TINY TOWNS

I had to stop playing this because I need to get back to reviewing, this is really amazing. I'm super impressed and I don't have much negative to say. This is really fun, looks amazing and the art and SFX are perfect. One nitpicky thing I can say is that the selected item is not highlighted on the toolbar which would make it a bit nicer to see what you were placing. Excellent game.

I also had to be like "Okay, gotta stop and review more games now" lol. Excellent gameplay and music! I loved it!

Wonderful little game. My favorite so far. It has a very nice aesthetic and is pretty clever. Well done.

I feel pretty stupid, but I couldn't figure out the first puzzle :-/. Beautiful artwork and really clever design though.

Perfect!

really nice!! the visual style is super cool. and the music is really nice. maybe i wasnt listening closely but it sounded like a short loop, but didnt feel very repetitive at all.
Some weird nitpicky things: the rotate arrows on the screen both point in the same direction (the left one should be flipped vertically. It would be nice to have some sort of highlight on the building you have selected. the only indicator i found was a bit of text at the top.
The puzzles were very nice. each level had a good amount of size to them.

I won! It took me some time to understand that power plants have an effect radius of 2, but after that I had a lot of fun! You came up with some pretty good levels. Only other suggestion I have is to add an indicator which building type is selected. Great entry!

Looks like finished game, not prototype. Its really cool!

VERY nice game :) !! I'm not very good at puzzle games so I didn't get very far, but I can appreciate the level design and art all the same ! Everything feels cute and quite juicy ! Awesome game feel, really ! Probably the best I've played so fat, cheers :) !

This is a great puzzle game and probably the most polished ludum entry I have seen so far, perfect pocket gaming experience! If you ever stick it on a mobile with more levels you could have a real winner here.

Awesome game ! The graphics are very pretty and relaxing, and the puzzles are realy clever. The game difficulty is a bit random though, with levels that took me 5 minutes to complete followed by ones that I finished on the first try. Also there is an impressive amount of content for a jam game.

Add more building types and interactions and you could have a solid full game !
Well done !

Great little puzzle game! Simple and effective. Though I would argue it's less "running out of space" and rather just "limited space".

Very nice game. I loved it. For whatever reason the 2nd level took me way too long xD But that was because of my dumb thinking. As someone mentiuoned before, the difficulty curve seems a little odd, but other than that I really really liked it!

As the dev of a somewhat similar game (which is the reason my eye fell on this one) ... you've got a lot of things in there that I had to scrap because of time-constraints.
The context-sensitive help is an _especially_ nice touch, but the properly connecting roads make me the most jealous (as I found an easy way to implement this years ago and would've taken me, art included, just another hour(s?) or so).

The music is good enough that I don't care how repetitive it is, and fits well with the excellent deceptively 'simple' art-style.
I just noticed that the placement of the buildings is _animated_ as well. Nice!

Difficulty ramp in the beginning is excellent.
... just how many levels _are_ there anyway?
They seem to be too 'on purpose' to be generated, but I have to wonder... if so, that would be quite impressive, especially in Compo.

The design is so tight, you (almost) can't take anything away, but it still offers a rich experience.
You could've left out the 'base-happiness' maybe, since you can go negative anyway?
It might screw up the balance of the current levels though, but is the design-space with the base included really that much more interesting?

There's no sound when you select a type of building with the buttons below (as opposed to when you place something).

Is there a way to completely restart a level? Bulldozing one-by-one can get a little tedious, even on such small levels.

A minor issue: When extracting, it's a so-called 'zip-bomb' (meaning the files land all over the place, instead of being in a folder).

A question: I see you use LÖVE, which is AFAIK 2D only ... so is this 'real' 3D or are you using stacks of offset layers?

All complaints are very minor and all praise is well earned. Best I've played so far! This may not mean a lot at the moment, but I suspect it'll stay that way for some time to come :-)

Nice one, we just had three people pick their brains on the third level. I really liked the minimalistic visual style, had a psx-vibe to it. Neat-o!

Very impressive. Very fun puzzle. Amazing that you made this in 2 days.

@valden yeah the difficulty curve is something i struggled with, i had a few people test the levels beforehand and tried to sort them by how they percieved them but its a tough balance to strike.

thank you for your kind words, though!

5/5 Graphics, great puzzle game!

@remco the levels are indeed all hand-made, and there are 15 of them!
base happiness is a remnant from other mechanics i had planned for but had to scrap for time reasons, and i simply left it in there so it wouldnt mess with any of the existing content at that point.

as for the 3D, evcerything in the game is made in magicavoxel and converted into sliced sprites that i then stack ;)

Saw this on twitter & was excited to play. This did not disappoint. Super impressed, my fav so far. Will be sharing this with some friends outside the LD/gamedev community. I think it might do really well on mobile as well!

@bearishmushroom Thanks for your answers, they make a lot of sense :-)
nr. of levels: I see, then I think I must've stopped _just_ before the end, I'll try to finish it off.

It's not often I say this in relation to a jam entry, but this is damn near perfect. The core puzzle mechanics are simple, clear, and work really well. The levels are challenging but balanced, and get progressively harder. The visuals and sound compliment the game perfectly. This would make a great mobile game. If I payed five quid for this on iOS or Android and got the game in this exact current state, I'd be satisfied!

Excellent job!

I played this game. It took me a while. Some levels made my brain running away but I did it xD Love it!

This was to fun that I just had to play it to the end! The puzzles and the pieces required to solve them seem to be very elegantly designed. Great use of the theme, and great way of showing that sometimes less is more.

Congratulations on a fantastic entry! Like I've seen others have said, the first level was tougher than it should have been, but after that it was manageable and made for quite an enjoyable experience!

Nice game, got stuck on the third level for a bit. Fits the theme and i like the graphics

This is a pretty clever little puzzle game. I like how you have to work around the limited space to complete your objectives. The visual style was also very cute, like a little diorama. It would have been nice to see more buildings and rules introduced, as the game gets a bit repetitive after a while. Despite this issue, I had a fun time with the game. Nice work!

Really neat, the tight space makes it *extremely* hard to figure out the correct configuration. I got stuck at like level 3. Love the graphics, great use of theme.

I'm even more impressed by the graphics since I saw that you made it in Love2D. Isn't that a pure 2D engine? How did you pull off those smooth rotations? Either way, nailed the visual style and I had to pry myself away from the puzzles. Well done!

I fell in love with the graphics, really, and i's made in love2d, it's perfect!

Fantastic game, I really enjoyed making it all the way through =). Didn't expect a puzzle game at first, but was pleasantly surprised. Art and sound are all great too.

Couldn't get past the 3x7 level where you start with the Garbage and Electric in the middle and need 10 happiness.

Love it! I'm really digging the graphics. The puzzles are hard but satisfying. If I had one suggestion, it would be that I want to place roads by clicking and dragging--but it's only noticeable on larger levels.

I loved the art and the sound effects. Wished I could've gotten more into the gameplay. I feel like the game could've done a better job with tutorializing because I was frequently confused by the ways things were working even after reading everything. Other than that, it was a pretty polished and satisfying game to play.

I HAVE FOUND THE ONE
THIS IS THE ONE
THIS IS THE BEST OF THIS LD
5/5 EVERYTHING IS AWESOME

I love the little build-up animation of each of the things, love the simple feedback of smiley/sad face, love the checklist system that makes things so clear. LOVE LOVE LOVE

Minor feedback:
- Drag to place multiple things, but it's really not a big issue because the levels are generally small.
- Want a clear all button

7/5 would play forever

Super solid gameplay and great level design, very challenging set of puzzles
nice game overall!

Really good game! Loving the art-style, the sounds work perfectly, the music is just the right volume, and the puzzles are a good difficulty. Well done!

Improvements: Making it clearer which building is selected + more variety in puzzle types (after level 2 or so, every level needs all roads connected, and all houses next to a road)

It's very fun and addicting! I didn't want to stop playing it lol.

I had a lot of trouble with the first level. Due to not realising how the area of effect worked with the different buildings. After I figured out how that worked I had no trouble with the other levels.

The levels are simple but fun and rewarding to complete.
Also I really love the lo-res voxel style :D

Great job!

Nice little game, good level design and graphics.
Well done!

"You won!". I had a blast solving every level! Really cool mechanic! Well done :v:

This is one of the best game jam entries I have played. Some of the puzzles are really hard and I loved solving them. Your art and audio fits the game perfectly and like others said before me it feels like a finished product in many aspects.

But since we all want to know what could have been better here are some things I noticed:
- A reset level button would have been nice.
- I spend quite some time trying to reset the perspective after misclicking on the rotation button because I couldn't stand the jagged lines after rotating. Maybe a rotation in some predefined steps would have been enough for the case.
- I would have liked different sounds for placing "positive" and "negative" buildings.
- The levels don't always feel like being sorted for difficulty.

In my opinion besides being really good at this point, your game has still potential to become even better (more building types, more levels, etc). If you ever release this as a mobile game @ me here! :smiley:

Perfect game, I liked the simple visual and all the puzzles. Sometimes I was more trying to see what the map shape was hinting (symmetries, isolated places ...) than solving the puzzle but it works well. Keep up the good work !

This is an amazingly polished puzzle game! Nice audio, great graphics, and hard puzzles. No huge complaints

I like visual, especially bright colours. Also wonderful gameplay and enjoyable requirement list as a part of mechanics.

suggestions:
1)clear(restart)level option
2)Indication which building is chosen
3) Maybe more variative and less monotonous music

I really like the visual style and the concept, the puzzels are challenging enough and are fun. good job!

Played through all the levels. Really cool puzzle game with a charming look.

Great game! The levels feel a little like they're in the wrong order, since I found some of them to be quite tricky, but very fun nonetheless! :)

Quite awesome. Should win this LD for sure.

This is the best game I have played in this LD, and I have to stop to keep reviewing other games. The mechanics are awesome, the art and sound are great and coherent. This is one of the top tier games.

Awesome take on the theme, and an all round fair puzzle game!

Awesome game, one of the best I've seen so far, definitely put this on mobile. I will say that I did find the music to be a tad annoying, but that might just be me. The sound design is freaking awesome though

Great quick, short puzzle game to blow a little time! The graphical style was pretty good. For some reason, I didn't get any music, but I dunno if that's me or the game. Anyways, good job!

Simple but really clever mechanics, appealing visuals, minimalistic but fitting music - simply awesome!
I sunk in for a good chunk of time, without even noticing, that's what makes a puzzle game good

fantastic game, puzzle were hard in the beginning (especially 1st one since the mechanics took a while to understand), but felt very balanced in the next levels. definitely a lot of potential. I would just add somewhere a number indicating which level out of how many you solved. great job!

Damn, this was really fun! I played through it and I could definitely imagine playing it on my phone or something (tell me if you make more levels :smile:). Great art, great concept, great execution, great job!

Fantastic and very jealous how round your full game experience has become in just 48h. Impressed, big Tip to the head. Was fun to play through!

Damn! Simple and clever.. and just lost the sense of time :D

Cool little puzzler, would work great as a mobile game.

Outstanding game! You start slow but once you get the mechanics of it, you can't leave it!
The concept is easy to understant and the execution is super refined.

Addictive and fun. This feels like a complete game, and one which I'm sure would be very successful. The simplicity of the game makes it irresistible to stop playing and the puzzles really make you stop and think. The simple art-style and gameplay make it great for casual gamers (I even managed to get my girlfriend to play it for a few puzzles!) Great job!

Nice game, hade over 1000 aha-moments, good job :smiley:

Very fun puzzle game. Some of the puzzles were actually very tough to figure out and I found myself getting really into it.

The game follows the theme and the graphics while simple, still look good. The background music is very subtle too which helps promote thinking.

Fantastic use of the theme! Everything about this game is slick as heck, though I am really bad at puzzles and did not get very far :|

Very nice little thinker! Really liked the art and sound design and it had puzzles that left me thinking! It was hard for me to put down and keep playing other games.

Very impressive! Really nice puzzles which make you feel smart when you complete them. Graphics are simple but effective. Nothing bad to say really!

Good job :) Maybe an interactive tutorial would be more easier to understand on how work each element together

I love the theme and idea! This is a great time killing game.

A good puzzle game, all informations are clear and we need take time for some level, good job :)

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE I love the pretty little towns - such a simple idea but a great puzzle game - i don't really like puzzle games?! what have you done to meeee

I literally had to tear myself away from it to write this review. This is the most fun game I've played in this compo and I suspect that it will remain #1 for me. I am amazed at how simple you managed to keep it with the limited building types yet have it be so addicting. Amazing work

Brilliant entry!
such a good and uninqe puzzle game, loved how it fits to the theme.
Some of the levels was super clever, it could have more 'tutorial' levels, for exmaple something obvious that could teach the effect area of the powerplants buildings.

5 stars for me, would love to see it even more developed in the futute
Good luck!

A perfectly formed little puzzle game.

Super cool puzzle game. At first the level were a bit tricky, but once I understood the idea behind your level design, most of them were relatively easy to solve. I still had fun playing the game.

Full five star, I almost spent an hour on your game to beat it, and I feel super proud to have finished it. Amazing work, you sir are a true game creator. Keep it up =)

Wow. Fantastic entry, and very good execution. Clever puzzles, simple rules, and fits the theme well. As a very minor nitpick, a shadow showing the area of effect of garbage station and electric plant would be nice, and some sort of highlight for the item currently selected.

Best game I've seen so far. Very good job!

Wow. Fantastic entry, and very good execution. Clever puzzles, simple rules, and fits the theme well. As a very minor nitpick, a shadow showing the area of effect of garbage station and electric plant would be nice, and some sort of highlight for the item currently selected.

Best game I've seen so far in this LD. Very good job!

Fantastic game. Really enjoyed playing this one. Thanks.

I'll echo some of the comments above and say that the two things I'd suggest as improvements would be highlighting selected buildings and making the radius of buildings more explicit. Otherwise, one of my favourite entries so far! It feels really polished and is heaps of fun to play. Excellent stuff!

Great in every aspect! Had a lot of fun playing, and I usually play puzzle games.
Something about the minimalistic style just really works though, and this game is the most polished Ive played so far this LD.

This is fantastic. I love everything about it - the puzzle is really clever, the levels are nicely ramped, the art is just superb, the sound effects fit nicely, and all the interactions are perfectly polished. The only trouble I had was it's hard to find out how far the minus happiness effect of the utility buildings carries, so I had to do some trial and error to determine it.

Phenomenal job here, this is the sort of gem that really makes clicking through LD entries exciting!

So simple, yet so effective. Beat the game and actually want more levels. Also nice use of layered sprites.

I loved this game and played all the way through to the end — great work! I'm very happy that there wasn't a time constraint with this, as I quite liked just playing around with all the different layouts with no particular rush. The sound effects and music suited really well, too, so thanks!

I love it.
It's smart and easy to understand. It would made a great mobile game. The aesthetic is also really neat.

Very polished and a lot of fun to play. Graphics look great and the controls feel smooth, well done!

Great game!, it is a great puzzle engine you have there great job!, ui issues like selecting moving and replacing resetting but thats just polish. In mac it seems it doesn't play the music btw. Really liked the levels with tricks, balanced against some others that had too many solutions. Overall is a very solid game, gj!

Great game. Simple to learn and hard to master; at least that's what I'm telling myself as I got stuck on like the third level. Couldn't get that 4 happiness.

This is a really really cool game! Other people already mentioned tons of good things, so here's some criticism:
- The graphics look cool, but I don't quite like the choice of colors. They're really saturated and a little hard to look at. I also don't understand why you made the house be monochrome red, as I feel like it looks a little odd.
- On the topic of graphics: I like this pseudo-3d, sprite-layering stuff and it really fits a city building game, but honestly, with how small the levels and how simple the building designs are, I feel like the rotating is not really necessary. In fact I was annoyed accidentally clicking the arrow and trying to get it back into the normal frontal orientation.
- I feel like the difficulty curve plateau fairly quickly. This may be due to the limited number of buildings limiting your options of increasing difficulty without just making huge boards.

But seriously, this is great and I'd totally play a full version with some added mechanics for increasing the difficulty!

Really cool game and great take on the theme. Would love to see this expanded out into something bigger after the jam!

Nice puzzle game! It's a perfect mobile game. Nice job!

One of the most addictive games I've played here! Great design sense, graphics, music, and SFX! I can see how it fit the theme, but it's not the most unique or best take on it in my opinion. Great UI as well. Honestly, other than my small nitpicks, it was awesome. Near the top of the games I've played so far in this Ludum Dare, and as a compo game that's really saying something.
Edit: Beat the game and loved it!

Great concept and mechanics work well. It's really addictive and art is nice

5-stars! When I built and saw a criterion toggle, I felt clear and clever! If you continue to develop this, when I swapped an arrangement to make a house happy, I didn't see the range of the park happiness.

Cute little puzzle game, with a great city building twist! After a few levels the mechanics become very clear, yet the puzzles remain challenging. Well done!

@kaiclavier hey thanks Kai! long time no see haha

This is so good, I'm in love with just how cute this game is!

This concept is really good ! the graphics are simple but beautiful and the game is really addictive.

I see myself try hard on some level ahah

Great job ;)

Whoa, this looks great! I love the combination city builder and puzzle-game idea :D

Nice little puzzle game :) The levels were interesting and the difficulty not too curve (or high). The core gameplay is quite simple and although there are some levels where certain tiles are predefined, I wish there were more mechanics, e.g. levels where you can only place a certain thing, or levels where the check list has slightly different rules, and so on. A town puzzle like this can have lots of interesting rule sets, of course :D

Some polish would also be nice, like a level selection UI or fancier in-game HUD. The audio is somewhat repetitive but it fits the game I guess. The faux 3D is a nice effect though it adds nothing to the game.

Good job overall!

Loved this. Very nice concept, with some cute graphics and some nice music. Was really addictive, and I liked how the simple mechanics were hard to get right with the levels. Definitely felt like the difficulty ramped up smoothly, and the player's goals were shown very clearly - you probably wouldn't have to read the instructions to play. Very good game.

Very nice, polished puzzle game here. The only feedback I really have is, maybe change the cursor to what you're going to place (or give some kind of hint), I know it has it in the top right but I was so focused I never looked at that panel and sometimes I would go select something on the bar thinking I had selected it place it without looking and thinking about my next move didn't realise I had placed the wrong object down. Pretty minor point still really good game, good job

Fun puzzle game.