty settings, progression, highscore systems, music, sound effects, HUD, and a browser-playable version on itch.io.

Playable demo:
https://hpwsoft.itch.io/fizzles

The Kickstarter campaign for the next development phase is also live:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hpwsoft/fizzles-from-5-playable-levels-to-the-first-release?ref=bxjuid

The campaign is intentionally small and transparent. It is meant to support the next concrete development steps: additional handcrafted levels, new abilities, onboarding, mobile UI polish, audio and presentation improvements, testing, and preparation for a first public mobile release.

I'm intentionally not promising a huge game all at once. The current focus is to continue from the existing playable foundation and build Fizzles carefully, step by step.

I'd be especially interested in feedback from people who enjoy this kind of puzzle rescue gameplay:

* Are the goals and abilities easy to understand?
* Does the creature-first selection approach feel clear?
* Is the HUD readable?
* Does the demo already suggest enough puzzle potential for later levels?
* What would you expect from future abilities or level mechanics?

Thanks for taking a look.

[Guigui]

I think it'd be better to continue the discussion on the 5 levels demo in the correct thread.

For Fizzles, I still want to keep the core direction mobile-first and more real-time than NeoLemmix. I do not currently plan to make paused skill assignment part of the main gameplay, because that would change the feel of the levels quite a lot.

But your concern about the moving skill popup is very valid. If later levels offer four or five possible skills at once, clicking the correct icon above a moving Fizzle could become too fiddly, especially on touch devices. That is something I need to handle carefully.

Possible solutions could be larger skill buttons, a more stable popup position, better spacing, limiting the number of visible choices depending on context, or another mobile-friendly selection layout. The goal should not be to make players fight the interface. If a level is difficult, it should be difficult because of the puzzle decision, not because the correct icon is hard to tap.

So I will keep the pause design as a separate question, but I fully agree that the skill selection UI must stay readable and reliable once more abilities are available.

Another solution to make assigning skills easier may be to allow to assign skills from the non-moving bottom skill bar in addition to the popup above fizzle ?
Select a (moving) fizzle, have the (non moving) bottom bar highlight which skills are currently available to that fizzle, click on the bottom bar to assign skill to the selected lemmings.
This could be a flow different from Lemmings and not too prone to wrong assignements.

[HPWsoft]

I think it'd be better to continue the discussion on the 5 levels demo in the correct thread.

For Fizzles, I still want to keep the core direction mobile-first and more real-time than NeoLemmix. I do not currently plan to make paused skill assignment part of the main gameplay, because that would change the feel of the levels quite a lot.

But your concern about the moving skill popup is very valid. If later levels offer four or five possible skills at once, clicking the correct icon above a moving Fizzle could become too fiddly, especially on touch devices. That is something I need to handle carefully.

Possible solutions could be larger skill buttons, a more stable popup position, better spacing, limiting the number of visible choices depending on context, or another mobile-friendly selection layout. The goal should not be to make players fight the interface. If a level is difficult, it should be difficult because of the puzzle decision, not because the correct icon is hard to tap.

So I will keep the pause design as a separate question, but I fully agree that the skill selection UI must stay readable and reliable once more abilities are available.

Another solution to make assigning skills easier may be to allow to assign skills from the non-moving bottom skill bar in addition to the popup above fizzle ?
Select a (moving) fizzle, have the (non moving) bottom bar highlight which skills are currently available to that fizzle, click on the bottom bar to assign skill to the selected lemmings.
This could be a flow different from Lemmings and not too prone to wrong assignements.

That is a good suggestion, and I can see why it might help in some situations.

However, I also see a possible downside with a fixed skill bar. The player would select a Fizzle in the play area, but then the actual ability menu would appear somewhere else on the screen. That could become confusing, especially on mobile: the player has to keep watching the selected Fizzle, find the correct UI area, move the finger or mouse there, choose the correct ability, and then return attention to the moving level.

In faster levels, that could create its own coordination problem. The player would have to track the Fizzle and interact with a separate UI area at the same time.

The current popup has a reason: it keeps the available actions visually connected to the selected Fizzle. You select a Fizzle, and the possible actions appear directly at that Fizzle. Hitting the correct ability button is part of the gameplay, as long as the buttons remain large enough, readable enough, and fair to use.

I also test every newly designed level myself. If I cannot solve it reliably, or if it feels more like fighting the interface than solving the level, then I adjust the balancing, speed, ability counts, layout, or UI until it works.

So I see the fixed skill bar idea as one possible option among several. I will think about whether it makes sense, maybe as an alternative input method or for specific situations, but at the moment I still think the current popup approach fits the intended Fizzles gameplay better.

The important goal for me is: the controls must stay fair and readable, but Fizzles should still keep its own creature-first, mobile-first interaction style.

[HPWsoft]

Hi everyone,

I have been working on another Fizzles test update. This one focuses mainly on bug fixes, small gameplay improvements and UI polish.

You can play the current test version here:
https://hpwsoft.itch.io/fizzles

Fixed issues:

    Level 1 – Digger
    A tester reported that Fizzles could sometimes jump position or disappear when using the Digger ability near or on the ground. This has now been fixed.

    Level 5 – Planter / Bridge
    A tester reported that the endpoint of a planted bridge could sometimes behave like a blocking edge. In one case, a single Fizzle turned around at that point and got stuck in a loop, while other Fizzles continued normally. This has been fixed.

    Bridge transitions
    Additional edge cases around bridges and small height differences have been improved, especially where bridges connect to existing terrain or another bridge.

    Pause and music
    Pausing the game now only pauses the gameplay. The music continues to play and no longer restarts when the game is resumed.

    HUD buttons
    The Fast Forward button is now part of the regular HUD function row. The order is now:
    Pause, Restart, Menu, Fast Forward.

    Player menu
    The player name field now uses a fixed font size.
    Deleting a player now actually removes the player instead of only replacing the name with a default name.

    Delete confirmation
    The delete popup now gives a clearer indication of what action is being confirmed.

Most of these fixes came from testing and feedback, so thank you again to everyone who took the time to try the game and report issues.

Fizzles is still in active development, and I am currently polishing the existing levels before moving further into new level and ability combinations.

Feedback is always welcome!