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A jam submission

Purple PathsView game page

A game about getting balls where they need to be.
Submitted by Chris Klimowski (@csklimowski) — 4 hours, 58 minutes before the deadline
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Purple Paths's itch.io page

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Comments

Submitted

OH i played this before but just now noticed you can rotate?! okay this is MUCH easier now; let’s see if I can get to grandmaster!

Submitted(+1)

just got a grandmaster streak of 3; I’m really liking this!

Developer

Thanks for playing, I'm glad you like it! :)

Submitted

thanks for the update. Got a streak of 7! 

Submitted

I keep coming back to this trying to get a good streak. Best so far is 3.

Developer(+2)

Ooh, maybe I'll add a grandmaster win streak tracker to a post-jam version!

Submitted

Beat a grandmaster puzzle!

Watching the balls split at the end is a very satisfying win to the puzzle.

I found the random + row/column requirement + number of tiles felt too difficult to strategize. I tended to play until I was half out of tiles and then start thinking hard. But pushing to the harder difficulty levels, I really got into the strategy.

Weirdly, in my memory some of the puzzles are more than 3x3, but it looks like all difficulties are the same. I guess it just seemed more daunting…

Great work!

Developer

Thanks! :) You're right, it can be a kind of intimidating even on Beginner, so I wonder if there's a way to make the strategy a little more approachable. Maybe start players on a 2x2 or 2x3 board?

Submitted

Took me a while to get into it (ie to stop placing tiles any old where and focus :p) but when I did I found it a really neat puzzle. I don't think I've seen this kind of placement puzzle before and it was quite involving - choices to make about what type of tile must go in what location to win, learning about what kind of tiles work in the middle, on the edge, etc. Really good :)

Developer

Thanks for playing! I'm really happy that I was able to accomplish my design goal of making something interesting and thoughtful, but not pre-designed with one specific solution. This game takes some inspiration from the board game Railroad Ink if you want to try something else with a similar feel!

Submitted(+1)

Heck yeah! This is great! 

For some reason, it took me a while to realize I could rotate the pieces, even though I saw that you could rotate them in a screenshot you'd posted earlier XD

I loved the little "infinite loop" note :)

I liked the unlocking difficulties.

If you feel like it, I think it would be handy to have a level reset button that either resets the same level or gives you a new one. Just something to do if you know you're gonna fail other than needing to place the remaining tiles.

Developer

Thanks! :) Letting the player repeat the same configuration would take away from the strategy of the random tile order, but a quick-restart for a new setup of the same difficulty is probably a good idea.

Submitted

I love it. Much harder than it looks which keeps me playing until I finally beat a level.

Developer

Awesome, thanks for playing!

Submitted

Planning out the ball splitting with the pathing was an interesting problem to work through as a player. I really enjoyed the challenge at each level. Really nice game!

Developer

Thanks for playing, I'm glad you had fun!

Submitted (1 edit)

I've re-played this three times. I'd love to have more levels, and have specific tile sets for different level configurations like a puzzle. 

Developer(+1)

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it so much! :)

The idea was for it to be like a solitaire board game that you can keep coming back to, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, but getting more consistent at over time. I have a few ideas for new scenarios I might add, but I'd hope to keep them open-ended and not solvable.

Submitted

I dig that! With your win consistency going up with experience. Sort of like spelunky! 

Submitted

Unlike many tile games this is fun in the laying of the tiles and satisfying in the execution of the solution. A great jam entry!

Developer

Thanks for playing! I'm really pleased with how satisfying it is to watch it go at the end.

Submitted

Had a lot of fun with this, great idea!