This started out a lot more ambitious, and I sadly had to cut a lot of features for time, I decided to go deep rather than wide, and really nail down the core mechanic of the game, I hope you enjoy it!
Controls are mouse only, in fact, the whole game can be played simply by moving the mouse (no clicking necessary)
Couple of hints:
Google "DNA Pairing" if you are not sure what's going on, it will help you understand how the game is played!
Also, the white grabber (your cursor) touching the nucleotide is what makes the circle fill up. Experiment!
I was really interested in this as an idea, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to grab the nucleobases, or how I managed to connect the them correctly the one time I did it.
Unfortunate too, because I wanted to see where you were going with it. Any advice?
@mathemagician Yeah I noticed that when I had someone test it, unfortunately it was too late to implement any real changes by then.
It's initially friction based, so you need to touch the nucleotides for a little bit, then it should snap on. They then will slot into the corresponding base after a few seconds if you hold it in the right place (you should see the dotted lines get brighter) it helps if you hold your cursor towards the outer edge.
Great idea. Initially I didn't understand it but that's because I don't really know biology/genetics.. either way, cool game, it's just that the controls (grabbing) are a bit finicky
Wow, I love this concept a lot. I'm not smart unfortunately, so I couldn't progress too far, but to me, I see so much potential in this. I really hope you stick with the concept and build upon it!
Do the spawn rates slow down as time passes or something? I managed to get most of the bases filled in, but ended up with a while where nothing seemed to be spawning
@mathemagician Thanks for bringing that to my attention. They are supposed to speed up slightly but I wonder if that affects their spawning as well. Did any ever come back?
@Eog I don't think so, but I didn't wait super long. Seemed like as I filled them in they got less frequent, until with like 10 bases remaining I didn't see any spawn for at at least 10 seconds.
Maaan, it took a while to get how this controls, even with reading your comments. Anyway, really unique idea! I don't think there are many games out there where you play as DNA polymerase :D The presentation is really good, too! So a really cool project you've got here :sunglasses:
However, I too had the notion that the spawn rate slowed down.
Like others have said, the mechanics were a little difficult, so I wasn't sure how to grab the falling things. I did manage to catch a few and put them in the middle strand, and I was curious to see what happens when you collect all of them! Maybe lower the threshold for whether an object is grabbed?
I think part of the problem is that the dragging end is flashing while you have to grab with the other end. Once you know how it works it is crystal clear (lock-and-key model), but at first I tried to kick the bases around with the wrong end.
You could add a tutorial screenshot to the page where you mark the grabby and draggy ends of the enzyme and tell players that bonding takes a moment. I guess that would already help most players get it.
Cool concept, but you're really thrown in there with no guidance. I was only able to get started after reading through previous comments. One of the best uses of the theme I've seen so far.
After I sorted the controls for moving things around, I quickly realized I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.
As others have stated, better controls would help, but I quickly found myself bored even after I sorted the controls out. Building to the DNA strand didn't seem to reflect in any interesting changes, and it wasn't clear if I was actually doing the right things.
As high level direction, games like this can be incredibly fun tools that indirectly teach players about deep fields they don't know about, but it's a fairly tricky thing to pull off well. Zachtronics games are great examples here, with the game slowly ramping you up with simple concepts and strong player guidance. I realize this is an LD entry so such things are rather difficult to pull off in the time scale, but they're fairly important to making sure the game actually feels like a game.
It took me some time to figure out how the controls work but once I got into it I ended up playing much more than I was expecting. The game certainly has a nice relaxing mood and it's a shame that there's no music to go with it. Really different and interesting game overall!
This game has a very interesting premise. I was really excited to see where it was going, but I struggled a lot to connect the dna strands. I eventually got better at it, but it still took a while. If you ever post an update I would love to check it out!
Interesting game, although like other I had issues with picking up and connecting the strands. I would really like to see this developed further and to make it into a full game. Good job!
Unfortunate too, because I wanted to see where you were going with it. Any advice?