Patrick's Challenge III

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.50
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.29
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.16
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.90
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.60
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.50
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.47
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.91
patrick_ld_0.gif
Remove all 28 squares from the board in a neverending series of randomized puzzles.

_Patrick’s Challenge III_ is fun for all ages. Are you ready for the challenge? Feel free to leave your high scores in the comments below.

Instructions


The object of the game is to move Patrick around the board and remove all 28 squares. Squares with coloured balls will remove extra squares and can make the puzzles trickier.

Controls


* Arrow keys / mouse: Select square
* Z / mouse click: Move

Information


This is a fanmade sequel to the 1998 freeware sensation _Patrick's Challenge II_ by Reldni Productions. I used base code from an earlier project from another game jam.

screenshot

Comments19

Nam Nguyen
Nam Nguyen14 Aug 2018, 22:07
Sometimes it wouldn't let me select any square to move to, so I kept restarting it, some background music would improve the playability, keep the hard work!
tobiasvl
tobiasvlauthor14 Aug 2018, 22:12
@nam-nguyen You can move diagonally! Use the mouse if you're unsure, all available squares should highlight (and if you really can't move anywhere you lose). Pretty sure that's your problem. I could probably have made that clearer. Thanks for playing!
Evan Charfauros
Evan Charfauros14 Aug 2018, 22:15
I really liked the mixture of simplicity and challenge. It's a really easy concept to grasp but not so easy to master.
roberth33214 Aug 2018, 22:16
The menu buttons feel a little slow and like the click box isn't in the right place. Also I didn't like that it kept playing the tutorial and the empty level where you click in any spot and he moves around the entire thing. Though I do like the concept a lot and its pretty fun and makes you think.
BoopsGames
BoopsGames14 Aug 2018, 22:17
I like the "freeware" feel to it. It's as addicting, too. The "legend" is my only problem. It's hard to see and should be integrated into the level itself somehow; Looking back and forth was dizzying. Overall solid game, though.
Frank Gevaerts
Frank Gevaerts14 Aug 2018, 22:51
Quite an enjoyable game! One bug I had was that in full-screen I don't have a mouse cursor, and if the directly non-diagonal squares are gone you can't move diagonally using the cursor keys, so you're stuck (until you exit full-screen mode of course).
DarkGuardsman
DarkGuardsman14 Aug 2018, 23:04
Interesting idea, but controls are rough. Took me a while to figure out z activated UI elements. As well could never figure out how to move any other direction than sideways.
tobiasvl
tobiasvlauthor15 Aug 2018, 07:23
@darkguardsman @frank-gevaerts Hmm, I think using two arrow keys at the same time to move diagonally might work differently on different operating systems or something. Works fine here! The mouse should work though, but yeah, it doesn't appear while playing fullscreen... Oops. Sorry!
tobiasvl
tobiasvlauthor15 Aug 2018, 07:25
@boopsgames Thanks! Yeah, making it so that selecting a square with a ball highlights the squares that will disappear was a kind of last-minute attempt to make that better, but in retrospect I probably should've used something else than colored balls, like arrows that always point at the squares that will disappear, or something better. UX is hard!
BoopsGames
BoopsGames15 Aug 2018, 07:29
@tobiasvl Yeah UX always takes the designers the most time in all my game dev experiences. When you have to do it all yourself, it's hard to find solutions to it all. Great game, though! You got the most important parts in there, and that's more than I can say about my game :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
tobiasvl
tobiasvlauthor15 Aug 2018, 07:38
@roberth332 Thanks for the comment! I can't really reproduce the problems you're having though :( Hitboxes seem fine here, and the tutorial shouldn't repeat itself (it doesn't here), but I can't rule out any weird bugs there.
Andrei916 Aug 2018, 06:41
:thumbsup:
vfabien2116 Aug 2018, 06:45
Simple, yet very efficient game. The 7 figure seed, and its explaination, was a nice touche of polish.
Historymaker118
Historymaker11817 Aug 2018, 17:42
Ooh this is a fun little puzzler, I haven't seen this mechanic used this way before so you've got some innovation going on here which I like, the randomisation leading to infinite game possibilities adds a lot of potential replay value. The graphics are simple but have an old school charm to them, though the game desperately lacks music to help complete the experience even if the bleeps and bloops are serviceable as sound effects. I'll possibly come back to play more of this once the jam is over as I quite enjoy little puzzle games like this, especially on mobile which it would be awesome to see you port this to. Good job!
Frank Gevaerts
Frank Gevaerts17 Aug 2018, 18:52
@tobiasvl turns out the problem with diagonals was that I didn't realise you could hold two arrow keys for that, so no actual bug there.
tobiasvl
tobiasvlauthor17 Aug 2018, 22:35
@historymaker118 Wow, thanks a lot for the kind words! Music would be nice, perhaps a post-jam addition. Just gotta learn how to make music first, hehe. The game should actually work OK on mobile as is, if you visit the itch page on your phone!
DevEmil20 Aug 2018, 15:59
Great puzzle game, makes you think a lot. Gets a little bit boring after some time, but great job on designing this piece!
rexpeppers
rexpeppers20 Aug 2018, 21:12
Wow, a PICO 8 game! Cool!
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