Loop's Way

by linetaru

co-authored: @gur-eloise, @lucas-sanchez, @masterdd, @nuage, @ravagium, @robin-psaila, @saunik, @thibautg

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.91

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.77

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.73

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.06

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.64

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.70

Hello!

We are a team of 9 students from a Parisian school IIM. We wanted to participate to our first Ludum Dare with the theme “stuck in a loop”.

In our game, you're stuck in levels designed around a loop. You are a prisoner who must overcome its virtual jail. You're trying to escape by all means, and so, you will learn to use the environment.

Move the cubes of time and space to resolve the puzzles. Are you looping endlessly? Find the way to cheat the trap! Keep an eye on your surroundings. Keep going until you escape from each “timeline”!

When you go through a door, going back through it means you will reset the level. At the reset, cubes in your hands stay with you. Also, Temporal Cubes will remain in place even after the reset. Some pressure plates will need a specific cube of the same color.

We hope you will like our game and puzzles. We tried to emphasize the fact that you are imprisoned within a futuristic cyberspace prison. This space will constantly challenge your brain to find the way to stop the looping timelines.

All feedbacks are welcome!

Nicolas Villard - Producer

Robin Psaila - Producer - 3D Modelor

Nicolas Roge - Lead Programmer

Thibaut Guerin - Programmer

Pierre Mallet - Lead Game Designer

Lucas Sanchez - Game Designer

Eloise Gur - Game Designer

Aymeric Mullot - Game Designer

Alexandre Roblin - Lead Artist

Music : Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

World Record Speedrun Time :

- Team member : 5 min 24

- Streamer : 6 min 34 by fatsheep

Tags: #3d, #first-person, #loop, #singleplayer, #speedrun

Genres: puzzle

Tools: Unity

Comments47

Vadzim5 Oct 2020, 23:38

Good graphics, nice gameplay

Lvl3Mage5 Oct 2020, 23:39

Super cool idea with the loop of the level tho it would be better if there was some kind of hint for it. Cubes that stayed were a cool mechanic. Level design is awesome once you get how the game works. Overall great game!

firetwoonenine6 Oct 2020, 00:03

This is a lot more complete than most LD games. I spent a lot more time on it than I normally do...

Great gameplay (took a while to figure out the loop/"cheat"), great visual and audio design.

Nobongo6 Oct 2020, 00:05

The game gave me super unforgiving + Portal vibes. The aesthetic was familiar for 3D puzzle games and I rather enjoyed how easy it was to jump in. The textures for the walls looked kind of like the carpet at an arcade which was a little jarring but it wasn't a huge deal.
I figured out the controls easily enough but it still would've been nice to have a "how to play" screen somewhere. The game was fun to play but my FOV felt a little too small. In the platforming sections it became annoying.
Creative use of the theme! The puzzles were creative and well done, which is something that's hard to pull off.
Good work overall, and again I really like how you interpreted the theme.

Arktas6 Oct 2020, 00:14

Hello there !
I had a lot of fun with this one (try to breaking the law) I'm made a little gift for you at the end ;) .

For the game :
- Controls is not really smooth and jump is a nightmare
- Big up to portal fan !
- Really nice job on level design
- Good mechanics, fit with the theme
- We can cheat ! and it's a plus for me !

Well done guys, heureux de revoir d'autres français à la prochaine Jam !

Trexxak6 Oct 2020, 01:11

Very cool mechanic you implemented! At first I too was stumped, until I again read your game page and understood what I was missing :D

Did make it to "Again it always loops" or something like that. Keep going!

RGilPT6 Oct 2020, 10:13

Really nice game :) I enjoyed the mood and the music. Reminds me a bit portal but to be honest I haven't played it :D @linetaru and all well done! :)

SubMan6 Oct 2020, 10:21

An interesting puzzle. I would like to see an expanded version of this game

JohnDaivisse6 Oct 2020, 10:30

Very nice work ! The work on the lighting is awesome ! I really enjoyed my time ! Reminds me a lot of thalos principle but in a different style

Matootsy6 Oct 2020, 11:48

It's based a simple mechanic, but with the "cheat" feature it become interesting.
@lvl3mage : Try to come back with a box in the previous level, you will understand.
Then the mechanic go on further with the colors in world 2.
Good music, clean simple graphics. This is a good entry. The LD is well made for the mechanic but a bit messy to walk and jump (I think about the path with all the cubes going high in many different rotations). Quoi qu'il en soit pour une première participation à la Ludum Dare, c'est un jeu bien fini. Bravo à toute l'équipe ;-)

Kharath6 Oct 2020, 12:09

Very fun game. Totally get the portal vibe here but movement needs a bit more refinement. Walking feels slow and the jump feels too low. You've got some nice level design in there too and the audio is minimalist but fitting.

Overall an excellent offering for a 3 day jam!

Linetaruauthor6 Oct 2020, 12:29

Thank you all tester for your feedback, feel free to send us your times if you choose to speedrun our game. ^^

( @lvl3mage try to take with your hand a cube and go back in last room, that can maybe break loop. ;) )

Artyom Volkov6 Oct 2020, 15:38

A nice and well polished submission, looking forward to seeing announce of the full game!

Brainwash Gang6 Oct 2020, 16:56

Entertaining game! Nice puzzles :p

rickropes6 Oct 2020, 17:01

Amazing game, incredible to think this was done for a game jam, it took 100% of my brain power great job!

DarcyTimms6 Oct 2020, 17:35

Loved it, glad to see such big teams working during a jam :)

Blue Pin Studio6 Oct 2020, 19:54

It was a good submission. I didnt read the description of the game on this page so i had no clue what was happening when i went through the doors and no clue about the purple cube. Lucckily a developer of the game gave me hints in twitch chat. Even then, i couldnt complete it. Thats largely my fault, perhaps i don't have enough patience. Cool game tho

JavaSaurus6 Oct 2020, 20:18

Hi there ! Thanks for submitting your game to my stream (twitch.tv/drjavasaurus). Great entry, loved the gameplay. To me it is on par with Antigrav chamber and even portal ! I really enjoyed it, shame I couldn't finish it on stream but I will definitely continue this off line. Well done !

PvPlayz276 Oct 2020, 21:21

Very fun game. I got a big portal vibe from it, and the timeline mechanic was very interesting and made for some fun gameplay. Only problem is the reset takes you all the way back to the start. Also the music doesn't fit the mood perfectly, it feels much too upbeat for a kinda gloomy puzzle game. But other than that amazing game and my favorite so far!

Fatsheep6 Oct 2020, 21:42

Played live on https://www.twitch.tv/fatsheep__ My initial time was 18:06, but i managed to shave it down to 6:34 on my third try. Very fun and challenging puzzles. Only thing missing are indicators for door direction, and maybe in game explanations of the mechanics.

Victor Hallock6 Oct 2020, 22:05

Great job! Looking forward to more levels some day! :)

Skyeward6 Oct 2020, 22:28

This game had a great mechanic! It's something that confused me for a while but then I got a grip of and had the really satisfying experience of burning through a few difficult puzzles quickly.

I saw it mentioned above that an explanation of the mechanic is missing, but honestly I found it fun to explore and discover how the mechanic worked for myself. Thanks for the game!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/762553836?t=01h14m40s

wormius7 Oct 2020, 13:57

This game is very well polished for a jam game. It took me some time to get how the mechanic works. Once I did though, it was pretty fun.

marcmagus7 Oct 2020, 14:05

Interesting puzzle game with loads of visual polish. The ability to steal *some* cubes via reset was neat to play around with, and had some interesting consequences.

Tino7 Oct 2020, 14:38

For a 72h work I have nothing to say but well done! I felt satisfaction while solving the puzzles.
For an eventual future game: maybe replace some of the "repetitive-ish" intermediate levels with more complicated ones in the end (but that's more of a taste thing), and work on the camera and movements a bit, but eh already good overall regardless :)

JUSTCAMH7 Oct 2020, 15:17

Hey, I got ya on stream, thanks for submitting! Here's the vod if you wanna rewatch it.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/763143712

Hi Im Greg7 Oct 2020, 17:38

Impressive you got through a game with such a large team, the mechanics where tight, even if they did get a little repetitive. I would have liked see more progression toward the end. However, it was fun to play and I hope you guys continue to make gamejams, I look forward to your next one.

LurkinMcClerkin7 Oct 2020, 19:03

Congrats to the entire team for this entry. Took a moment for me to grasp the persistent held cube mechanic but once I did it became one of the most impressive entries for this jam so far. Absolutely well done!

Roikku7 Oct 2020, 22:24

From what I've seen, this game looks too much like a game that was recently (several weeks ago) put up in another jam. It had half of the same mechanics than this, so I cannot rate high on innovation or graphics, because the models seem like straight from it. The other game used the same cube, and it was placed on buttons to open doors, but you could also manipulate time in it. But other than that, this entry seems like a very cool and fun game!!! I just wanted to see more originality, sorry. I still like you, though! Good job and keep growing as developers!
EDIT: To add, I really like the usage of colors in the cubes and the theme usage, do not get disheartened from my feedback. I think with polish on the assets and touch ups on the mechanics, this could become a good further developed game. :)

Shelvid7 Oct 2020, 23:15

Very interesting puzzle mechanics, love the somewhat cheap aesthetics and the puzzles are very interestingly designed, well done!

killerkun8 Oct 2020, 02:04

This really took me back to when I was going hard at Portal, I think you got the hang of the jam theme and nailed it. Only a few pointers that I would like to add are related to the controls of the camera and jumping, which I know you've already heard in a few streams so I won't repeat them here.
Great job!

ModdingMachine8 Oct 2020, 13:12

Nice submission! I really enjoyed playing around in your levels. Definitely had a portal vibe going on lol.

Arthurds8 Oct 2020, 14:56

Very nice puzzle game, really needed some sensitivity options. Was pretty fun! Thanks for submitting it! -PomoTheDog

Kaldrin8 Oct 2020, 19:16

Very creative puzzle mechanics, you really pulled a nice use of the theme, congrats!
I took me a few minutes to realize I had 2 hands so I could carry 2 cubes, maybe an indications of that could be a good idea (Or maybe I missed it lol)
I had a good time, enjoyed it and how I needed to think to solve the puzzles!
I like the art direction, I can see the assets were made quickly or by not very experienced people but it does the job for a jam. (It reminds me of Star Wars Imperial ships interiors) though the lighting is a little poor, not very clean rendering.
Audio is good, and the music is great and didn't feel too repetitive, nice job!

Though I found it frustrating not to be able to look up and down, weird choice, also a high Field of view could have been handy or an option to change it, and a slightly higher jump along a sprint key, but that's maybe just my preferences, in terms of ergonomic navigation in your 3d space.

Nikolay Zapolnov8 Oct 2020, 20:43

There is already a lot of comments mentioning Portal and definitely this game has a lot of Portal vibes in it. It would be a great reference to have companion cube and cake in the game. Oh, wait, cake is a lie...

So, nice idea, great puzzle, intersting mechanics. Great job!

Eluo8 Oct 2020, 23:52

Nice puzzle Game!
Really had to think about it :)
I liked the cubism look but the uv unwrapping and the textures couldve been improved a little bit.
Good job!

Jvdwijk9 Oct 2020, 00:07

This was a very good puzzle game, nicely balanced and everything seemed pretty clear!
I did find a small bug where the cubes clipped through the ground. Very fun puzzles, well done!

MikoziQ9 Oct 2020, 21:09

Solid puzzle game with Portal-like mechanics (inifinite love cubes). Needs some visual polishing and maybe physics movement improvements (maybe it's just me though). Other than that, job well done!

666Savior10 Oct 2020, 19:54

Nice puzzle game, i enjoyed playing it

alpacalypse10 Oct 2020, 22:26

I love the setting and atmosphere for this, and the mechanic for the puzzles was pretty clever. For constructive criticisms, I personally find first-person platforming very awkward so I'd have preferred the rooms be less dependent on it, and it could have done with finding a way to more clearly introduce the core mechanic that you can loop carrying a box. But I know that sort of thing is tricky to do without breaking the atmosphere.

eskooh11 Oct 2020, 00:09

Great game, a great puzzle game...a couple things had me scratching my head but good all around. Awesome job everyone!

ursagames13 Oct 2020, 03:19

Your game was played on my stream ( https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos ) on 10/12. Thank you for sharing your game with us! You can find the timestamp of when your game was played here: https://tinyurl.com/yy4oycvv

Alchemic15 Oct 2020, 07:35

I really enjoyed the puzzles in this game! It's hard to make puzzles that good in such a short time. I enjoyed the atmoshphere as well. Got a little motion sick from the camera, but that could probably be fixed with a fov slider.

Chris Fagan22 Oct 2020, 12:13

Ooh cool little puzzle game! Great job :)

Nikolaj27 Oct 2020, 16:09

wow clever concept of using the loop, nice job!

ditam27 Oct 2020, 16:10

Congratulations, it must have been quite a challenge to make a 72 hour game with such a huge team. Can't have an argument with the Lead Dev about the holdup wit the Modeller if you're wearing all the hats ;)

A very pleasant puzzle game. In room 3 I spent minutes trying to find some spatial loop, or to pick up an earlier cube from afar through the resetting gates,
!> only to find out that the second cube was just hidden in the corner, heh.

michaelaranda27 Oct 2020, 17:09

Interesting mechanic!