I found the game to be very pleasing to play, with very careful panel movement and sound.
Play Puzzle Game
Force Field Shield Calibration Station's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Technical | #11 | 3.732 | 3.732 |
| Design | #16 | 3.732 | 3.732 |
| Gameplay | #17 | 3.659 | 3.659 |
| Overall | #25 | 3.478 | 3.478 |
| Artistic | #31 | 3.756 | 3.756 |
| Theme | #83 | 2.512 | 2.512 |
Ranked from 41 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Very cool and polished game. I would love to see a full game for mobile from this.
Submitted
Les MoiresLoved the humor used throughout the game! You did really well to create a well made atmospheric game that employed a simple game mechanic, yet felt fresh and fun. That Jane Doe tho bites lip
Overall you did really well on making a simple, yet complete and aesthetically pleasing game. (Although, to be honest, I definitely started randomly clicking later into the game)
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Cognitive DissonanceReally nice visuals and pleasant, relaxing music. The characters help to entertain yourself between puzzles. Many thanks for the game! However, to be honest, I’m not a big fan of this particular kind of puzzle. When I can’t quickly solve the problem with logic, I just start clicking all around without much thinking and just trying to keep track of the fact if the number of flipped pieces is odd or even and push them to one side, and the puzzle solves itself somehow. Maybe not the fastest way, but still. What I really missed through the play was a clear goal. There was progress tracking in the form of earned credits, but there was no victory screen or any screen telling where it all goes. Yes, it’s a jam game, but still, it feels a bit empty without it. Or maybe I haven’t completed enough levels? I’ve earned about 1K :)
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Wolf's VaultHi thank you so much for the review! I can understand that this kind of puzzlesolving might not be for everyone, thank you for playing anyway. There actually is a victory screen with the use for the credits (I think you need around 2 400 of them)… There were supposed to be a shop where you buy new tools for the credits, but I did not have time to implement that. Yes the goal is not that clear as it should be, you are totally right. Thank for the detailed review!
Hi, There is no problem in your smartness, trust me! The biggest design flaw of my game is that it makes people feel dumb even when they play exactly as I wanted them to play! I need to put an extra care to solve that in the sequel. I had this feedback from more sources and it is very valuable, so thank you again.
Thank you! That is actually an interesting topic. Levels with changing pattern feels easier to me as well (and aside from Neon, they technically are) but they also are way harder to understand. So I tried real hard to introduce them in a good time (not too soon and not too late). It was a design challenge I did not expect to face.
Fun Puzzle game, the art style is really nice, and the pause menu feels like a terminal a worker would pull in from the side really adds to the game feel.
Submitted
Bruised BattleReally cool puzzle game! 😄
I like the different things you can do with the different patterns, and the little storylines and references were quite funny!
My only problem is that I do not think it fit the theme very well.
But overall it is a fun little game! Really makes the gears turn in my head ⚙️🧠
Submitted
Bunny HeavenThat's a really cool game!
Loved the little funny references scattered everywhere (especially the wizards xD)!
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Dragon CrusadeTook me a while to realise what the monitor represented, but I still managed to get along fine, and then after figuring it out I got better! Loved the references, the implication that these wizards are somehow related was funny.
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Office Break (GoGodot 4)I was satisfied with the concept and the gameplay and whatnot, but I'm a bit weirded out by the Harry Potter reference. This may be a personal thing, as I'm nonbinary. It just makes it... slightly uninviting?
Perhaps the only other complaint I have is that I was solving some of the puzzles without really thinking about it that much, and more exploring the state space until I found a solution.
Submitted
The Galaxy is FlatI am sorry to cause a distress. I worked with the limited assets as I am not an artist and I worked solo. And using the same guy thrice for three different characters felt like a fun thing to do. I don’t like the author of that series myself (I even consider myself a closeted nb myself). The “author == work” is a hard topic for me that I am not really enjoying… and I feel very anxious about it.
So, thank you for your feedback. I will try to think about it better next time. Please consider the reference as a simple joke as I wanted my game to be funny.
As for the other part of feedback, this approach of more casually “mess around and find out” was my design choice as I myself enjoyed the puzzles more this way and not by “cracking the code”.
Thank you so much for playing and for the feedback! Sorry for the joke and have a nice day!
Gandolf the gunslinger. Thats a character I will never forget.
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Nithrum Vault HeistThis game is going to be detrimental to my productivity for a while I think and I love it 😂
I was confused at first that the pattern below the screen meant “this is what is going to flip” and not “this is what you are supposed to create”, but once I figured that out a couple clicks in I almost couldn’t stop myself long enough to write this 😊 Really nice work on writing, visuals, music and sound, and very polished! You somehow managed to not even make the BGM become annoying after a while, well chosen 👍
So, now it’s my turn to express wishes of seeing more of this 😁 No final score to report yet, will have to get back to you with that ^^
Submitted
Pew Pew Pew: Danger Zone!Thank you so much!
I was aware of the possible confusion about the pattern, that is why the first level actually look like the patter right away (to hint that it is not the goal). I hope it helped at least a bit. The first dialog may be rewritten in the future to highlight it even more, but it was already a bit long. There were several design difficulties in this game I did not see coming.
Thank a lot for playing. And do not worry, I have already solid plans how to expand this to a sequel! (that would actually feature most of the cut mechanics from this version). Now to find the time :D
That is awesome news :D
I hope you don’t mind me asking questions, but: how did you approach the puzzle design? Did you create a tool that would just chuck them out based on some rules? Because while I absolutely love puzzle games, I’m currently still way too scared to try to develop one because I wouldn’t know how to create good solvable puzzles in an amount that it is actually a game and not just a prototype.
You had a ton of them in there, to a point where I warned my partner I’d be tied to my screen a bit longer until I had solved that fun puzzle game someone had created, and with the amount of time that was available I just wonder - how did you make them all in that short time frame?
I don’t mind at all.
So I first created a script that would just randomly press some tiles as a prototype. Create several “tools” (the way you switch the tiles) and test if its any good. I loved it. But.
The problem with this puzzle is that it is not very intuitive even when you know exactly how it works (that’s also the reason why there is no turn limit or so). The randomized puzzles had very randomized difficulty so the pacing of the game would be awful. Just awful.
So the first step, after knowing what I’ll do, was disabling the randomizer and made the levels by hand. It started very random too, I just wrote down the level (the games took a string for example “00;010;00” and creates a tiles by it). Then I played them and I tried to identified the easy ones and the hard ones. For example the Gundulf type of ship was extremely hard, my few playtesters had a hard time to finish them. So I tried a trick: I intentionally used dark and light colors there. So hopefully the first thing a player see is a pattern made of light tiles (they are more vivid and catch an eye easily) and you are left with just two white ones, again they should guide you to press them, and voila: You solved the level! And if it is not clean the second level features the white tiles in the similar way, so you hopefully feel smart that you know the trick already and also remember the concept of this “double side swapping” for the next time.
And the randomized puzzles will come back in the sequel! After the proper tutorial, they are fun as well. But you need to be truly familiar with concept already. The game is based on the similar game that I made in high school, that featured square tiles on a growing grid and was inspired by a chest minigame in the game Zanzarah: The hidden portal (that was only 3x3, I loved it but I can solve it with closed eyes in the end of the game xD).
And thank you so much <3 I really appreciate the motivation you give me by liking the game!
I see! So tool supported manual design, I have to keep that in mind ☺️ Thank you for the elaborate answer!
The puzzles reminded me a bit of how to solve a Rubik’s Cube, which I finally learned earlier this year after having it on my bucket list for way too long - it triggered the same pattern recognition areas in my brain I think 👍
Hi, this is an HTML game playable by clicking the “Run Puzzle Game” button in the middle of that thing that looks like a main banner. Or if that does not show up for some reason, it should be playable here: https://itch.io/embed-upload/7911361?color=000000 I may totally misunderstand your question tho, as I operate only thanks to a third cup of cappuccino after setting up the game all evening yesterday.
Oh I see. Yeah I cannot think of better implementation of the theme so I just rolled with this.
Technically, the less polarized the shield is the more effective it is… and that’s it. That is the whole inspiration. Someone even advised me it would be better to have a turn counter: the “less” turns you make the “more” money you get… but I hated that. It does not let the player just play and have fun, it just made the experience frustrating. I decided to rather make a better and more enjoyable game than have more points thanks to the better theme. I stand by my decision.
Also, the more subtle theme is: The less you fight the better (more good), but that is more of a philosophical concept lol. I do not expect anyone to actually find it. But it helped me to shape the tone and a story of the game.
And besides… Less theme is more theme, right? Right?
Great puzzle game! I also like the connections between several characters appearance during gameplay, well done!
Submitted
Cleanse The World
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