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Newton's Party's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Visuals | #23 | 4.209 | 4.209 |
| Theme | #53 | 3.605 | 3.605 |
| Fun | #81 | 3.070 | 3.070 |
Ranked from 43 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Graphics and mechanics were awesome! However there is a lack of direction in the gameplay that made me stop playing. Like i didn't know if the only point was to turn on lights or there was anything else to it?
Hello, thanks for playing! Yes, the objective is to make sure all the lights are plugged in, then the game will progress to the party! It's a puzzle of balancing the power cables to make sure you have enough length that everything is plugged in.
I loved the graphics! The vibe was perfect for this type of game! It is a nice little puzzle game!
It ran a tad slow for me on HTML5, but still playable. Although, halfway through the screen went black (I was trying to re-arrange some plugs on a strip). I wish there was some music playing as you connected the power strips. Overall a cute entry!! I had fun trying to get the most length out of each cord! haha.
Only other thing I noticed is that some of the power chord/strips were hard to get my mouse to detect.
Great entry! :D
Edit: Also glad someone else made a rabbit game. haha. I love the little table with carrots on it! haha!
Hey thanks for playing! Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
If you're experiencing performance issues, you can use SHIFT + 1 through 5 to change the graphics settings, hopefully it will run a little better then! Other people have mentioned this crash too but I am completely unable to reproduce it? Perhaps it's an OS thing, are you on windows 7? Mac?
I think the collision not quite performing as expected for the power strips is because you have to be right next to them to interact. The reason for this is because if I made it too far away, the velocity at which the cables would connect was far too powerful and would cause chains to break. I can see that it's not optimal and it's something I would look into changing if I had more time!
+ Rabbits are amazing!
Do you have any other suggestions?
Nice! I will try and tone down the graphics. And it could be an exception error somewhere. Had one happening with mine and it was due to saving.
That makes sense with the proximity vs velocity. Maybe going a keyboard key for pickups might be more intuitive? Like x for strip and z for plug or something? Either way good work! :D
Overall not much more to add besides more features IMO. Maybe integrating light switches somehow? Still, a great little puzzle game!
You had an error relating to saving? My game doesn't save at all so I'm not sure it would be that but thanks for the pointer.
I agree keyboard would have been good too, I really wanted to support both mouse and keyboard for interaction but I ran out of time!
How would light switches work? Wouldn't you always want them on anyway?
Yeah, idk why but it would mess up when trying to load or save. And maybe some kind of syncing thing, like turning one on turns the other off or something. It was more of a spitball idea trying to think of light related puzzle elements. Haha
I see! I didn't mean to shoot you down or anything, I was just curious as to how you saw it! Thanks for the suggestion! I agree there is potential for more electronics related puzzle elements.
Really digging the graphics! They're simple but effective. The game unfortunately seems to crash really easily in browsers, both on Safari and Chrome, so I haven't been able to get very far or leave a rating. Your controls also mention a method to mute the audio, but the only audio I hear is pieces of SFX. Is this intended or is the music just not playing for some reason? I hope I can play this properly at some point in the future, it looks really nifty and fun to play! Congratulations!
Hey thanks for playing! I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the graphics!
Have you tried lowering the graphics settings? That solves rapid crashes for some people, it's SHIFT +1 through 5 to change the settings.
There was supposed to be audio during the puzzle but I actually missed the upload window for that by 2 minutes, so most of the audio comes from the party. If you want to skip to the party, check the cheats section of the description!
The crash doesn't have anything to do with the graphics since it occurs when I click something, even on the lowest graphics settings. I can faithfully recreate it when entering the maze, going to the top-right lightbulb, taking the plug and bringing it towards the box. When in reach of the box, I can click the box, which doesn't plug in the cable I'm holding but just drops it because I'm out of reach. If I think click the plug again to pick it up, the game goes black. The same happens if I do manage to plug in the plug and then select the cable again to try to plug it out.
I very much enjoy the party audio depending on how close to the speakers you are to emulate the low frequencies traveling further. The low spectrum sounds very muffled though, maybe because you cut a lot of high end from them, so it's missing some attack. Is it possible the different layers aren't perfectly synchronised too?
Great job either way! Very successful jam entry I'd say.
I am unable to reproduce this (I'm using chrome), so this is very strange.
Can you give me definite instructions on how to produce it? I'd love to fix this, or at least know what causes it:
The audio sounded ok through headphones, I never tested it out loud so maybe that's the issue!
And yeah, sadly HTML5 audio control is not that great, and the audio gets out of sync randomly. All the party sounds are exactly the same length so in theory there should be no issues. On PC it stayed in sync fine so I never noticed this during testing. I tried to add code to keep it in sync in my latest build but I missed the deadline as I said so sadly if you want the best experience, go to the middle immediately while the audio is in sync!
Very odd indeed, considering that's precisely what I'm doing and it consistently causes the screen to go black on both Safari and Chrome. I'll send you more details on Discord to help you figure out what the issue is.
Thank you! That would be really helpful!
Very very cute visuals, story/concept and some neat mechanical stuff going on here which isn't necessarily that easy to do in GameMaker.
For future improvement: I'd much prefer it if the plugs prevented you from walking too far (i.e. got "stuck" in the plug socket) rather than came unplugged, because when they come unplugged off-screen you have to keep going back and doing the same work over again.
Thanks for playing! I'm so glad to hear you liked the visuals, I worked very hard on them! And thanks, yeah I was actually expecting the functionality of the physics engine to do what I wanted out the box but was met with a surprising amount of bugs. With the help of the GM community though I was able to get it running as intended! (See here for behind the scenes screenshots of the process!).
Regarding unplugging, once a plug is plugged in, it physically will not come unplugged unless you unplug it.
However, there's a possibility that if the plug cannot reach the bank 100% when you plug it in initially, it will pop out. There's about 2 seconds where the plug will attempt to go in, and if it cannot do it in this time, it will pop out. I know this is not intuitive and I intended to add some more visual stimulation to show the error (I was going to have accompanying sounds and loads of ! ! ! ! pop out of a failed connection plug) but I ran out of time.
This is due to my lack of understanding on how to use the physics engine, as I couldn't figure out how to easily make the plug immediately snap in, without having some convoluted *temporary rendering* that shows the desired state while the physics engine sorts itself out.
Do you have any other feedback?
Ah I see! In that case it's likely that I thought I was plugging it in, but wasn't quite managing it - so yeah any extra visual feedback on that would be great.
For more feedback I guess another thing that could improve it is maybe the white outlines when you hover over plugs/sockets could be drawn above the hedges? Sometimes I found it hard to pick up a plug because I couldn't see it, even though I knew it was somewhere close to me behind a hedge.
Absolutely agree regarding the selection outlines, it's so unfortunate but this was actually next on the todo list.
But it has become the biggest thing I regret not implementing as lots of people have mentioned how hard it is to see stuff that's obstructed by the hedges!
For anyone else reading, the way I got around it during testing is just to stand with your shoulders above the hedgeline, and move along slowly, clicking everywhere beneath you. The second you pick up the plug, you'll see it in your arms and you'll know you found it.
Hello, I hope you're having a good time playing all the entries! I've had fun reading all the feedback so far, so keep it coming!
If you want to see a screenshot taken every hour of development, click here!
Yep. Btw is there should be a out-of-bound area? I get lost ^^
A short, but nice game!
Thanks for playing! Yes, perhaps it is harder to see on some screens but it says "SECRET AREA" on the floor next to them! So well done, you found the easter egg!
Do you have any suggestions?
In general, I am satisfied with everything. The only thing I didn't notice right away was the note and juice at the party. Maybe they should be highlighted a bit? Anyway great work!
Oh wow, that's good to hear!
I agree completely that the interactive elements were too hard to see, funnily enough, the juice bottle was originally the colour of the other bottles but I thought it was definitely too hard to see, so I made it the colour of the glowsticks.
Even then, it's too hard to see! I think it's also not helped by the fact that those 2 things are the only parts that are interactive so you probably aren't even looking for things to click on, and would only discover them by accident if you moused over them.
Thanks for the feedback!
This is great! - very clever, cute game, and fun working out the routes to make sure they're connected... :)
I found I could cheat (I think?) by leaving an extension halfway across a hedge (and plugging a plug in from around the other side!) to reduce the route length, but I can't imagine an easy way to figure out a fool-proof way of stopping that...
A really fun, novel idea, and I can imagine there's a lot of room to expand on your puzzle and physics gameplay logic if you ever turn it into a released game!
Thanks for playing! I'm so glad to hear you had fun playing!
Yes, that's definitely cheating, but call it a feature! Unfortunately due to lack of time and bugs, I had to disable the collision boxes for the connector part of the plug banks, as they would get stuck on the outside of the maze on launch. During testing this was not possible but last minute, (around hour 41 here) when I had to put all the plug banks inside the maze, I discovered they would not go.
I would love to expand on the puzzles in a future build, do you have any suggestions?
Very nice concept, would love to see it more polished and optimized, no crashes when graphics where low, found a bug where you can cheat by having the light cable be blocked by a hedge but click on a extension cord, decent game, just wish there was more too it, https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1064088228 @5:10
Thanks for playing! Interesting that it would only crash for you if the graphics settings were lower, not sure why that would be! Maybe if HTML5 gets overwhelmed it just stops? Rather than powering through but stuttering like on PC.
I don't understand what you mean about the bug, did you manage to get a cable to glitch through a hedge?
And please do, I'd love to see you play it! Let me know!
Also if you have any suggestions that come to mind during your play, please let me know either here or on the video!
EDIT: Replied on GMC profile!
I love the art style, and the character is adorable. Great work!
Thanks for playing, I'm glad you took a liking to Newton, that was the intended effect!
Do you have any suggestions?
Really cool. The aesthetic was really nice, and while it would have been nice to have some background music while performing the puzzle, the game was still well done.
Oh I agree 100%, music was on the todo list. I actually made a build right before the deadline that had a whole lot of more atmospheric sound effects during the puzzle but as I was compiling it, I noticed that there were -8 seconds left on the timer so it never made it! I'm glad I had the foresight to upload an early version in advance or there would have been nothing to play!
I'm glad you enjoyed the aesthetic, did you have any suggestions? And thanks for playing!
perhaps a more structured tutorial rather than just plonking them in the game. That and some other types of electrical devices to play with.
I see, what elements should have been made clearer?
And what other kinds of electrical devices are you thinking of?
I absolutely LOVE the art style you went with, suits the game great. The idea of the game is also great, although puzzles aren't exactly my thing I can appreciate that this is a well thought-out puzzle. Personally, I think that a completely top-down style would have complemented this kind of puzzle more than the quarter view you did. I don't think it was really fun to lose track of cables or be unsure if you were going to grab them. Really great though!
Hey! I'm so glad to hear that you loved the art style, I put a lot of energy into making it look as nice as I could (see here!).
I agree that top down would have made more sense, but the 2.5D view allows for more artistic expression as there are more surfaces that can be drawn to add contrast and readability to the environment. I can see that it has made it harder to pick up items that are blocked though. It was actually next on the todo list to make the selection glow of items show through hedges but I ran out of time.
But thanks for playing! Do you have any other suggestions?
No, there is nothing else I would change, I think it's great! If you can make the visibility better while keeping the angle the same that would definitely solve my issue with it. Maybe one very minor thing is you can have the pick-up button also skip the intro, instead of the close button. That didn't catch my eye for a few seconds.
Well hey that's great to hear!
I'm not exactly sure what you mean, initially I thought you meant that the controls were visible on the party invite screen which made it harder to notice the close button, but they're not.
Do you just mean that the close button should be more obvious? Perhaps it it was moving, so it catches your eye?
I'm sad to hear that, do you remember what you did before that happened?
@PelicanPolice - I had this once too, on my first go (after doing half of the maze, argh...) ....as you say, it was probably us guys having WAY too much fun running around with power extensions - probably the physics engine getting battered! :D
Still, it says something good about your game's appeal that I still tried it again after that, to try and beat it! ;)
Oh haha no I'm sorry to hear that it broke so late in, that's really aggravating. I agree, it seems to be the physics engine being pushed too hard in the wrong direction. But I'm happy to hear you liked it enough to try again! Did you complete it in the end? If not, there's a cheat in the game description that allows you to skip the puzzle and go straight to the party.
Thanks for playing, did you have any suggestions?
No worries! - Yep, I completed it second time around! - charming game, and very clever use of physics / ropes!
I'm not great on ideas, but I'm guessing even with this theme, and a less 'relaxed' take on the game's levels, you can have hazards like water, cutting hazards, etc, that you have to avoid, maybe items that need more than one power source (ie. like battery powered, where you need to add more units to power something up).
The game also actually reminded me a little like a top-down 'World of Goo', in the way that power supplies connect up - so possibly, you could start some levels with tangled ones / lines / items, and to reach a point to connect something, you'd have to untangle or even (gasp!) CUT some lines out, maybe not power related, I'm not sure - maybe even 'pushing it' (ie. dangerous!) type bonuses for maxing out a whole chain of 'em... :) ...just throwing random stuff in there... :)
...but yeah, I'm guessing you've a lot of ideas yourself!
Thanks, that means a lot!
Ooh cutting hazards, I really like that idea! Any ideas for what kind of sharp objects you might find in a maze? Perhaps a sharp rock?
I actually thought of adding water but I never imagined it being anything other than cosmetic, but now I'm thinking hazards too! Perhaps it's ok to drag the cable through the water but not the sockets part or you kill the whole circuit if it's plugged in and have to restart?
More than one power source is an interesting idea too, perhaps a limit on how much 1 generator can power to force you to get creative with your plug placement?
I also love the idea of having to untangle wires, that sounds like a nightmare! But I'm not sure I'd be able to implement it as currently, none of the wires collide with each other, because it gets glitchy really fast when they do. I am intrigued by the suggestion of needing to cut wires though. I'm trying to think of circumstances where you'd need to do that, perhaps one of the plug banks are broken and you have to figure out which it is, and then DIY it to add the extra (working part) of the cable to an existing cable so you get the length!
For someone that's not great on ideas, you have literally suggested the best ideas so far! Do you by any chance have any more?
Thank you so much!
Ha ha! - No worries! - I was thinking along the lines of this - eg. in work, we have extensions that can plug into each seamlessly, ie. an extension with say, wire, then sockets, then more wire etc...
So in this (terrible) mock-up, say you had to connect a plug that only stretched to the red dot, and the brown extension (in fact, say all of the connected ones in this pic apart from the circled blue one) or this puzzle would be pointless, ha ha!) was a single element, you could 'cut' or 'cap' the excess, to make the blue one reach easily. Not sure how that would work, and there are other, more workable scenarios, but was just a quick example! :)
Again, if there was water around, say a river running vertically where the cut is indicated, you might not be able to get across, OR pull the extensions back over it without the sockets going in... :) It all sounds nothing like fun, but I'm sure you have ideas to make it fun! :D
Seamless extension cables? Can you link a pic I can't picture it in my head.
So if I'm understanding correctly, the red cable you have to cut is acting like an obstruction that you have to remove so the blue cable can reach the objective (red spot)?
Cap the excess? That sounds like a technical term, are you an electrician?
Yep, they sort of piggyback - connect up to each other.... maybe they're too niche.... :)
I'll take a photo of a couple in work to show you... :D
I'm no electrician, and it's probably best I stay away from high voltages, I'm too gung ho with electrics! :D
Oooh maybe it's a physics related crash, if you're careful with the physics engine perhaps it won't crash?
I actually experienced something similar once during testing but it only happened when I was trying to rush to test something. Perhaps it's an unfortunate occurrence if you're moving too quickly and the cable hits the wall wrong? Let me know!
And thanks for playing!
Really cute puzzles game, i managed to solve it without cheating, the visuals are really cute, i like a lot the animation of the ears, the puzzle itself is not complicated but it is still entertaining to solve it.
Hey thanks for playing! Glad to hear you were able to solve the puzzle ok, I didn't want to make it too hard as I only had time for 1 level so I made sure it would suit everyone as best as possible. I agree the ears are a major attraction.
Do you have any suggestions?
Not really, my only suggestion would be that in-game it is not very clear what i have to do, it only says "Prepare your party", so i had to read the description of the game to know that i had to plug all the lights.
Another thing is that sometimes the plugs get behind the bush so it's a bit hard to grab them back without knowing their position.
Interesting! I thought it would be clear from the context clues of plugs everywhere but perhaps not. I think the generator plug could have been more obvious, I guess at the moment it just looks like another cable like all the others. But as it's the first one you pick up I hoped it would be clear it was different.
I completely agree that when cables get behind bushes it's hard to see. My solution was going to be to have that selection glow appear in front of everything but I ran out of time. It was next on the todo list!
Thanks for letting me know!