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A jam submission

mindDieView game page

A die rolling puzzler
Submitted by Zanthous (@ZanthousDev) — 42 minutes, 25 seconds before the deadline
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mindDie's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Enjoyment#11193.2353.235
Overall#15863.1963.196
Presentation#17233.2753.275
Creativity#21733.0783.078

Ranked from 51 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 roll dice to solve puzzles

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

No

We used pre-existing art

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

Viewing comments 29 to 10 of 29 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

Pretty fun! I liked having to deal with the extra dice and having to find the right sequence of rolls for deactivating turrets was a nice dilemma (as a side note the Pekora reference caught me by surprise aha).

Submitted(+1)

It was pretty solid. I admit you have me stumped on the Pekora level. XD

Submitted(+1)

I've seen a lot of people make similar puzzle games to your but the laser mechanic really stands out. The shake that happens when you move kind of makes me nauseous. I don't know what would fix that maybe a texture on the background to show that the board is shaking not the camera. Very well designed levels. Great job.

Submitted(+1)

So we used the same dice for a similar game hahah. Nice execution, good game. I like the lasers and using multiple dices at once.   But I wish the camera doesn't shake when you    move.  And also I got stuck at Junction level and since I'm not using a ENG keyboard, "=" is not available as a key for me. Maybe making them as letter keys, can solve this issue.

Submitted(+1)

I like the colors used in this. They all go together in their unique way!

Submitted(+1)

Ironically, while I enjoy puzzle games, I have only tried one up to now, as I concentrated on reviewing almost only submissions with few votes; let’s see this one. :)

Various comments:

  1. Since I have an AZERTY keyboard, some QWERTY keys are complicated for me, including minus (to go back one level) and tilde (to restart the level) which do not work (although plus does… A weird phenomenon I already knew, except for tilde, which is most unfortunate here XD). To let you know, it is possible to program with a physical identification of the keys instead of a symbolic/value one, which easily solves this problem. You are far from being alone in not having thought of it and you enabled the arrow keys, so only semi-trouble here (because I cannot easily restart a level). ;)
  2. Several entries thought of the concept of having a classic die have one its sides match some tiles apparently, but the lazer mechanic is nice. It has a Portal feel. :)
  3. I like the (square) confetti rain at success, by the way. :)
  4. At some point, I bugged (thinking the game did XD) and thought you had to put the lower face on the tile instead of seeing the right upper one. That was the silly story of the day. X)
  5. I agree with MrSquish that the tilting (when moving) was unfortunately ‘head-unpleasant’.
  6. Some turrets are deactived by the upper side, while some others are activated by it; I think it would be a good idea to differentiate them visually. Well, except if you want to make things harder for the player by engaging his short-term memory.
  7. Oh, multi-dice! Fun fact: I had thought of this possibility for my own game, and realized in hindsight that I could have implemented it extremely quickly. I was thinking less clearly under time pressure towards the end, I think. X)
  8. I think some transparency would have helped, sometimes; I am thinking of level ‘Junction’, where the red dice cover the end value at the beginning. Which is critical! (Especially for me who can only retrace my steps but not restart easily, once again. XD)
  9. One last side question: why did you put a giant central eye on the thumbnail? This is classic esoterism, so I am wondering if you knew or if you just had another idea (such as, a reminder of the mind). Gave me the chills!

To be honest, I skipped three levels (‘Junction’, ‘Happy 3rd anniversary Pekora!!’ and the final one) — partly because I could not restart easily and partly because I am already so slow at testing games because I tend to write thorough reviews in true nerdy fashion X) —, but as far as I can tell, the mechanics were varied enough, and I agree with hzzzln that the game shines through its level design. (As a personal comparison, in my case, I created thought-out levels first, but then had to rush it and my latter levels have a more tutorial/experimental taste.)

So far, I am aware of three puzzle games, and it is already very interesting to establish a comparison:

  1. Yours is the most accomplished in level design;
  2. DOS is the most polished / professional-looking one;
  3. Mine has the most original core mechanic.

I am glad there are such differences between our games and we did not end up all making the same thing. :)

Developer(+1)

1. just kind of unfortunate since I was just using the simplest code possible for the controls since it's a game jam

5. I guess it was excessive, I can't really relate to people getting motion sickness from games and it was only a 1degree rotation for a brief moment. Wanted some visual flair of some sort but will try something else next time.

6. This is shown by the number having a large line through it diagonally

7. I saw a good amount of other games with this mechanic but they often implemented it poorly, such as dice not rolling if there is a die to the right (it should scan line to see if the space will be open after things in front of it move) or there just not being an undo button 

8. I agree

9. Mostly just to try and catch attention, when coming up with the name I was looking for rhymes, saw "mind eye" and changed it to mindDie

There were definitely some really poorly designed levels mixed in since it was a game jam and levels were hard to create / iterate. I need to find a way to have simple level editing in the future even when tiles have many complex properties.  The anniversary level and the last level are probably two of the best designed ones, it might seem like you can get softlocked but I don't think it's actually possible to even without undoing. (Another couple I thought were good were friends and separate)

I'll check out your game sometime soon. I hope to fix up the code in my game significantly and open source it in the near future. I used some pretty terrible hacky code to get everything working with the undo and it would be nice to have a good example of how to do it around (well, good by my standards, I'm sure there are plenty others that could write it better than me)

Thanks for the detailed review

Submitted

(Checking back some answers I missed, I was so busy testing!)

Thanks for answering. :)

6. This is shown by the number having a large line through it diagonally

Oops, sorry I missed it! :s Tried playing (too) fast…

7. I saw a good amount of other games with this mechanic but they often implemented it poorly, such as dice not rolling if there is a die to the right (it should scan line to see if the space will be open after things in front of it move) or there just not being an undo button
Ah, for my previous game, I did program such a ‘prediction’ feature (although it was in relation to the player’s past self), and thinking about possible future extensions for the game, I realized that if you have objects moving in various directions at the same time, you can get very complicated situations, especially circularity! (A moves towards B which moves towards C which moves towards A, in a non-colliding fashion.)
Gives you food for thought if you want to add other independent moving objects. :)

There were definitely some really poorly designed levels mixed in

My recollection of your levels is only partial (since precision is key!), but I did not get this feeling. Maybe this escaped me because I had only a limited almost one-shot try at each! ;)

I need to find a way to have simple level editing in the future even when tiles have many complex properties.

How about Tiled? It lets you design tiled-based puzzles really fast and does include layers (I think you can set properties without using layers, but you may want to double-check this…). There are a lot of readers/converters available for various frameworks and engines (I see you used Unity, which is included amongst them).

(from the other comment)
also here are my favorite puzzle games from the probably 50 or so I have played

I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but This Is Jon feels very different from the others in its main mechanic (you play some kind of elongating snake/chain block). The game jam version is unfinished, but the final one has been released and I found it clearer (and rather hard from what I have seen!).

And Face Value (which you have seen) had nifty level design, but… they had four level designers. XD Life is (sometimes) unfair!

Developer

also here are my favorite puzzle games from the probably 50 or so I have played: https://itch.io/c/2645689/gtmk2022-favorites

Submitted

Sorry but the level tilting around like that every move makes me feel motion sick so I didn't get very far.

Submitted(+1)

I really liked this game, the visuals and atmosphere fit really well and the concept fit the theme well too. Overall great entry!!

Submitted(+1)

I enjoyed playing this game. Nice lasers, friends, etc. Very cool game! 

Submitted(+1)

The puzzle design in this game was amazing. The new mechanics helped keep the gameplay interesting and introduced new challenges throughout the impressive number of levels. Great job!

Submitted(+1)

Brilliant, it reminds me of the cube game from coolmath lol

Submitted(+1)

A unique take on this concept. I didn't get past the first level with the red goals but those that I played were very well made.

Submitted(+1)

Cool game, mine was a bit similar in some ways but 2D! I had fun with the puzzles and being able to undo was nice!

Submitted(+1)

Nice! I had a similar idea, loved your puzzles and presentation!

Submitted(+1)

It's a clever idea ! Sadly I suck at puzzle games, but I love the concept, and the color palette of the game! Nice job :) 

Submitted(+1)

Very well put together puzzles! Thanks for making such an awesome entry!

Submitted(+1)

A different look to this kind puzzle games. I like different mechanics you put each stage. I like it well done ^^

Submitted(+1)

Very nice. Visualizing the die faces is super difficult, and most other games of this nature make it pretty hard, leading to you just stumbling into solution more than coming up with it. Your game had very few of those occurrences for me. 

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

good to hear! Actually it was really hard fine tuning the levels since I didn't have a level editor, and I had to just write where everything is in code with their special properties... I often had to visualize the entire flow of level ahead of time, or just put things together and see if it played ok. Thanks for playing!

Submitted(+1)

The lasers and the confetti make the level look really cool 

Submitted(+1)

Some interesting levels! Well done.

Viewing comments 29 to 10 of 29 · Next page · Last page