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A jam submission

The Keys Spawn!View game page

Real-time puzzle game were each pressed keyboard key spawns in the level GMTK 2023
Submitted by Victor Ghys — 18 hours, 55 minutes before the deadline
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The Keys Spawn!'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Creativity#184.5654.565
Enjoyment#1944.0004.000
Overall#2604.0434.043
Presentation#15013.5653.565

Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
Instead of the keyboard keys being input the roles are reversed to them getting output in the level

Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?

Yes

We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam

Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

I beat it! Very nice game, well executed but it can feel a little finicky at times. The level with the meteors was very difficult but I figured it out in the end. Great job on such a short time constraint, and I'm glad to see that you were able to put up a submission this year.

Developer(+1)

Thanks! And yeah I agree that the meteors level is too difficult right now. It’s more based on luck instead of being a puzzle in it’s current state. I’m going to rework it a bit to make it more fair once submissions open up again.

Submitted(+1)

This is really out of the box thinking and very well executed! I really like how you have to consider which keys to press and in what order to progress the level. Got stuck at the meteors lol, couldn't figure out get to the flag under all of the blocks. Still it was a lot of fun, Amazing job!

Submitted(+1)

This is great and extremely clever! Did you test out different ways for how the keys spawn into the world?

Developer(+1)

No, spawning the keys on the mouse position was my first idea and the only one I tried. Spawning on fixed positions seems too restrictive and harder to make interesting puzzles with imo. Now that I'm thinking of it maybe another way would be to have a keyboard overlay on screen and make each key spawn in their spot on the keyboard. I think this could be interesting, but it wasn't what I was going for in this game.

Submitted

Ah I was wondering if you tested out spawning the keys in really small and then growing them over a few hundred milliseconds. Sometimes it was hard to make room to spawn in a key, so I was thinking that might be a solution that feels good. Again really great game. Spawning in the keys was really clever!

Developer(+1)

Ha ha it's funny because this growing over a few hundred milliseconds is actually already in the game, although it's not very noticeable. :)  I did it more as a polish thing though. As a design decision I do want all blocks to have the same size for consistency and do a check if a block can spawn at that location because of this. I could be a good idea to make the checking area a tiny bit smaller than the keys to make the spawning easier and make it require less precision, but I will have to test this.

Submitted

Ah gotcha.

Submitted

I also love when the tutorial is baked into the game!

Submitted(+1)

Ok this idea is so creative and innovative!!!! You did such a great job!

Submitted(+1)

Wow such a cool concept! I really liked the execution of this game as well!

Submitted(+1)

Interesting concept! I absolutely love the graphics to this!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

This was very stylish! I didn't expect the turning-your-self-into-an-obstacle thing would at all as well as it did, but those were some very challenging puzzles in relatively empty maps. Very strong game design.


(I also loved the whole spawn-and-click function for R and Esc; absolutely tops)

Submitted(+1)

Ok this is definitely the best game idea I have seen in this jam until now. The sheer amount of possibilities with just keys on your keyboard being physics boxes is insane. Almost reminds me of Q remastered. This isn't fitting the theme of the jam really well but I don't think it matter when the outcome is this wonderful. Also, the keyboard puns are great.
I know it isn't much noticeable but the amount of polish you have added in 48 hours is nothing to laugh at. With a few more levels added, it might as well be a demo for the final game.
Great job and I would love to see this made into a complete game I can purchase!

Submitted(+1)

Wowwww! I really liked this game!! Tbh out of the 30ish games I've rated so far, likely in my top three! It was simple yet a fun and challenging puzzle! That loss jingle will forever be in my head from now on 😭 But beating every level was very satisfying and didn't just feel like I was guessing. You did really well in making this! Great game :)

Submitted(+1)

Never seen this idea before! Good job on the creativeness of the concept! Jumping was a pain but a lot of fun hahaha!

Submitted(+1)

Really cool!  I could be stupid but Under Load is a great level for revealing that not just the wasd/space keys spawn, like I did not even think to try the other keys.  I think the final level is a little frustrating because I had an idea, and it worked, it just took me so long to execute it correctly.  And the fact that some levels are more puzzly, and some are more platformy, and the puzzly levels still require a bit of precision which I feel is slightly annoying.  Overall, awesome job!

(+1)

Nice Idea :D

Submitted(+1)

I love this game! It is very interesting! i killed myself so many times

Submitted(+1)

Very interesting concept! 

Submitted(+2)

very nice idea. it kinda killed my brain after 48h of coding :D

keep up your work!

Submitted

Clicking to reset doesn't work.

Developer

It does work. :) You need to click the R with your mouse. Same for escape.

I could't make it to press the R keyboard key to reset, because some people might press it by accident then.

Submitted(+1)

oh i thought you just had to click the screen. sorry