Ludum Dare #59compo
Patch Panel
Web Build available on itch.io
Grab your box of cables - you'll definitely be needing them. Take input signals and cobble together a processing chain on your rack to make the right outputs!
This is a signal processing based puzzle game - the first 5 levels are fairly easy, the last couple really ramp up the difficulty, especially the final level.
Guide/Instructions
Each level has some amount of 'Source's, and some amount of 'Output's. Each source is an input signal displayed in green, and each output has a target signal in orange, and a current signal in green.
Your task is to wire together various modules from your toolbox to produce the target output signal from the inputs.
Your toolbox can be shown by hovering over the right hand side of the screen. Drag and drop modules or wires from the toolbox to place them on your rack. You can drag modules and wires to the bottom of your toolbox to remove them. For wires you can also just throw them off the screen to get rid of them.
Wires connect ports together on modules. Modules have input and output ports - which is which is generally clear based on the visuals of the module. Wires must connect input and output ports, and you cannot create loops (e.g. sending the output of a module back into its own inputs). If there is no connected wire to a port, it will receive a signal of 0 - this can sometimes be useful.
Modules
Splitter: The splitter can be used to take one input signal and split it across multiple ports. This is useful since a port can only fit one wire in it.
Adder: The adder allows you to add two signals together.
Negation: This allows you to flip a signal upside down (negate it).
Comp: The comparator takes in two signals, A, on the left, and B on the right. It outputs a signal of 1 if A > B, 0 if they are equal, and -1 if A < B. It can therefore be used to compare A and B.
Mul: This multiplies two signals together.
Tips
- If you want to see what the output signal of a module is, you can wire it up to an output to see the signal.
- For harder levels (especially the last one), it can be useful to figure out how the output is related to the input, and then try and break that down into smaller steps
- Concepts taught in earlier levels are often needed to be reused in later levels as part of the solution.
Tools Used
- Aseprite
- Ableton
- Audacity
- Unity
Comments10
The skeuomorphic controls were really fun to mess around with and made everything easy to understand.
Catching the wobbly wires was a little fiddly at times but, that being said, I think the game is much better off with that sort of visceral realism in the controls.
Wire falls down
10/10 modular synthesis experience
Maybe the hitbox to click on the wires could be bigger and maybe you can add a button to keep the toolbox open.
Otherwise, good job :D
I did notice two bugs, it seems multiple wires can be connected to one Input source. Also when adding a module to your rack the module seems to always start in an empty available space on the top row. So if you don't have any room on the top row, you can't add any modules to the bottom row.
1) I really like the music!
2) It would be nice if wires were created automatically when clicking on an input/output.
3) I really like the wire physics.
4) It would be nice to be able to control the length of the wires so they don't block the view.
5) It would be nice if wire points had larger collisions; it's very hard to catch and click them when they swing.
6) It would be nice if modules also had displays so the player could see the current waveform. Or maybe a separate display module.
7) Sockets for wire points also have very small collisions. I often accidentally drop wires.
8) It would be nice to have the ability to delete a module by right-clicking it.
9) It would be nice to have undo/redo options, or at least a restart button for when you've really messed up a level and don't want to clear everything manually.
10) It would be nice to have audio or visual feedback when trying to insert a wire into the wrong socket.
Sorry, it's late here and I'm feeling really sleepy, so I'm currently unable to figure out the "difference engine" level. I figured out two independent parts of it but unable to connect them properly.
Otherwise, this is a very solid and interesting logic game! I'll probably return to it after I get some sleep.
I had a few small complaints with how fiddly it was to go back and grab a bunch of wires and try to nab the ends that are bouncing all around, as there were quite a few moments of annoyance fighting with the UI on that, but overall those quibbles were very small.
I'm a sucker for any game that has me playing around with physical controls like this, and your implementation of the patch cables was super satisfying. The levels were very well designed to introduce the new modules without holding my hand too much, and I really enjoyed how minimal the modules were. Having only a "compare" box and not an "absolute value" for example was a great choice. On that final level I really had to think hard about what I was doing, and forcing me into using the 1/2 signal to hack a solution was brilliant. I wish I'd have taken a picture of the beautiful mess of cables that was my final puzzle solution. It was delicious chaos.
Very very fun, and extremely innovative. Nice work, and thanks for the game!
I managed to finish the last level without the 3rd source: