Ludum Dare #49compo

Runaway Reactions

by taft-punk

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.77

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.77

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.05

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.92

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.20

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.70

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.94

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.45

Contain the unstable chemicals!

The chemicals you were experimenting with were too unstable; now they are running amok in the lab. Deploy lines of containment foam to corral them into the proper analysis zones so you can complete the experiment. Be careful though, if a ball of chemicals touches a line of foam while it is forming it will release toxic fumes and you will lose health.

The chemicals are so unstable that they will randomly change state every few seconds.

White: normal

Green: will sometimes destroy blocks of foam (you don't lose health for this though)

Magenta: unpredictable bounces

The grid in the top center of the screen shows how many chemical balls must be in each section of the lab. When you have arranged them correctly push the Check button to win the level.

Click in the lab to start a pair of lines of foam. Right click to switch between vertical and horizontal.

If you get into an impossible situation you can use the clear button to restart the level.

Tools: Unity

Comments17

liammasters3 Oct 2021, 22:24

Such a unique idea and the music is great. It was surprisingly difficult to strategize getting the balls into the right sections. It would be nice if it automatically detected when the level is complete. Great replay value.

EvoGenGames4 Oct 2021, 13:08

Nice original concept.

I think with a few more mechanices to interact with the balls/walls this could be a fun timewaster (reminds me of the miniclip games)

Thank you for the game, well done!

Marius.png4 Oct 2021, 21:15

I liked the mechanics, it was a simple game and fun. loved the audio.

Gorypixels4 Oct 2021, 21:31

It was surprisingly hard for such a simple concept! Would love to see this developed further :)

UCSBDad4 Oct 2021, 21:33

Felt very fresh and familiar at the same time. Loved it!

Taft Punkauthor4 Oct 2021, 22:44

@evogengames , @marius-png , @gorypixels , @ucsbdad , @liammasters , thank you all for playing! If the game checked for victory automatically it could happen randomly in the middle of a level, especially at lower levels. With the button people at least have to time it if they want to play like that, lol.

OctahedronSoftware5 Oct 2021, 11:41

There is strategy to how you use your health, which I liked. I would have liked to restart on the level that you die rather than the first level. Also, this reminds me of a game called Qix on the Gameboy.

jeremyfa8 Oct 2021, 15:08

Nice concept! I didn't get it right away but then once you understand what you have to do, it's fun to play. A bit hard though 😅 Would be nice to see how you could develop the idea on a post-jam version?
Well done anyway!

doomshmuck8 Oct 2021, 15:19

It wasn't immediately obvious to me what the goal was... I see it was in the description underneath, but that should have been highlighted in-game better. Maybe have the sections you need to fill be highlighted or something?

Aggrathon13 Oct 2021, 17:39

That was a fun game, a simple concept, but well executed! Could have used a bit better tutorialisation e.g. the target shouldn't be that muted and maybe a label.

gdesecrate13 Oct 2021, 22:17

Thanks for the game!

VeryGenuineCraze13 Oct 2021, 22:26

Good idea. I had some trouble understanding the games rules, you could use the background of the map to show where you want the atoms.
It can be a nice puzzle game with more polish. Good job :thumbsup:

BougieBirdie15 Oct 2021, 01:06

I love the look and sound of this game, and the premise of corralling those pesky particles is a fun idea. Something about the mechanics felt so nostalgic even if I can't quite place it, and the background music immediately evoked Tetris for me.

Placing the lines of foam was quite challenging though. The lines are quite long to start, and when you have many particles bouncing around in later levels it becomes quite difficult to even place a line without getting yourself hurt. I don't know how you'd specifically fix that though. Maybe there could be bits of foam already throughout the level that you can draw to, or even the ability to draw partial lines? I'm just spitballing here.

It was a lot of fun though!

mira16 Oct 2021, 08:34

Ok this game is very simple, but so much fun! Would love see this game improved and on mobile to kill some time.

foxtrot-roger16 Oct 2021, 08:45

It's a really nice concept, I'd love to see it expanded, some tweaks could be done like make the green always destroy blocks or have some way of removing blocks, I had blocked myself out of the solution a few times... Otherwise, very nice mood, sound and music are very pleasing :-)

Vivoubos16 Oct 2021, 10:24

Nice game, simple but do the job! Congratulation for making it.

zimny1116 Oct 2021, 11:25

The concept behind the game is interesting and unique. The music is nice. And the in-game mechanics are well done. But the game is extremely hard, since player cannot destroy its own walls. Without that ability, once the player made a bad decision it needs to start over, which is not really fun. To balance things out, you could give the player the ability to click on the wall to destroy its part but take a life for every action like that. Besides that, good job with the game.

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