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A jam submission

Gotcha Number for PLAYDATEView game page

Submitted by A Novel Approach — 7 hours, 21 minutes before the deadline
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Gotcha Number for PLAYDATE's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Creativity#113.2673.267
Overall#152.5562.556
Use of console#162.4002.400
Fun#192.0002.000

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

An interesting idea and very ambitious too!

I was interested in solving the puzzle, but I kept getting stuck on the controls. It’s easy to hit the magnifying glass on something that I already read through and have to go through it again.

It took me a whole 5min to insert the numbers xD the crank didn’t smoothly rotate through them as I think it was meant to. It’s a good idea to crank to dial numbers, but I don’t know what I did wrong, in the end it seemed to have no effect, I exploded… Next inspector?  🤠💥

Developer(+1)

hi,  thanks for feedback. Try the B button after you dial the phone number. Oh, its much smoother to dial on the emulator. I tested much of the game that way not on actual device and by then the jam was over. Im thinking of turning this into a different escape game but i will test more on actual device, your not doing anything wrong! thank you

(2 edits)

I definitely find this escape room game to be interesting and I think that this game does have promise. I am glad that when the player is reading a text bubble the timer does not continue counting, this gives the player less anxiety in the game and I am glad you added this. I really like the concept of being a secret agent in a room trying to escape from a bomb.

Suggestions/critiques:
- My main issue with the game is that the time limit as extra tension and anxiety due to the controls not being as fast or intuitive as I would like. I do think that a time limit could work especially given the theme of the game. But due to the controls and some of the text bubbles feeling slow or clunky it added an unnecessary level of anxiety.
- I felt that the cranking to input the number was a little bit confusing as were the directions to do so. Making the number randomized it seemed every time I did one revolution of the crank didn't make much sense to me. I would have rather had it where the crank was separated into 10 sections each with its own number. I feel that this would have gone much quicker especially in an environment where you are timed.
- I found it annoying every time I went to the next number to input it the little text blurb came up every single time. Away this could possibly be fixed is if the player selected the area for numbers and then could just use the directional pad to move to the next number in the series and also even to change the number if needed. The player could then press the A or B button to exit or confirm the number.
- one thing I felt didn't work as well was the perspective of the room, I think it would have been nicer to have a perspective more similar to the Rusty lake series where the room rectangle or square fills the screen and the perspective lines are minimal. I also think it would be nice to add more details to the corners of the room just to give more to the overall visuals of the game.
- I did find it a little frustrating that every time that the magnifying glass covered over and interactable object it would automatically open the text bubble. It would be nice if there was some other indication to tell the player that the object was interactable and that the player could then press a to interact with it. 
- I felt that the magnifying glass move speed was a little bit slow but I understand that this is also an issue with pulp in general.
- As for the number that needed to be entered. I felt it was a lot to enter and maybe the area code could have been removed to make it easier to do.

Overall I was happy to play your game and I am excited to play more escape room type games in the future.

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

hey thanks! Yes I will take those suggestions for any future games. I wanted to tie the "times up" to a countdown timer thing but i see it mayve made it harder..maybe id have like an hour timeframe but that may defeat the purpose of having a timer! Yes i agree this game could improve thank you so much for your input!

(+1)

I'm glad that my suggestions could be helpful to you! I wish you the best on your future projects! <3

Submitted

One of my favorite ever games is an escape room (999 for the DS), so I was excited to try this. Unfortunately, I suck at them! 😭 

Just like every other escape room I've ever played, I got stuck (in this case, at the phone number). From what I played though, I enjoyed. The writing is particularly well done and the graphics are simple and clean which makes the easy to navigate. As far as audio goes, there is a ticking time bomb sound (at least... I think it's the bomb? it kinda sounds like an explosion lol) but no music.

My only real suggestion (other than looking at some of the bugs) would be a walkthrough for idiots like me. Nice job!

Developer (2 edits) (+1)

thanks. hey your not an idiot! Im bad at playing certain games too. and not the best at making them but its fun. Yes thats a good idea I think i will post a walkthrough/solution when i get a chance maybe next week thanksgiving... ill try to make a recording from the emulator since it works better than actual device! OK thanks again!

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

ok got the walkthrough  video showing  for the phone part and all. Thanks!

(+1)

I found this one fairly creative! Figuring out that we have to tilt the console to look around was something that took us way too long to figure out, and even when we did, it didn't feel great.
When trying to enter numbers, using the crank would make a lot of sense to cycle between the numbers, but this felt terrible because the numbers seemed randomized? It was unnecessarily hard to enter a phone number, and even once we did, we didn't get any new dialogue on the phone, so we gave up. :(
But I think the idea of using the accelerometer to look around is cool, just wish we figured it out sooner.

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

thank you for your feedback. originally i had the crank to look around, but i wanted to use the crank for the rotary phone, which (as you can tell) was difficult for me to make. I really would like to collab with a coder to help me on these games because I dont know the better ways to execute things. Oh, B button to talk (on phone).  still im glad you see creativity in it in the limited time to make it thanks.

Submitted

This escape room setup is a great concept for the theme! Unfortunately I found the cursor constantly jumping back to the window pretty frustrating.

Developer(+1)

thanks! The cursor worked fine on simulator! but yes   on device its wonky. didnt have time to fix before jam ended..

Submitted

I am having a hard time not initiating the Window in the game the cursor keeps resetting idk if I’m doing something wrong…

it would be nice to have an option to “back out” of an item dialog such as this so I didn’t have to keep Examining or Looking out the Window and reading all the text before trying to move the cursor to something else

Developer

you are not doing anything wrong. Try tilting the device to move around/away from window. Yes a "Backout/cancel" option is great idea, if i pursue this i will add it to the text. Thanks!