Ludum Dare #37compo

Roach Escape

by ithildin

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.27

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.54

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.76

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.77

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.69

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.43

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.82

Coolness★★★★★★★★★★100%

YOUR GOAL:
===========================
Help Roachie (sh*tty name I just made up as I'm writing) reach the flashing goal and escape the room. It broke an antenna, so its sense of direction is a bit off: when it finds a wall, it simply turns right, being an easy prey for missing tiles, infinite loops of wall-bumping and the ghosts of enemies that didn't make it into the game in time.

To assist it you need to place special tiles on the floor. Roachie will follow whatever direction is stated on them.

Watch out for gaps!

CONTROLS
===========
The game is controlled with the mouse.

While you're in editing mode, click on a tool to select/deselect it, and click on the board to place tiles.
Click on an already placed special tile to return it to your hand.

Once you're satisfied with the layout, click "Go!" and watch Roachie move. If it gets stuck you'll have to go back to editing mode manually. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to add any kind of limit (a countdown, some energy,...).

Please don't hesitate to leave any feedback! I'm aware that the game is quite incomplete and I already have a massive list of features for a potential post-compo version, but any constructive criticism is appreciated.

DEV TOOLS
==========
* Flash Develop + Haxeflixel
* Photoshop.
* Jfxr/Audacity for whatever audio you get to hear.
* Tiled for level editing.

Postmortem coming soon...

EDITS:
13/12/2016 - Since several people have reported issues getting the hang of the game at the beginning, I've added link to a gameplay video showing how to fail and beat the first level. I hope that helps until I can fix that on a post-compo version.
16/01/2017 - Replaced link to the original compo version and a new post-compo.

Genres: puzzle

Tools: OpenFL

Comments47

gironC12 Dec 2016, 03:03

Interesting concept, nice game! :D

neontropics12 Dec 2016, 19:41

Great difficulty curve, in the beginning you have a lot of options and it's easy, but later on it gets harder.

It is very similar to the late great Chu Chu Rocket - if you haven't played that then that has a bunch of cool stuff to take inspiration from (main thing for me would be the ability to speed up Roachie with a button when trying different solutions).

timgarbos12 Dec 2016, 19:42

Tile programming games are nothing new, but I like the levels and ideas.

At first I didn't notice the extra black walls on the red tile. You could definitely make them a little more visible.

SamuelSousa12 Dec 2016, 19:51

Cute little game. Interesting sfx. A little more art work and its good to go. Keep it up it has potential.

Dagorlad12 Dec 2016, 20:50

Pretty cool concept. Level 3 hit me really hard tho. Concatenating the sounds feels really good, I would put more instructions somewhere tho. Good job!

Geckoo133712 Dec 2016, 22:05

Really clever puzzle game with an interesting concept. I had fun playing it. The gameplay is easy to understand. Well done ++

Zener12 Dec 2016, 22:25

Solid mechanics and very fun game to play! It has very good level design, I hope you can add some more graphics and levels to it. Congrats!

rplnt12 Dec 2016, 23:17

Nice game, definitely something I can see myself playing on a phone or something.

Ithildinauthor13 Dec 2016, 01:45

Thanks all for your comments! Some of you have mentioned features I was already keeping on the backlog to add to a potential post-compo version, and your feedback in terms of user experience is invaluable.

For example, I need to make obvious the distinction between the edit and playback modes, and the walls definitely need to pop out more.

@neontropics Yes, Chu Chu Rocket was an obvious source of inspiration. When I came with the idea I was thinking of Lemmings, but I knew I had also played something like that years ago that I couldn't fully remember. A few hours into development I recalled Chu Chu Rocket, and the compo version is pretty much a simplistic, one-character-only take on their puzzle game mode. During development I tried to add a "fast forward" option to help me debug that would make it into the game if it worked. Unfortunately, it broke the collision logic and refactoring it to work the right way would have taken a lot of time, so I decided to remove it.

amigo15513 Dec 2016, 01:50

Cool Game!

schizoid2k13 Dec 2016, 02:14

Great to see a puzzle game... always fun to play. I do agree with some of the comments that the walls need to be thicker (more visible). Good job!

GameGrape Gaming13 Dec 2016, 04:21

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Mennalus13 Dec 2016, 05:15

Liked the puzzles, not a fan of the high pitched noises.

BUNN1E513 Dec 2016, 05:34

It was fun, but for the first level I didn't realize that I had a "move right" piece because it looked grayed out.

Khaoz_Fang13 Dec 2016, 08:45

It took me some time to understand how it moves. The black lines are hard to notice.

mipo13 Dec 2016, 09:11

Fun game with great level design. I think the art and instructions could be clearer. I'm not really sure what the pause button's purpose is I would always hit it and then try to edit. I think this game would really benefit from more levels but there is only so much time to make them.

LDP13 Dec 2016, 11:44

Simple concept, but good to play

SidewalkSleeper13 Dec 2016, 12:26

Simple but fun :)

MTolkien13 Dec 2016, 13:51

Nice job! I really enjoyed!

Jungle13 Dec 2016, 14:15

Well done! It's a very nice puzzle game, but I don't think it fits the theme "One room".

zzapp13 Dec 2016, 14:22

Really fun puzzle game. Simple mechanics and good level design, level 3 was by far the toughest level, it was a breeze after that.

Alexandr Lisnic13 Dec 2016, 19:16

I love these games!

Anyonebacon13 Dec 2016, 20:12

Pretty neat game, nice work :)

sacredseedstudio13 Dec 2016, 20:28

I couldn't get it to work at first :( I think a tutorial would be useful

Ithildinauthor13 Dec 2016, 21:56

Thanks again!

@sacredseedstudio Yeah, I need to fix that and make the Edit and Playback modes clearer. In the meantime, I've uploaded a video showing how to beat the first level.

Ludipe13 Dec 2016, 21:57

Quite fun puzzle game. Had a hard time at the beginning because I couldn't spot the black lines that make you turn (they're a little bit too thin).

The rest was easy to understand. I think I didn't use most "arrows" in every level, it'd be nice if I knew how many I need for the optimal solution. That way players would keep trying to find the best solution.

It was a really nice entry with enough content, congrats on finishing it! :-)

bplane213 Dec 2016, 23:50

Not too shabby, I've seen the game before in a number of contexts, but making it work so quickly and with no noticeable bugs is still a feat. Didn't really have anything to do with the theme though.

The color scheme was also pretty rough on the eyes, and it was a little hard to tell where the walls were. The high-pitched squeak was also a little grating. Overall nice work.

dunin14 Dec 2016, 00:13

Simple but nice little puzzle.
You should just give to the player the minimum of arrow, the game would be more challenging. We can't really juge the level design when we have extra possibilities...

Megalink14 Dec 2016, 00:38

I like the concept, good job.

GFM14 Dec 2016, 01:07

Nice idea. :)

I don't have much to add from what has already been said, though:

- The walls are somewhat hard to see.
- I accidentally clicked on the menu button after falling into a gap and lost all my progress.

sacredseedstudio14 Dec 2016, 18:19

I watched the video, I see now you have to click on the grid to place a piece :P

Good job overall, thanks for the update!

BubsyPoochies16 Dec 2016, 14:02

Very nice entry, as a big fan of chuchu rocket and puzzle games in general I enjoyed this one a lot! Sounds are cute, graphics are nice and mouse controls work just as expected. If feels really polished for a compo entry and the amount of levels designed is a huge plus. Since not all arrows have to be used to find the solution, a cool feature would be to have some kind of score based on time and amount of tiles used. Congratulations on this, it was really enjoyable!

Vadim Ivshin16 Dec 2016, 20:11

Thanks for your feedback. I also like mechanics of your game too, it's quite different from mine. Maybe you should make walls more obvious, they are not so readable in this version. Anyway, I would like to see a full post-compo version.

zenmumbler16 Dec 2016, 22:46

Put some polkadots on it and it's a ladybug (ladyroach?) Cute little game, like Chu Chu Rocket without the Chu Chus. This needs some music love and some nice sound effects.

Andrew Deem17 Dec 2016, 07:07

Cool idea, I like it a lot. Some of the puzzles were a bit too much for me, but that might be because I got four hours of sleep. Anyway, I like the design, simple yet fun. The difficulty ramps up in a good way. And yeah. Good job!

wowa_u17 Dec 2016, 14:50

Simple and funny puzzle game!

Jupiter_Hadley17 Dec 2016, 16:04

Simple, well made game! I included it in my compilation video series of the Ludum Dare 37 games, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/xWdPMmlW1Hs

BoltKey18 Dec 2016, 15:28

I like the concept, but it ways way too easy for a puzzle game. There was always excess of tools. I would like this much better if there was always a unique solution and some optimization would have to take place in order to solve the puzzles.

Dining Philosopher18 Dec 2016, 16:46

Fun idea and smoothly implementated but at least initially lacking in difficulty. At some point (after 7 levels or so) I clicked a wrong button and was returned to the main menu, so I haven't seen the later levels.

mrhill18 Dec 2016, 19:17

Nice concept, could have been harder. The walls are really hard to see. But I hade fun playing it :D

velvetlobster18 Dec 2016, 20:36

Simple but nice entry. I really like this type of game. This fits perfect as a mobile game. Great work.

MrTroy19 Dec 2016, 01:43

I love this game. Had a good time playing once I figured out the black walls. I really liked the fact that you were given unnecessary pieces, that forced me to have to figure out it out instead of brute forcing the levels.

SinclairStrange19 Dec 2016, 11:53

For a compo game it's very well done and it's actually very solid. While it's nothing new the puzzles were extremely well thought out and done and it had a lovely freeware charm to it which I loved. Overall very solid and great entry! :D

ohsqueezy19 Dec 2016, 18:14

The scavenger! I like watching the roach move through the level, even when it doesn't reach the goal. It's fun to see it unfold. Some timing based puzzles with moving obstacles might make that part of the game dynamic.

Siegfried Croes20 Dec 2016, 21:49

Quite a fun puzzle game! Reminded me of Chu Chu Rocket ;) Well done.

bigbuggames22 Dec 2016, 16:23

Good game, I had to spend some minutes trying to figure out how did it work acutally, but was worth. I love the little black thing smaily face :P

rjhelms2 Jan 2017, 04:11

Cool puzzle game! I could have played this for a lot longer - the length was good for an LD entry, but I was hooked and didn't want it to end.

The sound & graphics could have used a bit more polish, I think - they're fine, but I think a bit more time spent getting them better would have gone a long way.

There was some nice emergent complexity around how the roach turned on its own, the layout of the levels, and the instructions I gave it. Good fun!