Deep in the Folders

by playrea
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.95
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.89
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.21
Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.21
Humor★★★★★★★★★★4.13
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.46
💻🔍⚠️🦠

Your computer was infected by a virus . You have 10 minutes to find the virus and quarantine it.
The problem is that the virus has penetrated deep into the folders. Solve puzzles to move forward.

Folders on "My Computer" screen looks like has some info that might be helpful to solve the puzzles. Hurry up!

The game made for Ludum Dare 57 in 72 hrs by Playrea. Theme is "Depths"

Developer site:

https://playrea.com/

​Assets:

https://www.gamedeveloperstudio.com/

https://joypixels.com/
Genres: puzzle
Tools: Construct

Comments53

LDJam user 202408
LDJam user 2024088 Apr 2025, 00:39
This is an easy 5/5 innovation form me. I love how you turned the theme into the depth of folders and as a messy person with an old computer this is accurate lol. The game made me panic the whole way through and I enjoyed the well paced "Aha!" moments. Nice work, this is a creative idea!
pavlov368 Apr 2025, 05:28
Nice to play, like the theme implementation)
Willby
Willby8 Apr 2025, 11:33
I like the style of the game. It's also nice how you made it so the game fits into the web page on itch making it look like a window on the screen. I wasn't able to get past the radio though sadly. But what I did see was nice!
Playrea
Playreaauthor8 Apr 2025, 11:43
@willby thanks! The hint for the radio is located in Sent Signals folder on My Computer:)
The Stewarts8 Apr 2025, 11:48
The theme implementation is great but my brain is not smart enough to solve this! I did find some doors but couldn't get any further (the lack of sleep from the past 3 days probably doesn't help...)
angry_fridge
angry_fridge8 Apr 2025, 13:17
I love these types of puzzles, I think its a really solid entry and it looks different. When backtracking to look at the folder fol clues, I feel I can get distracted and forget what I was doing, but thats just a me problem.

I can see this going even lower level, like on CPU level where the bug is hidind and you have to go through the logical gates as a puzzle to get through, think there is potential here.
Playrea
Playreaauthor8 Apr 2025, 15:32
@angry-fridge Thank you for the detailed feedback. Yep, there are a lot of ways to extend the game. But I'm afraid that puzzles a bit difficult :)
Velis699 Apr 2025, 14:50
pretty puzzle game and funny , check our game too and rate comrade!
Erilhir9 Apr 2025, 14:55
A great entry (and an novel way to match the theme), I laughed a lot in front of my screen at every little joke in the folders. I didn't really understand how to get past the zombie though, so I went a bit "brute force," but it was okay (I finished it !)
The graphics reminded me of the games from my childhood. It's a very good base game, and I think you can build on that and refine it by adding other puzzles or some interactions with the virus !
In all cases, a super clean game!
Nicso
Nicso9 Apr 2025, 15:01
had to use the hints for the secret files one

Nice entry 👍
Game-mon9 Apr 2025, 15:03
Nice one, i really like the theming and the puzzles! well made overall!
Playrea
Playreaauthor9 Apr 2025, 15:56
@erilhir thanks for playing. I though no one will pass the game due to difficulties of the puzzles :)
Playrea
Playreaauthor9 Apr 2025, 15:57
@nicso thanks for playing, yep with the secret file is a hardest one)
Texugo
Texugo9 Apr 2025, 16:42
Oooooh I love this! I took some time to understand that you need to search the other files to find clues for the puzzles! My first gameplay I was running out of time and decided to refresh the page, seeing it didn't work made me giggle. The second one I was bambloozed and on the third I managed to win! Great game.
stmatn9 Apr 2025, 16:43
Very fun game! It reminded me of some classic flash games. There were some similar ones where you got different brain teasers and I enjoyed all of them as much as your game :)
Playrea
Playreaauthor9 Apr 2025, 17:51
@texugo haha, happy to hear that you find that message on refresh :)
Playrea
Playreaauthor9 Apr 2025, 17:53
@stmatn Yeah, these were my inspiration, but I made them more difficult I think xD
Fireye
Fireye9 Apr 2025, 18:59
I like your interpretation of the theme! Digging around the filesystem was a fun idea. The ending was a bit confusing and it took me a couple tries to figure out the magnifying glass was a thing and what to do with it, but overall your implementation was super slick. Nice job! CLI edition when? /j
FancyReckless9 Apr 2025, 19:08
Love it. lately I've seen a bunch of people just try to use folder structure games because they're trendy and I was fully sceptical going into yours, but I must admit it was clever use of the theme and hints. Puzzles themselves were pretty good and a whole game felt like a nice polished game and it looks like you managed the scope perfectly.
LDJam user 3565349 Apr 2025, 19:20
I really enjoyed this, well done! This is a great and super creative entry. I did manage to beat all the riddles without too much trouble except for the zombie one which took me a bit to figure out what was the actual goal. The hints were great and the graphics you used for creating the riddles were great, as they were easy to understand. Overall, this is one of my favourite games of ld57 so far, I am looking forward to you next entries if you participate again :)
Nanamaki
Nanamaki9 Apr 2025, 19:20
Give my information back!! >:(

(Nice puzzle! Love the art style and the system SFX. Kind of wonder did you really create 18 files to brainstorm ideas)
p.s. managed to find the scissors yeah
braktheman
braktheman9 Apr 2025, 19:48
Got it finished but had to try twice whoops! If I didn't like the game probably would have given up on the first failure but I liked it enough that I redid all the solutions to see it through.

Really clever puzzle designs and has a clean OS look to it. Great job! Congrats on finishing your first Ludum Dare!
Playrea
Playreaauthor9 Apr 2025, 19:58
@braktheman Thanks! I was afraid that the puzzles are to hard. But knowing how to pass them you can finish the game in one minute)
Playrea
Playreaauthor9 Apr 2025, 20:03
@nanamaki haha, okay, here is your info just because you found scissors) Thanks for the feedback! Actually I was planned to create 18 puzzles, but due to luck of time decreased their quantity. Also was not sure that anyone can pass the current ones, so there is no sense to make more. I've decided instead to make hints after the failure)
braktheman
braktheman9 Apr 2025, 20:04
@playrea I think all the solutions are very fair! I just didn't notice that I could browse backwards to the folders until it was too late. One of your previous comments helped me figure out that I needed to when I also got stuck on the radio puzzle for a solid six minutes of futzing therefore burning almost all of my allotted time. The puzzle design and structure is actually very good especially creating it all in such a short time period.
Playrea
Playreaauthor9 Apr 2025, 20:07
@philocode wow, thanks for the feedback, I hope the game will be in top 100 or at least top 1000 haha xD
Yep, that puzzle with zombie looks like need some polishing, my idea was that "decay" can be linked to meat for zombie)
Playrea
Playreaauthor9 Apr 2025, 20:11
@fancyreckless Thank you for playing! Hmmm, I was thinking that folder idea is unique (or at least not very popular) haha, maybe I'm wrong. Happy to hear that you like the puzzles. Not everyone can solve them (my girlfriend got stuck on the doors) haha
Playrea
Playreaauthor9 Apr 2025, 20:13
@fireye Thanks for playing! Happy to hear that you find the way how to finish it) Yep next versions will be CLI and BIOS xD
chelC
chelC9 Apr 2025, 20:14
I had so much fun with this one! It was delightful to kind of click around and figure out what to do. I managed to get to the end with the virus, but I couldn't quite figure out what to do to stop him from attacking! Except for comment here I suppose :) Great work!
Civ92
Civ929 Apr 2025, 20:20
Very fun and original take on the theme :) The game is well balanced, I did manage to finish it on my first try, but the clock was ticking :) good job.
LDJam user 259103
LDJam user 2591039 Apr 2025, 20:32
Fun little experience! The zombie minigame had me stuck for a minute, but I got through it and managed to finish the game on my first try. One small thing that caused me a bit of frustration was having to click back through all the folders I'd already completed after going back to view a hint - maybe it would be nice if the progression wasn't just through one long chain of folders. Overall though, I enjoyed myself with this.
Playrea
Playreaauthor10 Apr 2025, 07:37
@python-b5 Thank you for playing and detailed feedback! At first I did it to open the latest available folder but then I thought that it doesn't show "Depths" enough, so I've remade it :)
As there is no a lot of folders. you can go to the latest one very fast.
Playrea
Playreaauthor10 Apr 2025, 07:38
@civ92 haha, thanks for playing! Tick tock, tick tock)
Playrea
Playreaauthor10 Apr 2025, 07:40
@chelc Thanks for playing! Yes, the puzzles may be a bit difficult, need more time to polish them
Phasmantic10 Apr 2025, 16:41
Neat game! I was also stuck in the signal folder for a while. I like how you incorporated the other themes into the folder structure, and hid hints in there. The first time I got to the end I pushed the button, but hopefully now that I've commented my information will be safe.
CodeRaurus
CodeRaurus10 Apr 2025, 17:17
Nice game. I like how the gameplay was designed. Clever.
Norah
Norah10 Apr 2025, 17:57
Really cool ! The concept is original, i'm happy I get rid of this virus :relieved:
LDJam user 321333
LDJam user 32133311 Apr 2025, 00:37
Hey I see what you mean, our games have a very similar concept! Yours is way better though :)

Like some other people, I had difficulty with the zombie puzzle. It was a bit frustrating because conceptually I knew exactly what to do and even had the right idea of how to do it, I just always struggled at the last step. I think it was "decay to nothing" made me think I had to clear all the items from the board, and trying to use the pill would mess me up or just not work to eliminate the germ to clear it so the zombie could eat the meat. Once I did get it, I was like "oh duh." So maybe tweak wording or remove the pill to make it a bit easier. I liked that the pill cured the zombie, though, and that you could kill it, nice touches.
Playrea
Playreaauthor17 Apr 2025, 09:22
@phasmantic haha, yep, as I promised your data is back. Thanks for the feedback!
Playrea
Playreaauthor17 Apr 2025, 09:26
@oter Thanks for the detailed feedback! Yeah the zombie puzzle is one of the hard ones, in fact I try to make the puzzles harder each time you go deeper into the folder
Flying Butter Studio
Flying Butter Studio23 Apr 2025, 12:33
Very nice project, super funny. Nice used of the other themes, super original, i love it! :heart:
Good job !
MatthewDrake
MatthewDrake23 Apr 2025, 12:56
Really fun puzzle game and great use of the theme, and all the other themes too. Great stuff!
cyndereN
cyndereN23 Apr 2025, 14:07
Nice! Really like it
silkworm_sweatshop
silkworm_sweatshop23 Apr 2025, 18:09
Nice! Great use of the theme. Fun to explore and figure out the clues. Time limit got me the first time, the button the next :rofl: but I got there in the end and caught the virus.
Stending
Stending24 Apr 2025, 18:11
Super cool puzzle game! Presentation is simple but perfect! First time I see multiple endings in a game jam, nice surprise!

Looking for your next entry! :smile:
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