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UnstaBall's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality & Innovation | #69 | 3.105 | 3.214 |
| Theme | #94 | 2.898 | 3.000 |
| Audio | #103 | 2.622 | 2.714 |
| Overall | #107 | 2.760 | 2.857 |
| Graphics | #115 | 2.760 | 2.857 |
| Fun & Game Design | #157 | 2.415 | 2.500 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Is there a way to restart the same level again?
Im not good at puzzles
but still a 7.5/10
Well presented, lots of variety in the kinds of blocks you could use, and a really cool concept. Like some other commenters said, I felt like the degree of randomness made it a bit too much work sometimes, and that maybe a good middle ground would be a level with most of the pieces already in place and just two or three blocks you need to slot into the right spot. This would probably be more restrictive level design than you want, but players are clever and I'm sure new ways to clear levels would emerge even from that sort of level design. Still really good job!
Puzzle games are fun, randomness is fun, but together they are not that fun. Puzzle game design requires very clever puzzles that guide players to think about how to solve the puzzle. Great idea, but randomness runs the risk of making the designer lazy.
Hello Simon,
Maybe you don't like the game, and I understand that, it's not for everybody, but it's very fun for a group of people that like this kind of challenges. If you don't believe me, check out Mosa Lina. I was really inspired by that game. It proves how random and puzzles can be a perfect mix.
Ok, I will play mosa lina. Because I am a fan of puzzle games, I am a bit blunt, sorry. My favorite puzzle games are BABA IS YOU, GOROGOA.
Enjoyed playing this puzzle relaxing game :D
i find it super hard though for me D:
Love the relaxing jazz music <3
Overall, well made !
Yes, I know it's hard, 😅 but that's part of the idea. Thanks for your comment!
A very good idea, but the game is quite difficult. A lot depends on randomness and what shapes you will get. Out of many attempts, I succeeded once thanks to the fact that I had 2 static boxes. As a concept, it is very good and I believe that a lot of effort was put into it.
Yes, a lot of effort, but the result was worth it! Thanks for your words.
Epic
Cool concept for a game! The art is pretty nice and the randomness is cool. Nice job!
Thanks, I thought that the art was mediocre. 😅
Great game ship ready and polished nice. If you ever want to colab let me know
Thanks for the comment.
This is a very good idea, kind of similar to The Incredible Machine (a game I loved in my childhood), but some basic aspects of the design stop this from being compelling for me.
Firstly, having a message tell me upfront that some of the puzzles might not be solvable is rather demotivating, and if that’s true, you probably ought to fix that. The simplest way is to move away from the random generation aspect and hand-design puzzles.
Secondly, I didn’t like that I couldn’t retry any given puzzle. To compare to The Incredible Machine (the game this reminds me of), that game lets you run and reset any given puzzle as many times as you need to, and the way I used to play that game was to start by seeing what happens if I did nothing, then decide from there what exactly I should do to achieve the goal. Here, I’m instead expected to just guess what arrangement of things might lead to a solution, try it once, and then give up, which is further demotivation on top of already feeling demotivated not knowing if there’s a solution at all.
The idea is there, and it’s a good one with a lot of potential, so if you are at all inclined to develop it further after the jam is over, I would highly encourage it.
Hi, thanks for the comment. I knew that this idea was risky, because not every player likes to find their own solution to problems with what they get, but for me it's amazing. I understand your point, but if I premade the levels it wouldn't have charm, because the core concept is randomness and improvisation (heavily inspired by Mosa Lina).
If you are playing normal mode, it consists on beating five given levels (and I should've marked that) that are chosen randomly. The levels repeat until you beat them (a thing that I also should've marked).
Anyway, thanks for the feedback and for dedicating your time to writing it.
PS:All levels are all possible, but rarely you have a loadout that doesn't work for the given scenario.
That’s perfectly valid, and I’m glad you made a game that you like to play! I should clarify, improvising solutions isn’t something I dislike in principle. Actually, some amount of that is found in The Incredible Machine. It’s more the perception that I might be handed an impossible puzzle (informed by the text in the instructions) and the fact that as far as I could tell I couldn’t just retry the same puzzle with tweaks made to my setup.
If indeed it’s generally possible to beat a level, I’d highly recommend you just get rid of the note that it might be impossible. If there’s a rare chance of something not working, I’d consider that to be a bug and try to work on solutions to that, rather than warning the player about it.
I’m not sure what you mean when you say that the levels repeat until you beat them. Looking again, I noticed that clicking the “Give Up” button in normal mode over and over again seemed to randomly switch between a couple different basic puzzle templates with randomly distributed objects. I assume the “levels” you’re referring to are those templates? But from my perspective, this is effectively randomly generated puzzles that you can’t repeat. For example, suppose I come up with a solution that’s very close to succeeding, but not quite; I’d like to be able to repeat from where I set it exactly, adjust further, and see if that leads to a solution. Unless there’s some button I didn’t find other than the “Give Up” button, that doesn’t seem to be possible currently.
Good graphics and chill music, if you like make a plan and executed... Try this game. Would surprise you.
Thanks a lot! I'll try your game when I can.
I think I'm addicted to my own game.