Let us introduce you RAMbot, a friendly little robot who must escape an abandoned factory with a gloomy atmosphere. He’s a bit in the clouds, as he can only remember a few things in his limited RAM. He was wandering around, scanning items on the floor to store them in memory, when his RAM eventually got full and overwrote the items first stored… which morphed !
Quickly enough, RAMbot figured out that if an item is overwritten by another, it transforms into that item.
However, not completely writing over an item seems to corrupt it...
With his knewly-discovered abilities, will RAMbot be able to solve the puzzles on his path ?
Additional infos :
A lot of people found the game pretty hard to understand, but it was the same for us. So feel free to experience the mecanics a little bit, and ask for help if stuck. For the time being, we'll keep adding useful infos here based on comments, that you can refer to anytime.
However, the game can be beaten while discovering all of the following by yourself, which we highly encourage doing first.
I great use of the theme in the game. The problem is, I don't really know what to do to solve the first puzzle. I know you use space to store objects in ram, which I do at the different items, but I'm not sure what you're supposed to really do. It might just be me, but maybe a tutorial would help? I do like the theme and atmosphere though.
The ideia is actually pretty awesome! It took a while to understand how the actual mechanics work and how to use them, but overall I think this was a great entry, congrats! (couldn't finish the last puzzle, maybe i'll try again some other time haha)
It's a really nice take on the theme! I didn't completely understand the objects disapearing (is it because of not completely overriden blocks of ram?) but that's probably me. It was a really innovative puzzle game!
Thank you everyone for this feedback ! I've mentioned on the page of the game the mecanics of item corruption and there are now gifs that illustrate them. I guess we were so tired we didn't even think of writing about it X).
This is a really nice game! I think that the game should ask if you want to close the game if you press escape though. It feels like I was on the last level and I didn't want to replay the game again
Extremely clever and unique mechanic! It took me a bit to understand the goal, I think just adding an explanation of the goal in-game would go a long way. I think for this specific game, click and move would be better than arrow keys, but I'm not sure how much it would improve. The art was functional but not ugly. It would be nice to have some indicator on the objects themselves of how much RAM they take.
These are only small nitpicks, but I really think this game is great. Good job! :smile:
I took a little time to understand at first, but then I really enjoyed the game. The concept is very good, I think it should not be easy to create levels, so congratulations!
@leroyii I didn't even think that mouse controls were a possibility. Now that I consider it, it sounds pretty clever as there is no real purpose to move RAMbot manually for now. Even the features that we wanted to include but couldn't because we didn't have the time could have benefited from that system.
Really clever concept for a puzzler - maybe too clever for my brain. XD The game gives you one tool, but it has you making use of it in interesting and unorthodox ways. I had to give up eventually but it had my interest throughout!
The idea itself is cool in concept and I want really want to see its execution succeed as I would like to see the crazy combinations that can be made.
Ways to improve the mechanics in my opinion would be: 1. Make it more obvious how much space an object takes (since there's no undo or memory wipe) 2. Allow for 2nd changes like maybe undoing the current memory bank (wipe everything to revert to the last known state). By this I mean something like, if I scan 3 items, I can wipe all 3 items, but if I scan a fourth, that begins a new list only that new item will be wiped. 3. I did not get passed level one to see if this is already implemented but perhaps add more purpose to the individual objects being scanned that makes their state change once they are scanned or combined. Like a light bulb turning off which powers down a door which makes a room accessible to get the last piece required to open the door or something like that.
Sorry I did not get passed level one but I really like the idea of this and look forward to a more defined/polished version
As people have been saying, it is hard. Maybe it is too hard but it certainly is one of the better puzzle mechanics I've seen in a good bit. It makes you think really hard.
Really cool concept. Had me frustrated at first but once you figure out the mechanic it makes for a real brain teaser. Really good puzzle idea! Congrats. I feel like a lot of people will not understand, though I think that's their loss and not an issue with the game. Puzzles need to be challenging right?
@pattedecanaard It was a nightmare to make levels without testing them at the same time X)
@prodigalson We'll polish the game after the jam as ended. At some point of the making of RAMbot, we wondered about that mecanic, which we thought would go against the core gameplay. However, the game sure does lack an undo button. And we had planned onto adding a lot of other features, but you know... first jam, no time !
@zuhairghias I agree but only partially, because we could find some ways to better introduce the key mecanics. Still without a written tutorial, but maybe by building levels differently. Sure, it has to be challenging, and it will remain challenging throughout future iterations, but it should be challenging because of the mecanics and the puzzles you solve, not because you don't understand how the game works. Thanks though ;)
Very clever ! I was a bit dumb at the beginning as the colored pedestal wasn't obvious enough for me ^^ The only downside for me is that it's one of those puzzle you get good at by doing a lot and the bot is sloooooooww, even once you've figured out the solution, it takes a while to do it, even if you make no mistake. Still, very good overall :)
The concept was really nice. The level design needs some refinement to let the player know how to do certain things. I know it is impossible to do so in the small amount of time given for this gamejam... But anyways, it was really a nice experience.
The first blast I take playing a random game on that LD42 ! The idea of cloning object according to their size in memory ! A direct reference to stack overflowing ! Simple puzzles only with one action, sizes, colors and switches. Wow ! It's unsettling the first two level but damn it's good ! Graphics are ok, audios are a blast, puzzles are amazing. Thanks for the jam entry and really good work here ! TLDR : I loved it. Did I say it before? Once more : Loved it.
I kind of got the game after a bit, and I like the idea! It is a little hard to wrap your head around it, and I kinda got stuck on the level with two boxes but I'm sure with some thinking it would be possible.
The "corrupt" ram mechanic is a little punishing, and I feel like if the mechanics of this game were structured a little differently, it could be a real good puzzler!
But as it stands, it has some great groundwork for a cool puzzle game! Keep it up!
It took me a while to get into the mechanics and to fully appreciate the coloring of the RAM. However, after a few tries I managed to beat the second level and from there on it was a relatively smooth ride. I finished the game and liked it all the way.
The movement could be a little smoother; e.g., the collision box for the robot could be a smaller capsule to better navigate through doors.
The graphics are nice, music as well and the levels are interesting and fun to solve. Good job!
Nice puzzle game. Knowing the principle of memory mechanics here makes this game pretty fun. You should make a first level as a tutorial inside the game, by the way
Thanks for everyone's feedback. Reading them warms our hearth, and give us the motivation to improve !
@adrisj7 The corruption mechanic (yep, I just figured out it was spelled with a "h") has a double purpose : it serves as a way to be careful with the weight of the items stored, but you can also pass through glitched item and unlock paths. As such, one should juggle between corrupting items or having to keep them unglitched in order to solve the puzzle.
I think an "undo last move" button may help making it less punishing though.
@pavel-smejkal Collisions are an issue I didn't really had the time to address. Do you think I am allowed to change them for the ludum dare build, or should I do a post-jam version ?
This was a very awesome puzzle game. It took me some time to get it but it was worth it, the two mechanics of replacement and corruption are genius. I've seen other people trying to implement this theme in the contect of memory or RAM and this is the first one I like. I really like it. The graphics were cute and the music was fine but could be a bit annoying after a while. Great job!
Nice game, I hope to see more updates and improvments sooner. If you don't bother take a look at our game when we focused on Graphics and visuals and see the results that we got: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42
@lekkel124 I would not change the LD version, do a post-jam if you want, but the collisions are not that big of an issue anyway, it's just a thing I noticed.
It took me a while to get to grips on what to do but after i got the first two levels it was relatively easy, the art style is nice, very calm with a nice colour palette, the music was awesome really enjoyed it. In future i guess the best thing to do would be to make a tutorial level to ease your players in, but overall i really liked it! Congratulations! There are a few collision bugs but they can be ironed out with ease i'm sure, Well done!
This game is super hard but I really enjoyed it and played all the way to the end!
Check out the VOD on my channel if you want to me playing and rating your game! Thanks for submitting this to my queue, it might've been hard (and pissed me off at times) but I really enjoyed it!!
Comments45
(couldn't finish the last puzzle, maybe i'll try again some other time haha)
Good luck🍀
These are only small nitpicks, but I really think this game is great. Good job! :smile:
Ways to improve the mechanics in my opinion would be:
1. Make it more obvious how much space an object takes (since there's no undo or memory wipe)
2. Allow for 2nd changes like maybe undoing the current memory bank (wipe everything to revert to the last known state). By this I mean something like, if I scan 3 items, I can wipe all 3 items, but if I scan a fourth, that begins a new list only that new item will be wiped.
3. I did not get passed level one to see if this is already implemented but perhaps add more purpose to the individual objects being scanned that makes their state change once they are scanned or combined. Like a light bulb turning off which powers down a door which makes a room accessible to get the last piece required to open the door or something like that.
Sorry I did not get passed level one but I really like the idea of this and look forward to a more defined/polished version
@prodigalson We'll polish the game after the jam as ended. At some point of the making of RAMbot, we wondered about that mecanic, which we thought would go against the core gameplay. However, the game sure does lack an undo button. And we had planned onto adding a lot of other features, but you know... first jam, no time !
@zuhairghias I agree but only partially, because we could find some ways to better introduce the key mecanics. Still without a written tutorial, but maybe by building levels differently. Sure, it has to be challenging, and it will remain challenging throughout future iterations, but it should be challenging because of the mecanics and the puzzles you solve, not because you don't understand how the game works. Thanks though ;)
The idea of cloning object according to their size in memory ! A direct reference to stack overflowing ! Simple puzzles only with one action, sizes, colors and switches. Wow !
It's unsettling the first two level but damn it's good !
Graphics are ok, audios are a blast, puzzles are amazing.
Thanks for the jam entry and really good work here !
TLDR : I loved it. Did I say it before? Once more : Loved it.
On second thoughts, movements on a grid would have suited the game better, so much so slownes wouldn't have been such a problem.
The "corrupt" ram mechanic is a little punishing, and I feel like if the mechanics of this game were structured a little differently, it could be a real good puzzler!
But as it stands, it has some great groundwork for a cool puzzle game! Keep it up!
The movement could be a little smoother; e.g., the collision box for the robot could be a smaller capsule to better navigate through doors.
The graphics are nice, music as well and the levels are interesting and fun to solve. Good job!
Pretty difficult as well, or I'm just bad ^^
It's anyway a good game, great job !!! :)
Level 2 was hard but after that I got already the idea.
Congrats!
@adrisj7 The corruption mechanic (yep, I just figured out it was spelled with a "h") has a double purpose : it serves as a way to be careful with the weight of the items stored, but you can also pass through glitched item and unlock paths. As such, one should juggle between corrupting items or having to keep them unglitched in order to solve the puzzle.
I think an "undo last move" button may help making it less punishing though.
@pavel-smejkal Collisions are an issue I didn't really had the time to address. Do you think I am allowed to change them for the ludum dare build, or should I do a post-jam version ?
If you don't bother take a look at our game when we focused on Graphics and visuals and see the results that we got:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42
also i like the soundtrack
This game is super hard but I really enjoyed it and played all the way to the end!
Check out the VOD on my channel if you want to me playing and rating your game! Thanks for submitting this to my queue, it might've been hard (and pissed me off at times) but I really enjoyed it!!