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A jam submission

Mole AscensionView game page

short prototype for a game jam
Submitted by Djentalist — 10 hours, 49 minutes before the deadline
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Mole Ascension's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Fun#172.8723.000
Originality#213.1333.273
Accessibility#222.5242.636
Controls#272.3502.455
Graphics#272.6982.818
Overall#322.4622.571
Theme#362.5242.636
Audio#511.1321.182

Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Godot Version
4.1

Wildcards Used
Naturalist, Icarus

Game Description
Guide moles to ascension

How does your game tie into the theme?
Moles normally live under the ground, but with some of your help they can climb higher and aim for the skies

Source(s)
N/A

Discord Username(s)
N/A

Participation Level (GWJ Only)
1 (only this one)

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Comments

Submitted

Fun lil puzzle game! I enjoyed how much use one could get out of only three blocks in the second puzzle- seriously good design. Echoing others here with the want to keep my setup between runs + the arrow block needing a bit more introduction, but otherwise a solid entry.

Submitted

Very enjoyable puzzle game, it reminds me of the game "The Incredible Machine" for MS-DOS or Lemmings, as FreakClub mentioned below. Good Job!

Submitted(+1)

I definitely thought of "The Incredible Machine" too! Great games

Submitted(+1)

I won! Yes!

Took some time to figure out how to place the arrow down. Well designed puzzles otherwise! Did you have a method for designing them? Would be interested to hear!

Some nice music and sound effects would have made the came come more alive. 

Nice puzzler, thanks!

Developer

Yeah based on the feedback so far the arrow block seems confusing at first. I designed the puzzles by planning out a route with me having infinite building blocks at first, and then I add obstacles/gaps/etc. along the way to force players to use multiple different blocks. The spike ball was added to provide a scenario where the arrow block pointing down was needed. (Though there might've been other solutions as well) After that point I check how many blocks I placed and set the number of each block available for that level.

I had planned some music and sound effects and I do have a fairly quick way to create both (jummbus.bitbucket.io/), but this game jam I was still fixing some code at the last moment. I've uploaded another game called Unfair Tennis, where both the music and sounds were made with that tool. I'm hoping to continue this game but it depends a bit on how busy life will be haha.

Submitted(+1)

Thanks for sharing!

Cool tennis game! Almost some djent style metal there, haha. Very satisfying hit-the-ball-sound

Submitted(+1)

This is cool! It reminds me of the old school game "lemmings". I like the objects that were available, and that the solutions to the two levels felt satisfying. Especially the second level must have been hard to design! I think this game could be expanded upon!

Developer

Thanks! The second one was harder to design despite being easier to solve for some reason. As soon as there are more different object blocks and obstacles it should become easier to design more level variations.

Submitted(+1)

https://screenrec.com/share/skGjlKve5p

This is a pretty awesome prototype! Very satisfying when you finally got it to work. It was kinda annoying how it reset the course every time you ran the game. While it was fine in the first two levels, more complicated levels would be quite annoying to have to redraw the course every time. Though since the eraser doesn't yet work, it is a good alternative to the eraser. Fun mole explosion animation. Overall, pretty awesome!

Developer

Oh, wow! Thanks so much for the video playthrough, this is a goldmine worth of feedback honestly. Seeing the thought process going on in "realtime" points out a lot of which things are hard to figure out for the player and what changes I need to make (such as making it more obvious how the arrow block works exactly). There's also multiple bugs exposed this way that I didn't realize, such as placing objects on top of the spike ball, or the eraser not giving blocks back.

I also forgot to think of the possibility that people might find different solutions, but that's actually great.

For anyone curious, this was the "intended" solution for level 1: https://imgur.com/0Md3ifS  (which in hindsight should've been swapped with level 2)

Submitted

Great effort!

Submitted(+1)

Cool gameplay! I wish there were more levels :)

It took me a while to figure out first level though. Maybe at this point I knew the mechanics and how blocks worked, but level 2 felt easier.

Some UX would be nice. Eraser didn't work for me (it would not return deleted block), so I didn't use it. But I wish I could keep blocks placed between runs to make just minor adjustments.

Art looks nice. Simple, but a nice palette and all important game objects are clearly visible.

Cheers!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for testing the game and giving feedback!

There was a lot more interactions planned (other types of moles, several obstacles like bridges that can only hold X moles at the same time, and extra level blocks).

The point of keeping the blocks between runs is a also good one, I'll keep that in mind.

Maybe (if I get around to it) I can improve on these things after the jam. :)

Submitted

Definitely. 

I would start with polishing what you already have, to make future development (and playing) more enjoyable, then start adding new content.

Good luck!