Shards

by geosearchef

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.71

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.24

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.94

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.56

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.39

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.61

Coolness★★★★★★★★★★42%

TOO COMPLICATED? Look here:

Many people got problems getting the game mechanic. Sadly I had no time during LD37 to create a decent tutorial/introduction. So I made a video showcasing the first 4 levels afterwards.

PRESS R TO RESET THE LEVEL

Shards is a puzzle game using non euclidean geometry.
There are multiple rooms around with differently colored shards.

Your goal is to unite all required rooms using portals
so that all shards are connected to their target.

The game has a total of 9 levels (hadn't got that much time for level design which also resulted in a very very rough collision, sry 'bout that ;) ).

The whole game including design, modelling, concept and programming was made in 72 hours. I'm using a self written engine (written prior to LD37) based on LWJGL/OpenGL.

Comments11

Casevse13 Dec 2016, 11:35

It is hard to understand how the mechanic work. Maybe a very basic first level could help. Good work.

Aldarion13 Dec 2016, 11:54

Can't run it, sorry. Probably do not have the right version of JRE or something but it does not say anything :(
(Windows version)

mipo13 Dec 2016, 11:58

Interesting game I like the exploration and revisiting the rooms. The walk speed is way to slow when the majority of the gameplay is walking around and exploring. I think the portals need to be reworked because I couldn't tell what was a portal and what wasn't so a lot of the time I was walking around pressing 'q' and 'e'. Maybe have puzzles that unlock the portals rather than the portals themselves be the puzzles. I think there is a lot you could do with the portal mechanic, it looks really promising.

Thijs Tak13 Dec 2016, 12:08

It's fun when you figure out what to do. The initial desription wasn't really clear. Maybe give some indication which walls are portals.
Otherwise, very nice game.

Geosearchefauthor13 Dec 2016, 12:09

Thanks, yes I know, I hadn't got enough time to create more mechanics (e.g. portals that are always open, one way portals, ...) and if I would have had more time I would have also created some markers for the locations of portals.

@Everybody who is experiencing some trouble starting the game. Please try forcing your system to open the application (javaw.exe) using a dedicated GPU if you have one. If that doesnt help, please run the game using "java -jar [filename]" and send me the log.

creativwhisper13 Dec 2016, 12:11

The idea seems interesting, but it's very hard to figure out what you need to do. I tried almost 10 minutes until i figure how to use the portals and still i cannot solve the first room. As someone has suggested this game needs a tutorial or better visual hints to help the player understand it.

Devastus13 Dec 2016, 12:28

Nice work with the engine. I found it a bit hard to grasp what I was doing, when to do it and how though. Getting instant information about the active connections (instead of slowly seeing shards coming by) could make my actions a little bit clearer to understand.

Geosearchefauthor13 Dec 2016, 12:39

The bars between the shards on the top turn green instantly, when you open a poral that connects two shards. I had no time to make a tutorial sadly, but I think I'll upload a walkthrough as soon as I find time to help players stuck in one of the first levels.

kamranwali13 Dec 2016, 23:02

The game is ok. It is very difficult to know which portal goes where. Plus I keep clipping through the wall which made it more confusing.

captainskye13 Dec 2016, 23:04

I couldn't really figure out how to play but it looks really cool :) good job!

Jupiter_Hadley29 Dec 2016, 17:01

It seemed interesting, but I was just stuck in space? 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/hYD1PzuDX-0

Other games by @geosearchef