Resonance

by mediflect

co-authored: @gn0cchi

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.82

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.59

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.54

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.80

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.00

Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.50

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.12

Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.11

>>>> Play on itch.io! <<<<

Solve cyclical puzzles, reclaim stolen power, and release trapped souls to the stars! A moody puzzle game with a time-stopping mechanic where objects and events follow a repeating ten second cycle. Features guitar-centric sound design and light narrative elements. Can be finished at a relaxed pace in under 10 minutes.

Controls

- Movement: WASD
- Sprint: Shift
- Interact: Click
- Timestop: Space (must be found in-game first)
- Adjust brightness: Up/Down arrow OR +/- keys

The game is meant to be dark, but if you're having trouble seeing in general, use [Up Arrow] or [+] to increase the brightness.

You can interact with the hexagonal pads on the floor to change your respawn point. (This is necessary to solve one of the puzzles.)

Hint for the last puzzle: When you flip one of the switches, which device gets powered on when the bell rings?

Credits

- Mediflect: engineering + gameplay/visual design
- Gnocchi: music + sound design

Hotfixes

- Changed the WebGL template so that fullscreen mode works.
- Added keybinds to adjust brightness, as the game was too dark to see clearly on certain monitors.

Known Bugs

- On certain browsers/computers, the cursor will drift to the right (this is a bug somewhere in Unity's new input system or the WebGL stack)
- The music will desync from the cycle if you focus away from the tab the game is running in

Music

For any music nerds out there, the game's audio is extensively centered around the following motif:

###### (for any _metalheads_ out there, this is the intro riff from *The Literal Black Cloud* by Intronaut, with the rhythm slightly altered)

#### Speedrunning...? (An aside)
If you've already played through the game once already, you might be wondering... how fast can it be beaten? Going by the number from the credits, the lowest cycle count I've ever gotten is 18 cycles, but it can absolutely be pushed lower.

The game presents some interesting challenges when looked at through a speedrunning lens (completely by accident, I should add). Some of the puzzles can be solved very quickly if you know what you're doing, but others can force you to wait if you arrive at a bad time. Best guess, I'd wager that sub-14 cycles is certainly possible.

That said, all of this is hampered by the unskippable intro sequence at the beginning... I might upload a speedrun version of the game on a separate itch.io page later just for fun (not to replace the official LD51 entry of course).

#### Tools used
- Unity 2022.1.16 (engine)
- Universal Render Pipeline (post-processing)
- ProBuilder (level design)
- Visual Studio Code (coding)
- Guitar Pro 7.5 (music + SFX)
- Cubase Elements 10 (SFX)
- Audacity (SFX)
- Photoshop CC 2019 (textures)

Genres: puzzle

Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Audacity, Guitar Pro, ProBuilder, Unity

Comments25

Escarpoulpe3 Oct 2022, 23:40

really dope, i like it ! the sound and the mood is incredible

Tero Pulkkinen3 Oct 2022, 23:54

The start sequence is very awesome. But the game itself looks a little bit too dark.

chromaphase4 Oct 2022, 00:07

Interesting gameplay, The first room remind me of the movie Cube! Really nice atmosphere, musique and overall mood. Quite polished already.

Fedir4 Oct 2022, 00:20

Great idea guys and good realisation, not ordinary approach to the topic. And interesting, unusual mechanics. Sad is on itch.io game doesnt open on full screen even after tap on button, screne made bigger,and all free place just black...but game not at full screen...sad

rascher4 Oct 2022, 00:22

Woah! impressive, great job!

Hydezeke4 Oct 2022, 00:45

Superb :))))
I'm in love with the mood of the game especially ♥

LDJam user 271014author4 Oct 2022, 02:09

Thanks for the early feedback everybody! I'll make sure to check out everyone's games when my brain cells regrow in the morning.

@fedir - turns out I was relying on the itch.io fullscreen button, which... doesn't work. I've pushed a hotfix that replaces it with the Unity version of the button (different WebGL template), so the game should be working great in fullscreen now.

Salohcin8945 Oct 2022, 01:06

Awesome outer wilds vibes. I absolutely loved the music, it fit the atmosphere perfectly. Loved the “chug chug” when picking up the clock. ;)

sliphtrex5 Oct 2022, 05:38

Yo, this was really cool. I like the puzzles and the atmosphere. The only little complaint I have is the waiting. I feel like it would be better to maybe slow time and keep the lights on longer or something, or simply stop time until we say to start it again. It just feels very "red light, green light". Still, a better puzzle game than I could design, especially under time restraints.

W4YN3R6 Oct 2022, 05:10

CRAZY gud entry!
Loved the music and the vibe, great concept and really good entry!
huge respect.

Only encountered a little bug, when falling down it takes the end of the cycle to respawn.
Overall super strong experience! Loved the lighting mechanics as well.

Cha5m6 Oct 2022, 06:12

Really great, bad checkpoints tho

tatawanda6 Oct 2022, 06:33

Really cool, the ambiance is quite here! It is well polished for a game jam. MMhhh just thinking, for the typewriter effect, it seems you used maxNumberOfCharacterVisible which have this effect of moving the text while it writes. If you prefer some non-moving text you should change a bit the script to have: textPrinted + + hiddenText + . But maybe you already knew that and just like the moving text effect, in this case sorry!

DJTequila6 Oct 2022, 15:25

Awesome visuals and music! Puzzles were interesting, but there was quite a bit of waiting.

LDJam user 2979806 Oct 2022, 16:42

Great vibe! But I find the game too dark. It is hard to see stuff.

StudioCherno6 Oct 2022, 18:05

Loved the general feel of the game, most of the puzzles did feel a bit barebones, although the puzzle where you had to die to get into the room was interesting.
The time stopping mechanic was a nice touch. The biggest issue for me though was the final puzzle with the bell, I didn't really understand what I was supposed to do, I just pushed buttons randomly and it worked, so it would've been nice if there'd been some way of explaining what you were actually supposed to do for that puzzle.
Really liked the graphics, although I think it was slightly too dark at times, but other than that it was really nice! -Peter

Wheffle7 Oct 2022, 01:42

The way the bell synced with the music was incredibly cool. The music + visuals + story created a really immersive experience. I even liked the little electric guitar slide sound the switches made. Super well put-together. The time stopping ability was incredibly cool too. I was confused for a tiny bit because i didn't realize you could choose a spawn point by clicking on it, but other than that it was fun and smooth. I suppose the puzzles could have been a little more challenging, but that's a very small nitpick. I enjoyed every minute of it, great entry! Really great experience!

infinitycore7 Oct 2022, 09:41

Only real complaint is that the intro cutscene takes entirely too long.

amarokczukay7 Oct 2022, 11:46

the overall atmosphere and game are really good! the design is polished, the sound is great. puzzles were globally clever, but sometimes it's just having to wait for the end of the timer to be able to use stop time again. but overall, great jam game, congrats!!
Capture d’écran 2022-10-07 à 13.44.54.png

Gn0cchi8 Oct 2022, 01:46

Great feedback guys thanks so much!

@w4yn3r

Unless I misunderstand what you're saying here that should actually be an intended mechanic! It can be easy to miss depending on what you interact with/get killed by but respawns only occur at the beginning of cycles. (So when it resets from 1 to 10) I'm glad you enjoyed the vibe and the game overall!

LDJam user 2621428 Oct 2022, 03:13

music slaps but my camera kept drifting to the right fsr... also bruteforced the boss at the end because i didn't really understand which buttons made which lasers pop, they seem random. anyways love me some crispy time freeze mechanics and also the music slaps

LDJam user 271014author8 Oct 2022, 03:23

@shreemp - Sorry to hear about the drift bug! I saw it as well in early builds of the game but it stopped happening at some point, so I didn't bother to investigate it. I'll take another look to see if there's an obvious answer in the code. Thanks for playing!

LDJam user 271014author8 Oct 2022, 04:18

I investigated the issue and it seems like the problem likely lies somewhere in Unity's new input system or the WebGL stack. After some digging online, it seems like there might be some bugs regarding mouse deltas, which we use to drive the camera controls. Unfortunately, fixing it would require switching out the input system module, which could have unintended side effects on the rest of the game :(

Dingledorf8 Oct 2022, 05:53

Cool game! The music was really great, and I loved how it was integrated into the gameplay. The graphics were nice too, as was the level design. I don't know if it's because of something I did, but I encountered a bug where my camera would drift slowly to the right, so as I was playing I had to keep course correcting, which was a bit uncomfortable. It took me 40 tolls of the bell to finish. Overall great game!