A kinda sorta puzzle/adventure game, except there wasn't really time for "adventure" part, and for similar reasons the "puzzle" part kinda turned into a fetch quest; though one can try to make the fetching as effective as possible (plus, you can use Shift to make the main character go faster), and at the very, very end you might even make the actual puzzling, as in, putting pieces together. If you do it right, you get a completion screen!
If for some unfathomable reasons you enjoy the soundtrack I included but it goes out of sync, try muting and unmuting again. I'll look into that later... way later... rather tired at the moment... >.< The rest SHOULD work, as far as I recall; it's just little of that rest, spread across a bit too wide space. (oh, and the keys that allow crossing the barriers were supposed to be actual abilities, rather than just some unlockables)
TL;DR: It was made in 48 hours, and it shows. I'd like to think it's still awesome and it shows, too, but that probably wouldn't be as correct? ^^"
I tried playing the game for a while-- made it to the interdimensional dookickey-- but I couldn't get much further. I think I might have missed one of those graph thingers somewhere but I couldn't figure out where.
There are two circuits you can collect at the (almost) very beginning: the easy one is in the red corner thing and is probably the one you gathered; the harder one is in the level neighbouring with the Graph Theory from the left, hidden in a spot behind a wall. As far as I know, the elements in other levels are easier to spot. ^^" Hope this helps.
As I understand it I'm supposed to reorder the rooms to get further in the game? I liked that idea, though I couldn't really figure out the puzzle, there were those "pipe" tiles that made sense, I could tell where they connect with other rooms. But the ones that showed the rooms I couldn't figure out how they connected which made it confusing for me.
Also I didn't know where I wanted to go as it seemed pretty random where the things spawned. So I just tried to move them around randomly which didn't get me anywhere and I lost motivation to continue.
I think if you start with a smaller map to begin with and a clear goal of where to go the puzzle will be easier and more fun!
All in all I liked the idea, the music and the dialog was pretty funny as well. I think it could be fun to play if it was clear what to do next. :)
@Jesper: first of all, these "pipe" tiles are just tiles I didn't have time to draw the proper version of; the ones that are more detailed are how it's supposed to look like - you should be able to tell which directions they point to by seeing which sides are completely blocked, and which are open (e.g. the red-ish one corresponds to right-up tile).
Also, at the very beginning you can only swap two rooms before getting any further; then you should leave the terminal and move left, then proceed. The thing is, I can't really start with the smaller map, because it's the ONLY map for the whole game, and it represents the rooms. You find circuits, swap their rooms to make a path to rooms yet to be discovered, find more circuits, occasionally unlock some abilities etc. I hoped it would be intuitive enough, but apparently not for everone. ^^"
Thanks for the feedback, nonetheless! I hope to expand upon that idea later, with more dialogue and such... eventually.
Okay, I played this through, and I think this is a very very great entry. I loved the music, and the atmosphere of the whole game. And I laughed at the endscreen. :) Keep up the good work, and add more stuff. ^^
@Sunflower After looking your notes I went back and had a retry of the game. The issue was that when I was playing it I wasn't really thinking of the puzzle-- My computer's been acting up rather badly for the last three months-- and missed the fact that there was a viable replacement after I picked up the third Graph. I ended up completing it. My only gripe is that it would have been nice to pick up something that could allow transport to Graph Theory, I'll admit I got lost trying to find my way back once I got to the point that I was changing most of the map after each visit. Or perhaps some sort of 'map' that you could carry.
As for my game? You asked about Aisling and Ashley? Well I'm of several minds in regards to it. On the one hand, I see them as two separate people that are connected in space/time for some reason, who have to share a part of their mind with the other for some reason. Another thought is that it's all happening within one person mind, with Aisling being the more childish/full of wonder and imagination side and Ashley the more adult and serious side, and something caused a sort of schism in the person's mind. Another thought, perhaps an explanation for the previous one, is something like a 'Coma Dream' where her mind has created a sort of playground for her, one that will never end, and the Aisling represents the portion that wants to stay in the coma and Ashley is more of one who wishes to escape.
Either way, the Crystals and the Amethyst Shade were supposed to get more play time to explore the some of these ideas. However, I was attempting to explore as many different puzzles as I could and due to how I set up the world building-- Each of the levels was designed on a white board with me typing in each vertex manually-- I didn't have time to actually explore the story future.
The color issue? Well, I created the menus/skins coloring-- And wrote a lot of the menu code-- prior to deciding on the actual style/coloration and didn't go back to fix it. With the style/coloring of the game itself I sort of settled on it between Red and Blue are distinct colors and allowed me to us purple, a somewhat sinister colour at times, for the 'connected' portion, and use Cyan and Magenta as colors for the objects within those worlds. The coins were something I wanted to have, but I hadn't decided on the coloring style when I added them and forgot to fix them. If I re-explore it I'll likely use sprites of some sort, with something like an 'aura' to indicate the Purple items and a stylized representation of the 'swapped out' world.
Whew. (I included the answers about my game here 'cause I wasn't sure whether you'd check back for a response. xD)
@Rothens and anserran: thank you both for your kind words, they're much appreciated. ^^
@uprightpath: thanks for the answer, I'm glad you managed to complete the game eventually. I, too, found that some sort of map would be pretty useful; sadly, that's when I was completely running out of time.
Also, thanks for responding to my comment on your game, though just for future reference: when I leave some matter open, I usually check if developer did respond, once in a while. ;)
Parallel worlds have collided due to some interdimensional thingamajigs, and now, unlike before, parts of them are connected. At some point the player can even alter these connections.
Is it not enough? Should I have written "connected" all over the place to for this to qualify as use of theme? Personally, I think the best uses of theme are the ones that are apparent without explicitly quoting the theme, and I hope my game counts here. Referring to title alone (pretty much) to deny the use of theme, jokingly or not, is to me at least petty. >.<
I thought the room swapping was really cool! Graphics and music was decent as well. The graph computer could maybe use a little bit more explanation, though.
It's a good idea but I think we walk too much. exploration is good but return to the terminal is long (for me anyway). and the sound of walking doesn't help (but music is cool!)
I wasn't able to run this on my current Ubuntu Linux install. I'll definitely come back to it with my Win8 machine later to give it another go, though.
@dunin: just in case you haven't noticed (and your criticism about walking sound might indicate so ^^") you can make the character go faster with Shift and toggle sounds with S, as it can be seen on instruction to the right, even captured in that very screenshot: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/wp-content/compo2/375043/39564-shot0.png ;)
I played this for way too long, proving that I really enjoyed completing this! :)
I really liked the puzzle-solving gameplay with how you have to work out how to access a new area by switching around from and to specific tiles on the world grid. It was really fun puzzle-solving. Saving the 4 worlds was also a fun end-game task.
The character walking animation was quite good in my opinion and I enjoyed the 4th-wall-breaking humour in all the dialogue. I like the way you did the music instruments as well with how certain instruments blend in and out depending on what worlds you're around.
Great job getting this done in time for the compo!
Oh, this was a very solid entry, i liked it a lot! The atmosphere is very good, and tough I agree that a touch of "adventure" would improve the game, as it is now it's already a very intriguing entry. good work.
@Sun : ok, I have not well read, I apologize. (even why don't just use a speed between the normal and the turbo?) it makes no difference to the beginning of my comment (just forget the rest): it's good idea!
I enjoyed the puzzle mechanic and the choices of colour palette - oh, and the music's quite good too. But the environments felt kind of boring, very sparse, and (as you imply in the description) the game feels incomplete. Definitely wanted more narrative and purpose. But maybe that's just my personal preference. I hope you do release a post-compo version, because there is clearly promise here.
Thanks again for the comments. I do intend to continue this project later, though I'd need to prettify the engine first (as it often happens, in such a short timespan I don't really have time to go for really long-term solutions).
I loved the idea -- moving around the rooms that compose the world is a really unique way to create a puzzle game. The music and sound effects are nice - now you just need to care a bit more about the graphics.
"now you just need to care a bit more about the graphics" *laughs hysterically while running wildly, shouting "I'M QUEEN OF THE SQUIRRELS!!"*
*ahem* That is to say, I ain't no artist. While the game as it is could use a bit more variety in graphics, like tiles or grass or something, the characters or the shruberries bird are nearly as good (in terms of complexity) as I can get. I can make the rooms livelier, definitely improve the GUI, quite possibly do some work on walls and replace the 45 placeholder room tiles in Graph Theory, but the general graphics style (like the characters) should remain the same. ^^"
(thanks for the comment, anyway; to you and to people above)
I think it's quite awesome! You managed to combine a lot of things for 48 hours (as in there's something for every category of the voting)! I would have played until the end, but it got just a little to repetitive after some time, but that's understandable. The switching of areas was quite challenging, I had to think which areas I didn't go to yet. Nice work! :)
@Zathnic: glad you liked it; be aware that this game has a save feature, so if you get bored, you might come back later. Keep in mind that there actually is some completion screen once you put everything in order. ;)
(also, I hope the actual game won't be as repetitive, teehee~!)
The general idea is nice, but the execution really falls short. In addition to a buttload of walking around (please let the player at least teleport back to the computer!) I had to try to remember a lot of stuff all at once including but probably not limited to: - Where have I already been? - Where am I now? - Where was I headed to? - Which gates does each of these rooms hold? - How are the rooms connected to each other?
After a while I just lost interest because I forgot what was where and had to start checking places I had already been to. I really wanted to like it, the background music was great (I disabled the sound effects after a while though) and the overall mood was pretty good but the gameplay just felt so menial and trial and error based that I just couldn't do it.
I enjoyed the room shuffling mechanic, and how more rooms would be unlocked as I found additional circuits :) I also liked the writing a lot - it added nicely to the overall atmosphere of the game.
As already pointed out, some rooms felt pretty empty (undestandable for a game of this scope made in 48), but I'm sure that's easily remedied given more time.
Fun game!
T
Traumendes_Madchen31 Aug 2014, 21:05
Interesting idea...even though I didn't really understand what I had to do. Wandering around felt a bit disheartening after a while, especially when you can't start again from the beginning ;__;.
Interesting and novel concept! The turbo boost was a really well-thought feature. I didn't finish the game (as I failed to find all the pieces and my brain is a little too tired to think in any useful way of rearranging the ones I have) but it was definitely an enjoyable experience!
When a user previously told you that the theme was "connected Worlds" and not "Collided" he/she was probably NOT talking about the title of your game!. In the first screen of the game itself you write "Made for Ludum Dare 48, theme "Collided Worlds".
The use of the theme is quite obvious in your entry regardless of whether you thought it was "collided" or "connected". It works either way for a game like this.
Ok, played it to the end now. Loved the ending :)Perhaps I'd suggest a "mini map" or a map you can carry around with you. That would help a lot. Perhaps marking the already-visited areas would help too.
It was definitely a fun game. Congratulations again! :)
Very nice. I like the idea, and it's fun to rearrange the rooms. Some minor decisions like having two walking speeds and having cross-fading music make this more enjoyable.
This is a really neat concept! If you had had the time to fully flesh it out, I could see this being a really solid game. I also liked the different musical channels for the different areas. It was a nice detail.
Once I got the hang of how things worked, it was slow going until I got the R+, then things started falling into place. And once I found the Y+, it was just cleanup.
The final puzzle was a nice touch. I was totally confused about how to start, until I remembered the coordinates on some of the pieces. It was quite satisfying to see all the worlds fit together so neatly...
Anyway, nicely done, and some great potential here!
It took me a while to get into this, but when it clicked I really enjoyed shuffling around the areas and then making everything fit into place. What I initially thought was a lazy naming convention turned into a big puzzle, which really impressed me!
The dynamic soundtrack was a sweet touch.
Your Y co-ordinates are backwards, though... I had to spend time re-adjusting the pieces after my first arrangement made no sense. :v
WOW that is an insanely cool concept! I played till I got 3 of the pieces, swapping things around, but trying to remember which tiles had which color barriers was too much for me right now. I would be really interested to play a more polished (a.k.a. convenient with less backtracking) version of this, seriously 5 stars for innovation if this is an original idea - it's like combining the those water pipe games but having the player actually traverse them.
Nice puzzle, although it takes a lot of play time to run around collecting circuits, so I had to stop playing after a while. Still, the idea is nice and it can be improved in time with some special abilities like you first intended these circuits to have.
It took me a long time to finish, but I finally reached the promised "completion screen". I really enjoyed the concept but the screen key is really useful when you have to run the same paths again and again. And the music is nice.
Alright, so to address a few points, more or less recurring:
About travelling back and forth to the computer: yeah, I admit it's quite an issue, but once I sent some version, I'd rather not cause some bias now. I will definitely include some sort of minimap to give the player better idea about their current position. Whether I'll include some sort of teleport-to-computer function I've yet to decide. My main concern is that it might allow the player to omit some important story segment or enable simple in-universe solution that renders the whole gameplay needlessly complicated (compare "why they couldn't use [revival item/spell] on [dead character here]"). Besides, I hope that
I guess regardless of adding teleporter or not, the minimap would answer most of Moosefly's questions: - Where have I already been? - Where am I now? - Where was I headed to? - How are the rooms connected to each other?
The only unanswered question would be "Which gates does each of these rooms hold?", but that in itself would be more of a puzzle - the Y+, V+, R+ and A+ keys correspond to different abilities, usable in different situations, and it's up to player to find out which ability works where.
About "Collided Worlds": thanks @ConflictiveLabs for pointing it out, indeed I made that typo in title screen. I take back what I said to MyougaHiroshi. ^^"
About figuring out what to do (mentioned mainly by Crowbeak): I take it's learning world-swapping mechanics that needs explanation? I guess I'll include some sort of instructions in Graph Theory that explain it in more detail. ^^"
About swapped Y-coordinates (mentioned by GrooveMan): well, yes, the trouble is that there are two Y conventions - "Cartesian" and "screen". The "Cartesian" Y coordinates are bottom-up, and are commonly used in maths. The "screen" Y coordinates are top-down, and are commonly used in regards to screen display, spreadsheets or the battleship game. I was aware of that ambiguity, but didn't really have time to think of some way to resolve it. ^^"
About the idea itself: glad you people liked it. And yes, fizzd, it's an original idea, though I admit I've got it some time ago and remembered for the time of compo. ^^"
Thanks for the feedback in general! I'll make sure to post related updates on Twitter, though first I'd need to polish my framework thing, and before that implement some unified data model so that, among other things, designing web pages wouldn't be such a pain. I just hope my personal stack won't get overflowed... u_u"
(on a side note, I'd have loved to make a HTML5 version of that game, too, but it turned out to be way too big can of worms; maybe the next time...)
Comments50
Hope this helps.
Also I didn't know where I wanted to go as it seemed pretty random where the things spawned. So I just tried to move them around randomly which didn't get me anywhere and I lost motivation to continue.
I think if you start with a smaller map to begin with and a clear goal of where to go the puzzle will be easier and more fun!
All in all I liked the idea, the music and the dialog was pretty funny as well. I think it could be fun to play if it was clear what to do next. :)
Also, at the very beginning you can only swap two rooms before getting any further; then you should leave the terminal and move left, then proceed. The thing is, I can't really start with the smaller map, because it's the ONLY map for the whole game, and it represents the rooms. You find circuits, swap their rooms to make a path to rooms yet to be discovered, find more circuits, occasionally unlock some abilities etc. I hoped it would be intuitive enough, but apparently not for everone. ^^"
Thanks for the feedback, nonetheless! I hope to expand upon that idea later, with more dialogue and such... eventually.
As for my game? You asked about Aisling and Ashley? Well I'm of several minds in regards to it. On the one hand, I see them as two separate people that are connected in space/time for some reason, who have to share a part of their mind with the other for some reason. Another thought is that it's all happening within one person mind, with Aisling being the more childish/full of wonder and imagination side and Ashley the more adult and serious side, and something caused a sort of schism in the person's mind. Another thought, perhaps an explanation for the previous one, is something like a 'Coma Dream' where her mind has created a sort of playground for her, one that will never end, and the Aisling represents the portion that wants to stay in the coma and Ashley is more of one who wishes to escape.
Either way, the Crystals and the Amethyst Shade were supposed to get more play time to explore the some of these ideas. However, I was attempting to explore as many different puzzles as I could and due to how I set up the world building-- Each of the levels was designed on a white board with me typing in each vertex manually-- I didn't have time to actually explore the story future.
The color issue? Well, I created the menus/skins coloring-- And wrote a lot of the menu code-- prior to deciding on the actual style/coloration and didn't go back to fix it. With the style/coloring of the game itself I sort of settled on it between Red and Blue are distinct colors and allowed me to us purple, a somewhat sinister colour at times, for the 'connected' portion, and use Cyan and Magenta as colors for the objects within those worlds. The coins were something I wanted to have, but I hadn't decided on the coloring style when I added them and forgot to fix them. If I re-explore it I'll likely use sprites of some sort, with something like an 'aura' to indicate the Purple items and a stylized representation of the 'swapped out' world.
Whew. (I included the answers about my game here 'cause I wasn't sure whether you'd check back for a response. xD)
@uprightpath: thanks for the answer, I'm glad you managed to complete the game eventually. I, too, found that some sort of map would be pretty useful; sadly, that's when I was completely running out of time.
Also, thanks for responding to my comment on your game, though just for future reference: when I leave some matter open, I usually check if developer did respond, once in a while. ;)
Parallel worlds have collided due to some interdimensional thingamajigs, and now, unlike before, parts of them are connected. At some point the player can even alter these connections.
Is it not enough? Should I have written "connected" all over the place to for this to qualify as use of theme? Personally, I think the best uses of theme are the ones that are apparent without explicitly quoting the theme, and I hope my game counts here. Referring to title alone (pretty much) to deny the use of theme, jokingly or not, is to me at least petty. >.<
I really liked the puzzle-solving gameplay with how you have to work out how to access a new area by switching around from and to specific tiles on the world grid. It was really fun puzzle-solving. Saving the 4 worlds was also a fun end-game task.
The character walking animation was quite good in my opinion and I enjoyed the 4th-wall-breaking humour in all the dialogue. I like the way you did the music instruments as well with how certain instruments blend in and out depending on what worlds you're around.
Great job getting this done in time for the compo!
The atmosphere is very good, and tough I agree that a touch of "adventure" would improve the game, as it is now it's already a very intriguing entry. good work.
Also, thank you for your comments, people, I'm really glad you liked my game! ^^
(even why don't just use a speed between the normal and the turbo?)
it makes no difference to the beginning of my comment (just forget the rest): it's good idea!
Cheers, and awesome game!
*laughs hysterically while running wildly, shouting "I'M QUEEN OF THE SQUIRRELS!!"*
*ahem* That is to say, I ain't no artist. While the game as it is could use a bit more variety in graphics, like tiles or grass or something, the characters or the shruberries bird are nearly as good (in terms of complexity) as I can get. I can make the rooms livelier, definitely improve the GUI, quite possibly do some work on walls and replace the 45 placeholder room tiles in Graph Theory, but the general graphics style (like the characters) should remain the same. ^^"
(thanks for the comment, anyway; to you and to people above)
(also, I hope the actual game won't be as repetitive, teehee~!)
- Where have I already been?
- Where am I now?
- Where was I headed to?
- Which gates does each of these rooms hold?
- How are the rooms connected to each other?
After a while I just lost interest because I forgot what was where and had to start checking places I had already been to. I really wanted to like it, the background music was great (I disabled the sound effects after a while though) and the overall mood was pretty good but the gameplay just felt so menial and trial and error based that I just couldn't do it.
Anssi@MooseflyGames
I also liked the writing a lot - it added nicely to the overall atmosphere of the game.
As already pointed out, some rooms felt pretty empty (undestandable for a game of this scope made in 48), but I'm sure that's easily remedied given more time.
Fun game!
When a user previously told you that the theme was "connected Worlds" and not "Collided" he/she was probably NOT talking about the title of your game!. In the first screen of the game itself you write "Made for Ludum Dare 48, theme "Collided Worlds".
The use of the theme is quite obvious in your entry regardless of whether you thought it was "collided" or "connected". It works either way for a game like this.
Good Job!
It was definitely a fun game. Congratulations again! :)
Once I got the hang of how things worked, it was slow going until I got the R+, then things started falling into place. And once I found the Y+, it was just cleanup.
The final puzzle was a nice touch. I was totally confused about how to start, until I remembered the coordinates on some of the pieces. It was quite satisfying to see all the worlds fit together so neatly...
Anyway, nicely done, and some great potential here!
The dynamic soundtrack was a sweet touch.
Your Y co-ordinates are backwards, though... I had to spend time re-adjusting the pieces after my first arrangement made no sense. :v
About travelling back and forth to the computer: yeah, I admit it's quite an issue, but once I sent some version, I'd rather not cause some bias now.
I will definitely include some sort of minimap to give the player better idea about their current position. Whether I'll include some sort of teleport-to-computer function I've yet to decide. My main concern is that it might allow the player to omit some important story segment or enable simple in-universe solution that renders the whole gameplay needlessly complicated (compare "why they couldn't use [revival item/spell] on [dead character here]"). Besides, I hope that
I guess regardless of adding teleporter or not, the minimap would answer most of Moosefly's questions:
- Where have I already been?
- Where am I now?
- Where was I headed to?
- How are the rooms connected to each other?
The only unanswered question would be "Which gates does each of these rooms hold?", but that in itself would be more of a puzzle - the Y+, V+, R+ and A+ keys correspond to different abilities, usable in different situations, and it's up to player to find out which ability works where.
About "Collided Worlds": thanks @ConflictiveLabs for pointing it out, indeed I made that typo in title screen. I take back what I said to MyougaHiroshi. ^^"
About figuring out what to do (mentioned mainly by Crowbeak): I take it's learning world-swapping mechanics that needs explanation? I guess I'll include some sort of instructions in Graph Theory that explain it in more detail. ^^"
About swapped Y-coordinates (mentioned by GrooveMan): well, yes, the trouble is that there are two Y conventions - "Cartesian" and "screen". The "Cartesian" Y coordinates are bottom-up, and are commonly used in maths. The "screen" Y coordinates are top-down, and are commonly used in regards to screen display, spreadsheets or the battleship game. I was aware of that ambiguity, but didn't really have time to think of some way to resolve it. ^^"
About the idea itself: glad you people liked it. And yes, fizzd, it's an original idea, though I admit I've got it some time ago and remembered for the time of compo. ^^"
Thanks for the feedback in general! I'll make sure to post related updates on Twitter, though first I'd need to polish my framework thing, and before that implement some unified data model so that, among other things, designing web pages wouldn't be such a pain. I just hope my personal stack won't get overflowed... u_u"
(on a side note, I'd have loved to make a HTML5 version of that game, too, but it turned out to be way too big can of worms; maybe the next time...)