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Wave Decoder's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #13 | 4.652 | 4.652 |
| Overall | #213 | 3.558 | 3.558 |
| Gameplay | #276 | 3.174 | 3.174 |
| Presentation | #544 | 2.848 | 2.848 |
Ranked from 46 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
What do you like about your game?
The ending and what comes after, always wanted to make this sort of thing.
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Comments
Once I understood what I had to do it was really fun. The ending where you got the whole track maker and you could save and load files/wa files was insane.
Great job I loved it, I had to turn down my headphones it was a bit loud but that's all good :D maybe redo some of the UI or make a tutorial next time? but other then that I loved the game!
It is hard though it took me a while xD
Loved the visualization at the end, and the apparent secret mod tracker you implemented in Unity, haha. Very original concept, to say the least!
Wow, cool concept. But I hardly cracked the first one 😅
I really, really enjoyed the game! The UI was a bit confusing at the beginning but after that it was a blast. I did not expect to have so much fun trying to decode signals, but man it is, and it is hard!!!
The ending was 11/10 and the post credits "secret" was even cooler. Nice Job!
To be honest, it is one of the most interesting games I've played! It is absolutely out of the ordinary and I love it! I liked the slow increase in wave cleaning difficulty mostly that last one.. was tough buddy I got so close and when I finally hit help it changed the note on the first wave and finished, I saw how miserable I was. Either way a really fun entry, although a little bit uneasy on the ears at some point. But that was the game so no complaints on that. What comes after and the ending is just such a nice and neat way of showing how a well-designed simple thing can be so complex. And so useful at the same time. Amazing work!
Damn I really liked this. It was good ear training on the first few levels then I had to rely mostly on the difference output once there were too many layers. My one feature request would be a mute/solo button on each tone so I can focus on one at a time without changing the volume of the others. Great job!
Fairly solid game!
Not for me personally, but well designed and a lot of love was put into the synth at the end. The concept's also very original.
The UI was a bit confusing at the beggining, but overall I had fun! Very interesting concept that works well with the theme.
Well, i played your game but I am not good at sound wave maths and harmonics etc. so it was a bit difficult for me to get the game. But thats on me. Best of luck.
I like the idea, although it felt a bit much like moving knobs at random until it clicked into place. And with no way I could find to mute the noises it was very jarring to my ears lol, like I get the sound was supposed to be a clue but with little background knowledge it didn't really help much beyond what the visuals already did. But I really like the concept for the people into that sort of thing, and it's certainly original!
Interesting take on a puzzle game! Personally, it wasn't my cup of tea - but I can see how it would appeal to the specialists...
Good job :)
Although I don't know about sound to this depth, I think this simulation can appeal to specialists. It is not something for the common public, IMO, but seems like a promising toy for sound professionals.
I think it could be improved with a small tutorial. In this sense, being able to see the wave real time was the greatest help I found.
The interface is clear and simple, nothing to object. As I say, I think this is for professionals. No pun intended, I just didn't know how to play because I lack of theoretical basis to handle it.
bro i like it
I'm a synth and music nerd, so this was a treat. I've never had something that asks me to recognize pitch with the addition of timbre and harmonics, so I thought that was very original and fun to figure out.
Like the others are saying, more waves get much more difficult. For me, it was hard to separate prominent overtones in the harmonies from their fundamentals when I'm just listening to a drone. All the pitches start to meld together and I question whether what I'm hearing is a fundamental or not.
A couple suggestions:
- While I think setting the levels of each pitch is a good mechanic, it might be better suited to harder levels only. Just getting pitch and timbre is difficult enough to begin with.
- In order to reduce ear fatigue, it might be cool to press space (or whatever) to hear a pluck or pulse envelope instead of just the drone.
This game is seriously cool.
Appreciate the effort. I myself am not a synth nerd, just mathematically interested in mechanics of sound waves. The difficulty stems from me not having enough time to playtest it, but I was more concerned about it being a "tutorial" for the tracker that unlocks at the end, so people could have some idea about how waves sound if they wanted to composed something themselves
Ah, a game for synth nerds! Unfortunately I don't know much about audio but I'm a math nerd instead, so I could intuit visually what each setting did, I ended up playing the game just with my eyes instead of my ears. I managed to play up to the second level without help, but once we had 4 different wave shapes it got absurdly difficult for me.
Things I liked:
Things I thought could be better:
For me it was uncharted ground so it would be hard to know how to make a good tutorial, a skip and help buttons were concessions I had to make to finish the game in time, as I started halfway into the jam. The thing about it not being well telegraphed which waves youre listening too is the thing i'm kicking myself about the most, but alas, it was too late for that. But the main reason to make the game skippable was the song at the credits that I composed, and the full blown tracker I had to program to achieve it. That was the money shot for me and I wanted to make sure as many people would see it as possible.
I promised I'll check out your game, but this is too obtuse for me.
I get that there are two sine waves, and we have to get them to cancel out.
Prt-tip number one. If you are confused what the hell are you supposed to do: You have to make a wave that is the same as the wave you are given. You got four different wave shapes to do it. They do add up.
Pro-tip number two: Try increasing volume first. Without the volume, nothing you do will produce any change. The other buttons are not useless just because nothing happens when you click them - they do nothing if volume is at 0.
Still, I am plenty confused. What is note letter? Does it affect sine wave frequency? What is "Note number"? It also seems to change the frequency. And Volume doesn't affect just amplitude, it seems to add another sine waves to the mix? Also, what is "special"?
This game is a cool way of producing your own sounds. I really liked this deep monstrosity that made my headphones vibrate,
Yeah this game could have used a day to smooth out the kinks, let me explain.
The goal is to make the results wave (on the rights) identical to the target wave (on the left) the difference wave on the middle should go flag. Note letters and numbers work like on a piano so letters go C, C#, up to B, and numbers go from 0 to 8, do the lowest note you can produce is C0 and highest is B8, that gives you 108 possible frequencies for each wave.
Volume simply changes amplitude of each wave that adds up to the results. You have actually 5 different waves: sine, triangle, square, saw and noise wave, and each on later levels add up to the result wave.
Special simply adds a skew to each wave, changes their sound slightly.
The gamę does require some time to get a feel for each setting, which is why each level adds one wave
An amazing game! It's very nice when the right frequency is finally selected, and this disgusting sound stops!
It definitely is cathartic when one finally nails the frequency, however if you do find the sound grating in the long run, you can skip around to the end to hear something significantly more pleasant.
I was a little confused at first, but then I got it. I wasn't very good either haha, I just experimented a little bit.
Sometimes little songs were created by the combination of many waves. Definitely not what I was expecting it would be but it was an interesting experience!
I wonder how you did it...great job!!
In principle synthesizing waves is rather easy, if a little obtuse when talking about combining numbers of them, a sine wave is just a sine wave, you take a frequency, and then sample it 44100 times a second, write it to an array and send it to the audio source in Unity, all the other waves work the same, it's just the shapes that are different. As of mixing the waves together, its as easy as adding them together.
I understand the game is hard, hell, I have trouble beating it. I can pass the first 4 levels, then it's downhill for me, and I made this game. That is why I inclyded the "Tip" and "Skip" buttons to help you progress. When you do get to the end, and decode the message, there is a song in the credits which I composed, and a retro style tracker unlocks, which you can use to compose tunes by modulating different waves.
I used it to create the ending song, so I basically created the tools that I used to create the music. I'm rather proud of the result.
Dude...my brain hurts just by thinking of myself trying to remake it haha
You did an amazing job! Those skills are gonna take you places someday, and I'll be there to see it :)
I already work professionally as a game programmer. My first ever game I made from scratch in C++, it's a turn based stealth game called Ninja Tactics https://skngwigk.itch.io/ninja-tactics. Currently I'm working on a game called Dissident: Frostland Escape https://store.steampowered.com/app/1416360/Dissident_Frostland_Escape/ and have also shipped a game for GameBoy called Legion of Evil, which is a Vampire Survivors clone
I have also some ports of mobile games such as Timberman or Surfingers to LG TVs. I also worked as a Lead Programmer on a PC game called VergeWorld https://store.steampowered.com/app/1975790/VergeWorld/ which is yet to be released but its actually started out as a Amiga/Atari ST game (I also programmed that, pretty fun), and later ported to Sega Genesis, but it may be harder to hunt down those versions.
From my smaller, less serious projects that I consider worthy od mention I have HungerTale on my page on itch which is my attempt at a story and narrative design, and Our Little Restoration https://skngwigk.itch.io/our-little-restoration which won a rather big Game Jam (everyone on our team won a Nintendo Switch Lite from that).
My God!! I didn't know I was talking with such a talented person 👀✨
It is an honor for me that you got to play one of my games :) I want to get better and someday win my first Game Jam
I wish you the best of luck in your journey!!
Best of luck to you too, it's a long journey in gamedev, but not without its' rewards.
I really liked the gameplay you gave it, although it took me quite a while to understand, interesting game
I'm glad you liked it, did you get to the end? There are skipping options to get there as the game is rather hard, and there is a bonus in and after credits that I am particularly happy to have made.