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Face à face's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #1722 | 3.235 | 3.235 |
| Overall | #2682 | 2.794 | 2.794 |
| Enjoyment | #2793 | 2.559 | 2.559 |
| Presentation | #3250 | 2.588 | 2.588 |
Ranked from 34 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?
You play a die whose control depends on its top side.
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
Finally dared looking at the evaluation. X)
As a small observation and to be transparent, the rating distribution does not show how the game was evaluated criterion-wise, which is a very sorry thing. I am also very surprised the game got about one quarter 1-star ratings!! I am well aware of its shortcomings, but 1 star means that one aspect is broken or almost broken, which seems unfair to me. I would have appreciated constructive criticism from the people who felt that way, but… there is none (no comment says the game is (almost) broken), so I am left wondering. ._. It’s super weird!
There may be some harsh non-commenting reviewers, but I feel there should be some standard as to what the marks mean. Anyway, I still feel the same about the game; feel free to comment. :)
Salut ! :) Un peu récupéré de ma série de game jams et de tests, c’était intensif (mais formateur). XD J’espère que tu as eu un rythme plus tranquille que le mien ces derniers temps !
Oh, désolé pour le message, je ne pensais pas que ça posait de problème !! :o Il n’y avait rien de négatif, c’était de la (saine) curiosité. Par contre, j’aime bien garder une trace de mes écrits et de ce que je raconte en général, et je n’ai gardé qu’une version non finale de mon commentaire (qui était assez long), c’est dommage (mais j’ai l’essentiel). X) Tu pouvais me demander d’amender le commentaire, je l’aurais fait sans problème. ;) Dommage que les messages privés ne soient pas possibles ici, j’aurais utilisé cela, sinon… Ironiquement, j’évite d’« embêter » les gens d’habitude, je me suis justement permis cette intervention parce que j’ai vu que tu avais une question technique à lui poser, alors je me suis dit que c’était peut-être pareil pour moi !
C’est ultra gentil de me dire que c’est du « haut niveau » (merci, au passage !), mais même si je suis content du concept (j’y ai vraiment réfléchi longtemps !), j’ai relativement bâclé la conception des niveaux par manque de temps (j’aurais mieux fait d’en concevoir à l’avance, ça m’apprendra !!) ; ton jeu Rewind Time me paraît mieux ficelé de ce côté-là, par exemple. Ou même mon jeu précédent (Blocage entropique) a des niveaux plus soignés et intéressants.
(Petite remarque au passage, quand je me suis penché sur ta page, j’ai vu qu’il existe un jeu intitulé Face 2 Face ; et moi qui croyais mon titre original ! XD Même pas !)
Bah, il ne faut pas dire ça, va savoir ce qui serait sorti de ta tête et de tes doigts ! ;) Et au pire, si l’inspiration ou la réalisation ne vient pas, tu peux toujours ne pas soumettre ton projet. Après, il n’y a pas mort d’homme même si le jeu est moins bien reçu qu’on aurait espéré, et puis la compétition n’est pas une fin en soi. (Je dis ça alors que ça a tendance à me rendre anxieux, je suis assez (très, en fait) neurotique, peut-être toi aussi. XD) Ça peut simplement être un défi personnel et une occasion de tester une idée de jeu, et de rencontrer du monde et voir les idées des autres. J’ai été charmé par plusieurs des (peu nombreux) jeux que j’ai pu tester. :) Et puis j’ai laissé des tests détaillés de plusieurs jeux (j’ai visité essentiellement les jeux manquant de votes), j’ai vu que les créateurs étaient heureux d’avoir des comptes rendus léchés ; tu en aurais peut-être bénéficié de la part de tel ou tel. :) De ce que j’ai vu, les gens sont plutôt bienveillants dans le coin.
Je remarque aussi que beaucoup de jeux primés cette année ont été réalisés par des équipes (parfois assez grosses), ce qui biaise pas mal les choses, je trouve. Il me semble que plus de jeux réalisés en solo étaient arrivés dans la sélection finale en 2021 (j’avais jeté un œil à la vidéo peu avant le concours de cette année), à vérifier. Et puis il y a tellement de genres mélangés, et des jeux rétrogradés dans le classement par manque de votes, que la signification du classement est à relativiser ; ça veut certes dire quelque chose, mais ça ne veut pas tout dire non plus. Et même si ton jeu a été jugé de telle manière à l’instant t, ce n’est pas fini, tu peux toujours le reprendre après (c’est ce que je prévois de faire, et il semble y avoir beaucoup de gens qui mettent à jour). :)
J’y songeais (j’ai tendance à privilégier les commentaires aux notes, mais c’est vrai que l’on peut laisser une critique associée à une note, ce qui est constructif) ; je repasserai. :) Je prévois aussi de regarder tes autres jeux, je suis intrigué !
Ah, alors, je connais maintenant relativement bien Ct.js (découvert et appris tout récemment, pour Mini Jam 110 !) et je peux en parler ! :) (Même si je dois toujours finir l’ultime partie des tutoriels officiels… XD Mais elle est moins fondamentale, parlant surtout de certains effets visuels.)
On programme bel et bien, en JavaScript (que j’ai appris sur le tas via ce logiciel, c’était justement un de mes langages « cibles » !). Tu peux définir des scènes par glisser-déposer, et définir le comportement des classes (appelées « types » ou « templates » ici) par programmation. Tu peux aussi définir des scripts ; par exemple, j’ai un énorme script « deplacement » où j’ai notamment programmé les fonctions gérant le déplacement interpolé case par case, ou encore un autre script « 3D_isometrique » où je gère la transformation 2D->3D.
Théoriquement, tu peux même te passer de l’interface visuelle pour définir les niveaux et tout gérer par programmation, mais c’est pensé pour mêler les deux (un peu à la Clickteam Fusion 2.5 — ce dernier permettant de programmer autrement, mais peu importe). J’ai notamment réussi à factoriser le « chaînage » des niveaux via leur nom dans une fonction d’initialisation des scènes, par exemple, plutôt que d’avoir à penser à tous les relier manuellement (ce qui serait long et potentiellement risqué, surtout si on décide de changer l’ordre des niveaux).
Mes réflexions et recherches m’ont amené à penser, comme Brian Will (dont je recommande les vidéos sur le sujet), que la programmation orientée objet n’est pas une bonne chose (contrairement au concept d’orienté-données, dont le système entité-composant), surtout du point de vue de la structuration du code, et malheureusement, Ct.js est orienté objet ; j’ai pu constater que c’est notamment un peu embêtant pour se retrouver dans le code (car il se retrouve séparé entre les classes), même si on peut ouvrir en dehors le gros fichier .ict qui contient tout le code pour y effectuer une recherche. Je trouve aussi l’interface de création des scènes/niveaux un peu lourde (personnellement, je trouve que passer par Tiled et intégrer les cartes via Love2D est bien plus facile) ; peut-être le logiciel sera-t-il amélioré dans le futur de ce côté-là.
Sinon, il propose plusieurs modules prédéfinis utiles pour gagner du temps (dans mon cas, je pense tout particulièrement aux effets de transition entre scènes et au tweening). Et Ct.js propose en effet, comme tu l’as bien deviné, un export assez large, notamment en version Web (c’est l’une des deux raisons majeures qui m’ont fait pencher pour lui au lieu de Love2D pour réaliser Face à face, avec la facilité de créer des menus), mais aussi plusieurs distributions Linux et Windows ; il y a aussi macOS, mais il faut activer ou télécharger un module/bidule complémentaire, que je dois d’ailleurs retrouver.
Bref, il a ses avantages et désavantages (un peu comme tout, en fait :p) ; j’envisage d’écrire un billet via le journal de développement sur lui, ça pourrait servir à du monde, comme référence future. :)
Haha, oui, je suis tombé sur un commentaire en français de ta facture une fois mon autre commentaire publié, alors je me suis douté ! ;)
Coïncidence, oui, je l’ai remarquée pile hier ! Mais deux choses me chiffonnent, une technique et une « politique » :
Par contre, Game Boy Showdown a l’air chouette et sain, et puis je me dis depuis peu que les game jams plus petites sont peut-être plus « familiales », en permettant de mieux voir toutes les contributions. J’aime bien tout tester. En plus, elle laisse plus de temps de développement et de test, un rythme qui me conviendrait peut-être mieux. Je participerai peut-être à une édition, à voir. :) Mais c’est seulement annuel, on dirait. (Au passage, j’ai remarqué que MBaran de Gamecodeur y a participé ! Logique vu son amour de la Game Boy. :))
J’aime bien Mini Jam pour sa combinaison contrainte + thème, qui stimule ma créativité, même si la durée de trois jours est un poil corsée (j’ai eu du mal à régler le temps pour ma première participation et je me suis retrouvé à plutôt y passer 6 jours que 3, j’étais claqué ! XD). Un autre avantage est qu’elle est fréquente. Et pour la taille intermédiaire / relativement grosse, l’avantage est d’avoir plus de testeurs, le désavantage est d’avoir beaucoup (trop ?) à tester, mais ça se discute. (Au passage, j’ai découvert Ct.js justement comme partenaire de Mini Jam.)
Par défi, je me dis que participer à la fameuse Ludum Dare pourrait être une bonne expérience, ce serait la prochaine étape de mes expériences (rapides !!). Je vois qu’il semble y avoir moins de monde qu’à GMTK, mais c’est aussi possiblement plus « sélectif », comme niche. À voir, tout ça me rend curieux !
Bonne continuation (et désolé pour le roman, mes commentaires sont ultra longs XD).
Love the concept, I got stuck in a soft lock a couple of times when the dice would just rock back and forth between two faces.
I appreciate the amount of effort in getting a cube to role in what appears to be a 2D engine.
Thank you for taking a look!
This is intended! :) The pause menu’s ‘Retry’ option is there as the solution. I thought given the internal logic of the game, there was no reason to give the ‘Game Over’ treatment to the player should he get into an infinite loop. In hindsight, I am thinking right now I could also have put no game over for when you get a void top face, and just let the player sorrily lying there! :) Although I suspect some people would have thought they ran into a bug, so this may not be wise.
It’s great some people ran into the loops actually, I wished this would happen. ;)
That was some feverish near-to-last-minute effort indeed, and it did pay off; I was so happy finally getting the cube to roll somewhat nicely on my first try! XD
The engine/framework is indeed a 2D one, that would be Ct.js, which I discovered through its partnership with Mini Jam and offers a navigator/Web build (which is an advantage for game accessibility). Although animation-wise, things would have gone about the same way with Love2D (you just have to program your own animation system, but it is not such a big deal once you have done it before).
This is really interesting! It reminds me of my project except its isometric (wish I could have figured those cube animations out :) I really like the side display mechanic and the puzzles themselves. Altogether I think its a great prototype. Good job!
Thank you. :)
Funny focus of the day: would you believe I developed-tested the game with an unanimated cube until not so far before the deadline, and managed to try for the first time the Pixilart animation feature and create my cube animation (using symmetry to get the four orientations out of one) then? XD It was a little miracle. Do not do this at home. ;))
lol nice :)
This is an interesting twist on your regular cube game! Good Job!
Thank you. I was aiming for a twist indeed. :)
I do not understand, how do you play?
Ah, a side (! pun not intended) effect of my having not have the time to put the faces on the die… :S
Explanations:
Well, the upper right-hand cube shows you the state of the die: each of the six drawings represents a face/side. It is clearer when you have at least one picture that is different from the others, as you roll.
For instance, in the first level, once you have rolled on the ‘stamp’ (the little smiling sun), you can see that it gets attached to the bottom face, and as you roll, its current occupied face changes.
The main mechanic is that the top side decides how the die is controlled: when the top side is the player (ie the beige human face with no mouth), you get to roll the die. When the top side is something else… something else happens. This is up to you to discover. ;)
The existing possible types for the sides go as follows: player, Sun, nothing, arrow (with one of four orientations), friend (blue human face), enemy (red human face).
Sorry for not having drawn on the die; I tried towards the end, but it did not display, so I preferred giving up and relying entirely on the UI display (which worked well enough for me during testing). A rare case of where 3D graphics is actually easier than 2D graphics! X)
Ah the good old cube puzzle format but with clever twists.
The underlying mechanic of picking up sides that control the dices moves is really new and works well. I think though the isometric layout doesnt suit itself to good to the controls. A simple grid may have been better just for easier control of the rolls. Its also quite hard to make out where each side currently stands. Also the level design could be a bit more tight - there were many levels that i just won without really noticing and not making many moves even though the level seemed quite big.
But overall i think the idea is definitely one of the really good ones we had for that kind of game! Just the presentation and layout dragging it a bit down - but overall really nice.
Agreed on both counts, and as I said on the game page and some comments already, this is entirely due to lack of time. X)
The latter levels were conceived in a rush and reduced to tutorial / proof of concept. (And I confess at least one mistake, in level Minefield, where the lower-left sunny tile should be placed one tile away.) On the contrary, Face Value has very good level design, but… these guys were four level designers. XD Kudos to them, but be understanding of the manpower/time issue!
mindDie, on the other hand, has good design with a single designer (who did not even use a level editor).
Actually, each puzzle game I saw had its strengths and weaknesses. I think mine has some originality, which is what I strove for; the initial brainstorming took me a lot of time, and resulted in less for the final level design. I admit I could have even better managed my time and come up with a better game, though, but that’s how things went. I would say the current game is somewhere in the 75%–85% range of what I originally intended, which is fair. :)
Nice game! I got it pretty quickly and was able to play through all levels except for one where I got stuck in an infinite loop. It took me a bit of time to fully wrap my head around the way the cube moved, knowing what face would be the next one up if i press w,a,s, or d. But after I got that it was smooth sailing.
These 11 levels introduce you very well to the concept, but I felt like the solution was 'just follow the path' a bit too often. For example after we learn that going around a square (going up left down right) turns around the dice, I would love to see a level that explores that concept a bit more. However, this "complaint" boils down to "I would love to see more levels", which is a good sign for a gamejam game!
All in all, I had fun playing. This is a great proof of concept, well done!
Thank you and I am pleased to see someone like it.
This is all too true. I had more ambitious views, and almost managed to come up with precise levels at the end of the creation time, but that was way too risky for such a genre, so I played it safe and submitted a non-broken game. Granted, in hindsight, I could have used the level-skipping functionality to allow myself put unverified harsh brain-teasers, but I feel this would have not been right.
Haha, great! :)
You used the right term, I consider the game in its current state as a prototype (as stated on the game page) and proof of concept.What is a bit unfair to the programmer/developer is that you do all the heavy-lifting creating the system, and you get to the end of the process where you have no time left where you have all the frustration of not being able to create the end material (ie the levels) that take much less time but will be what the players see. XD I’m glad you saw through it.
I've seen a lot of puzzle games using the turning of the faces and landing on the correct side to overcome certain obstacles, but this one is so far my favorite concept.
I like that you pick up sides as you go, and reaching the victory point you still have to be able to roll in a way to get it on the top, which felt very nice.
Like you said, you didn't have time to implement everything you wanted, so my only complaint being that its a little confusing to confirm which side of the die you are on with the visual provided, but I am sure you are aware of that. Very nicely done!
Thanks! :) Originality was my target, so I am particularly mindful of your appreciation of the concept.
As an aside, one of the useful supplements would have been to make the displays of the faces smoothly transition from one place to another (in a nice curved way). Unfortunately, I only thought of this one in hindsight, some time after submitting. X) While the non-painted cube is the most obvious shortcoming (yet most complicated for 2D graphics reasons). I also wanted to tilt the displays as if they were in perspective.
I still think my UI positioning is better than the alternative I had also thought of, which was to use a classic cube folding pattern. I have seen two other games use this latter solution (diSe and very good game), which I think is less readable. (And these are good games; not stabbing them in the back! XD)
Man, that was a nice way to implement a puzzle game with this theme! The game looks very nice! The art style is consistent throughout the game and I like it! The music fits your puzzle take on the theme.
Well done sir!
Ah, I was worried people would find the music not calm enough, thanks! :) Usually, developers often go for soothing music for such a game, as you can see in other ones, such as DOS and especially the (very sweet) Marimbla.
I wanted to give a feel of mysterious adventure and progression, through both the music and the scenery, which I think is another specific feature of the game (as far as I have seen).
It’s a fun game, it really got your head in the game. I hope you’ll work on it. I really liked the music and all the sound effects. It’s a shame it doesn’t show sides, but it was on the page. It’s all because of a lack of time. Of course there are some flaws, but the game is suitable, and if it is finished, it will be a cool TimeKiller for mobile devices=)
I will; I want to at least take revenge on those undisplayed sides. XD
Did you know: I intended the blue and red faces to use pathfinding, with the blue ones directing you towards sunny stamps, and red faces directing you towards holes. I scrapped it near the deadline and replaced it with the way simpler current behaviour! I may switch this back to my original plan. I even thought of a tutorial level where you have red faces lead you through a ‘corridor’ to a chasm, before a blue-face stamp saves the day. This all went in the dustbin!
This makes me think I will possibly write a post-mortem about the game, with a series of anecdotes and choices. :)
… and for desktops. I am sure many a nerd likes to have his big computer run Baba Is You. ;))
Thanks for the music (we should really thank Kevin MacLeod, there XD); as for the sound effects… there is only one, actually. XD But the most important: the roll of the die. I wanted to put others, such as when you fall in the void, when you get a stamp printed, when you win, possibly the sound of the wind blowing… All cancelled. ._.
Thanks for your appreciation!
Merci pour ce jeu !
De rien ! ;) Je ne suis pas passé par le tien malheureusement (trop de jeux à tester, notamment à peu de votes)… ._. Je jetterai un œil ! :)
It took me about 15 minutes to figure out what I had to do, but once I did I did find the concept to be pretty interesting, though not being able to see the faces of the cube on the cube itself makes rolling it around pretty confusing. The instructions are also vague, so I had a pretty hard time understanding what was really killing me (especially in level 2) or what the icons on the cube's faces do.
All in all, a pretty interesting puzzle game which would really benefit from a better presentation.
Thanks for your feedback. Ironically, I usually go for way more comprehensive instructions (see my two previous games for examples), and I decided it was more subtle to let the player guess what was happening. I took a risk, there. X)
As for the cube display and as already told: agreed, time mismanagement. ;)
Really cool puzzle game! I thoroughly enjoyed the levels and thought some of then were pretty tricky!
I like the die visual on the right to help you see what all the faces are, a lot of the games don't have a feature like that and it can be fairly confusing sometimes to figure out what to do. Also I think your game is the first game I've seen that doesn't use pips on the die faces which I think is super original. Overall a great jam submission, nice work!
Thank you very much! :) (I only see your comment now, as I have been busy doing some heavy testing; I am still in a rush before the end!! Just passing by.)
I am happy as you are a fellow puzzle game creator. You’re nice saying some levels were tricky, I think level design is a half weak point of the game unfortunately, but the first (half of the?) levels are decent, I think.
I was very happy thinking of the UI display element, but… it was meant as an addition to the display on the faces, so I managed to have a great helper without the actual thing. XD I hope this does not look too weird!
As for not using pips, it was indeed totally voluntary right from the end of my heavy brainstorming. :) Although I have seen some non-puzzle games use this idea! For example, see The High Roller (Hardly Working Inc), which uses the card suits (plus 1 and 6).
Un jeu très intéressant! Ça m'a pris quelques minutes pour comprendre ce que la graphique en haut voulait dire, et les instructions n'étaient pas les plus clairs, mais lorsque j'ai réussi a saisir la mécanisme, c'est devenu une casse-tête que j'ai pu jouer pour plusieurs minutes!
Félicitations sur un jeu amusant!
(English below, because let’s roll in a polyglot way!)
Merci, content que le jeu (prototype) te plaise ! Oui, comme je l’ai répondu à claysec et aussi évoqué dans la fiche du jeu, pour la représentation des faces (ce qui était une grosse préoccupation pour moi, à raison !), c’est clairement améliorable, mais je n’ai pas eu le temps de réussir à afficher directement sur le cube en complément, et pas pensé sur le coup à afficher la rotation fluide des indicateurs de face… :/ Les heures initiales dont j’ai eu besoin pour fixer le concept m’ont coûté un peu cher sur la fin (même si je pense m’en être sorti raisonnablement). En y réfléchissant, je pense que j’aurais pu afficher sur les faces visibles du dé via une seule image pour chaque valeur possible ; j’ai tenté vers la fin, mais cela ne marchait pas, alors je n’ai pas voulu prendre le risque de casser le jeu peu avant l’échéance !
En revanche, pour les indications un peu laconiques, c’était volontaire de ma part, parce que j’ai plutôt voulu laisser le joueur comprendre par lui-même via la conception des niveaux, qui sont progressifs. Dans mes deux jeux/prototypes précédents (Breathe Heart et Blocage entropique), j’avais mis plus d’indications, mais j’avais déjà l’idée d’être plus elliptique et de me concentrer dans l’idéal sur créer des niveaux « tutoriel » (ce qui se voit déjà pas mal dans le deuxième jeu, qui est je pense le plus abouti en l’état actuel).
J’ai prévu d’améliorer le jeu dans le futur. :) En fait, je dois améliorer mes quatre jeux actuels ; j’ai du pain sur la planche ! XD Pas eu le temps avec la série de game jams que j’ai enchaînées dans la foulée par défi, mais je ne vais pas abandonner ces jeux.
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Thank you, glad that you enjoy the game (prototype)! Yes, as I answered claysec and also mentioned on the game page, as for depicting the sides (which was a big concern for me, rightly so!), there is clearly room for improvement, but I did not have the time to manage displaying directly on the cube as a complement, and did not think in the heat of the moment of showing the smooth rotation for the face indicators… :/ The first hours which I needed to stabilise the concept were a bit costly to me towards the end (even though I think I fared reasonably). On second thoughts, I think I could have displayed on the visible sides of the die using a single image for each possible value; I made an attempt towards the end, but it did not work, so I did not want to run the risk of breaking the game shortly before the deadline!
Whereas the somewhat terse instructions were voluntary on my part, because I rather wanted the player to figure out by himself through level design, with progressive levels. In my two previous games/prototypes (Breathe Heart and Entropy Block), I had put more instructions, but I was already thinking of being more elliptical and ideally focusing on creating ‘tutorial’ levels (which already shows quite a bit in the second game, which I think is the most thorough in the current state).
I intend to enhance the game in the future. :) In fact, I must enhance my four current games; I have a lot on my plate! XD Did not have the time with the series of game jams I did one after the other immediately afterwards as a challenge, but I will not give up on them.
/!\ Avertissement : il est possible que la musique ne se lance pas au 1er niveau ; si cela survient, réactualiser la page puis relancer le jeu. Cela est dû aux navigateurs, merci de votre compréhension. (Et les solutions proposées ici ne fonctionnent pas forcément !)
/!\ Warning: the music may not launch in the 1st level; should this occur, refresh the page, then relaunch the game. This is caused by navigators, thank you for your understanding. (And the solutions suggested here do not necessarily work!)
This is a Nice little puzzle game, It took me a bit to understand how the dice worked but after I did I really liked it!
Thank you! It would have been clearer if the drawings were also directly shown on the die, but unfortunately, I did not have enough time to make it happen in 2D. Some dozens of minutes before the end, I was still hoping to achieve it and drew that little sunny guy on side faces, but you do not get to see him in the ‘final’ cut. ;)
PS (18/07/2022): I have just had this idea that I could have made the face indicators move smoothly, so that you better see the rotation… Too bad I did not think of it yesterday! ._. Anyway, I will implement this in a future update, as I like to enhance my games over time. :)