Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags
A jam submission

Super Squishy Square StackerView game page

~ Satisfying Slime Softbody Simulation Sandbox ~
Submitted by Oshisaure (@oshisaure) — 1 day, 14 hours before the deadline
Add to collection

Play squishy

Super Squishy Square Stacker's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Stealth#14.6364.636
Novelty#23.9703.970
Play#54.2734.273
Overall#93.5003.500
Sound#93.6673.667
Harmony#103.6973.697
Ambition#213.5153.515
Kink#243.3333.333
Aesthetic#253.6673.667
Narrative#442.1822.182
Horny#602.0612.061

Ranked from 33 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted(+1)

This was really fun, as an odd twist of irony, I played the game a few times before learning the controls in settings and I ended up doing better when I couldnt control anything than how I did when I actually had control. It was a very fun game with a lot of squishy physics. The blocks looked really nice and the music was fun. I could see myself spending more time playing this in the future. ~

Submitted(+1)

This game is great; softbody tetris videos have been a meme in my household for so long that getting to play one was an absolute delight. The fact that the kink is literally sitting off to the side absentmindedly happening while you play is probably in service to the kink itself, but also adds to the humour value a lot for me. Sometimes I just look over and remember that I'm covering a little furry trapped in a jar with slime. I'm not a huge Tetris fan, but the chaos of the physics made this very enjoyable if only to watch everything bounce and spin around. Thoroughly lighthearted, a simple, brilliant concept executed wonderfully. Love it.

Submitted(+1)

First of all, never before have I played a game that made me so grateful I didn't have misophonia, lol. The goopy squishy SFX were perfect and I loved them. Secondly, this is just so much damn fun! The push and pull of trying to squish and squeeze the pieces into vaguely line shaped formations is both hilarious and exciting, and the thrill of somehow managing is so satisfying. Also the need to drain the resulting goo is devious and added a really interesting strategic layer. I ended up at one point with a small block mushed into each corner and about 60% of the field full of goo and was just like "...uh oh."

I really, really need more games where all the gameplay is about squishing things now. Also want to give a nod to your impressive commitment to alliteration in both the game title and description. Hats off to you all around!

Submitted

Wow this was a lot of fun. I got the  bad ending on purpose and I was glad friend ended up ok, if pissed. : D

Submitted(+1)

This was a lot of fun, although the splorping jelly sounds hit me in a way like how I suspect most people are hit by the word “moist.” But the gameplay was good and it didn’t get too challenging even with how quickly the pieces drop, and the music and characters are super cute.

Submitted(+1)

This is my favorite game of the jam, by a long shot.

Submitted (1 edit) (+2)

What an excellent little block-dropper.  It manages to get around all the usual problems of physics-based tetrises (PBTs):

  • In most PBTs, you need to play as straight-edged as possible, and if a piece goes diagonal, it becomes a long-lasting major problem.  In SSSS, this is still sometimes a problem, but it's not avoidable, because the squishy pieces and leftover goop mean that pieces just go diagonal all the time whether you like it or not.  However, dealing with the mess is a lot easier because the pieces give you so much wiggle room.
  • In most PBTs, the impossibility of perfect rigid-body simulation means that often it's a strategy to just slam pieces down on top as hard as possible, hoping to compress the pieces on the bottom enough to clear a line.  In this game the gradual compression is a feature, not a bug.  That said, there isn't even a way to slam pieces down.

In addition, there is an extra challenge that this game introduces:

  • You can't simply clear lines, you also have to drain the leftover goop!  The liquid drains out of the lower corners, so if you have pieces blocking the corners, you can end up with jelly build-up in the middle of the board, which makes stacking a little more difficult, and can dilute your piece density, making compression line clears less likely.

I do wonder how the line clear detection works.  Most PBTs do this by checking the density of discrete regions on the board of height 1, and most mark what those areas are on the side of the board, so you can see if you're satisfying one or if your density is regrettably split between two regions.  This game doesn't have those markings, so I'm not sure how the line clearing works, but I have a suspicion that it's counting square-centers in the regions rather than density or area covered (which mean the same thing in rigid-body simuations, but not when the pieces are squishy like this).  This is also evidenced by the fact that unlike most PBTs I've played, SSSS doesn't slice pieces at arbitrary angles; it leaves behind remnants that are made of full squares.

(I talk about "most" physics-based tetrises as though I've played a lot but actually I've only played Butsuris and Not Tetris.)

As for the presentation of the game, the graphics are plain but fitting; the pieces are especially well-rendered.  The sounds of the pieces moving around are very satisfying, and the characters are adorable.  I didn't think I had a squishy objects kink but this game is making me rethink that.

If I have a complaint, it's a complaint which is secretly a compliment: I want more!  I want harder modes, modes with larger boards and pieces!

In summary, this game is extremely fun for a tetris fiend like me, and I'll probably be continuing to play it for days if not weeks if not months.

Developer(+1)

thank you lots! i'm glad you enjoyed the squishy things and how they play

as for how line clear works, i knew i wanted to make it so pieces only clear their individual squares. i got this idea from butsuris actually (still wild to me you know what it is by the way), having residue be polyominoes instead of arbitrary shapes felt easier both to play and to code. and because of that, i made is so that instead of checking discrete sectors for how full they are, the game instead just keeps track of the center position of each of those blocks, and if enough of them are close enough vertically then they must be lined up and clear. this allows lines to be cleared anywhere, but would make it hard to implement some kind of "fullness" indicator... maybe i can come up with something later on for a full release?

speaking of full release, there were a few ideas to expand on the game that ultimately didn't make it, like a loose campaign to unlock new piece colours, an endless mode, maybe a puzzle mode too where line clears are disabled to give the true softbody tetris animation experience... maybe not much in terms of bigger board though because ouch my framerate lmfao, but hopefully that's something to look forward to

Submitted (1 edit) (+2)

Oh so the line clears aren't locked to discrete areas, that's nice to know.  I don't think you really need a fullness indicator if that's the case.  After suggesting larger boards I was playing it some more and noticed my framerate did start chugging when the board was really full so yeah, I don't think it can really get bigger.  I've also noticed a couple fairly minor issues, neither of which significantly hampers the enjoyment really:

  • When holding down to accelerate a piece, if the piece touches the wall it goes dark and you lose control.
  • Rarely a pressure eruption will launch a piece into the death detection area and cause a game over.  If this isn't intentional, you could fix it by only game overing if the piece spawn is blocked for an extended length of time.  That would delay game overs in the normal case though, so it might not be worth it.

Oh and also.  My cousin walked in on me when I was playing this game, and said "That character looks kind of familiar," and I said "That's odd, I'm pretty sure they're both original characters," and he said "I think that's the avatar for a tetris youtuber."  So yeah, I guess you're famous.

Developer

hmm, I guess i could fix those two things, the former would be a different collision check to make sure it collides with something that's specifically not the edge of the playfield, and the other has been suggested a few times, i suppose it's fair to let pieces settle a bit and I don't mind making the game a little extra forgiving if it means it's less frustrating. though i'll probably do that after the jam as a quick update

also yeah while the face of my youtube channel is another sona of mine, she does share the same species therefore headshape and stuff as gabby does, and also i've put violet in a couple thumbnails recently of some arcade recordings. guess that means the both of you are into tetris then, huh? tell him i said hi!

Submitted(+1)

This game feels really good to play. And the squish jelly sounds are a perfect fit. It’s very fun and made me smile, very good game.

Submitted(+1)

Pretty fun game! Very good sloppy sounds! The only thing I’d say is that the pieces move down really fast for someone who is very bad at tetris games like this.

Submitted(+1)

The sound design in this is AWESOME. I love squishy noises. Also the title theme is a bop and I before I got to play, I was jamming.

Gameplay is great! It's hard not to compare to say, Sandtris, but I like that you took pages from their book- in that the exact squares didn't seem to have to be in the exact spot. It's also very forgiving about rotating, which is very fun for reasons that aren't optimal to gameplay, hahaha.
I do wish there was more visual area and room to rotate blocks above the cuttoff line. Perhaps if the container had a red line with just a simple "CAUTION" label, and the hood that drops blocks is higher up from the gameplay area.  

I feel like this is one of the most complete feeling games of the jam that I've played. Still, if you added more, I'd play it. And if you made more games with squishy themes and with this quality, I'd also play them!

There was some slowdown/lag when there was a lot of jelly trapped above the bottom vents for me. I wager that the jelly being there is meant to be some level of difficulty/fun/chaos, still. Figure it's worth mentioning.

Developer(+1)

thank you, glad you liked the sound and the squishy!

the way the game checks for the lose condition is not with a cutoff height but rather by checking if something is in the area where the next block would spawn (which is in the hood funnel thing), so if i were to give more visual room it would also show the pieces snap into existence and kinda break the illusion that they're falling from somewhere. that said the pieces are so big compared to the field anyway that maybe checking for a piece landing above a certain height could have been a better idea, because then i could have done what you suggested... something to think about if i come back to this i guess

also about the lag yeahhh i know it gets real bad when a lot of liquid jelly spawns but that's on me for having like over a hundred particles all colliding with one another lmao, I didn't know how to do it any better without doing something super complicated that would have taken several days to figure out and might have put me on an even tighter time limit for all of the sound and spritework stuff. until i have time to figure out proper fluid sim on compute shaders that's gonna be all i can do

i have had ideas to do more with this game that i had to cut back from the jam version though so there's a good chance i come back on this to add all this stuff, so that'll be an occasion to fix this stuff too

Submitted(+1)

Hell yeah, softbody physics! This is probably a real blast to play on stream with a bunch of people, haha. Loved the little sprited-up characters as well, and the way this is super horny without being, you know, obviously horny.

I noticed some slight lag and a little jankiness, but nothing that actually got in the way of gameplay, which is an achievement given Godot physics. Good job!

Developer(+1)

thanks a lot! i'm glad the horny is coming through to some people, because me going for stealth got a few people telling me basically "why is this in strawberry jam", either because they find the game in the submissions and expected something more obvious about its kinks i guess, or because they had no idea and then realise this was in the jam and go "wait this is horny???"

Host(+2)

i have been secretly looking forward to this all month.  chef kiss.  this is so ridiculous as a game but putting the drains on the sides and making pieces block them is a stroke of genius that gives me a more tangible and urgent goal than "just jam them all in there".  although i do also enjoy just jamming them all in there.

i could totally get 133 lines but i think ash is waiting on me so i'll just have to play some more later

Developer

thank you so much! glad you enjoyed

just so you know how much time to set aside, a gallon completion usually seems to take about 20ish minutes

Submitted(+1)

This is what I'd call satisfying. They squishy sounds and the soft body physics blend perfectly with the music and the gameplay. Enjoyed it a lot.

Submitted(+1)

I am a bit of a Tetris gamer, so I do appreciate another spin on the idea. I will say outright that this has, so far, been the game that I most wanted to go back to and play. Clearing the hardest difficulty was more satisfying to me than one of many Tetris 99 victories. While the mechanics of this game are a little arcane, there is a bit of method to the madness that makes it functional, although still reliant on the will of the physics to ensure your victory.

I am immediately impressed by this game’s existence because of how easy it is to make a physics-based Tetris game completely nonfunctional. (See deliberately bad examples like “Hell Tetris”). The game is generous in clearing lines at the bottom with a bunch of squished blocks, though not so much when on top of a large stack of gel. From what I understand, each piece will try to “settle” to the rotation it was initially placed, though when multiple pieces try to settle, it leads to chaotic results that cannot be reasonably affected. In many cases, the best strategy is to wait out placing a piece as long as possible and hope that all the pieces settle properly.

The gel mechanic is the jankiest part of the game due to the reliance on going towards the corner vents. The problem is that square blocks, whether 2x2 or 1x1, will also try to “settle” even when there is no logical reason for them to. This means that a square block stuck in a vent will often vibrate and make it impossible to get gel into the vents without squishing it until it finally line clears. Depending on the positioning of the blocks, there are multiple game states where you cannot win, and luck is a large factor compared to normal Tetris.

I would ultimately say it’s an enjoyable experience for the three game modes it has, and I do enjoy the squishiness of it all, but I wouldn’t say it is especially erotic.

Developer(+1)

thanks for the detailed feedback! i didn't intend for pieces to try to keep their orientation when they are placed, they do try to keep their shape but that takes into account the current angle of the piece. i have had weird flings happen occasionally though to be completely honest i have no idea where to start debugging this

the liquid jelly getting in the way is also intentional, because honestly without it the game would be quite trivial to the point where you could just afk and let blocks place themselves forever. there is some strategy while your board is low to make sure your line clears give residue in the middle and not on the sides so that you can sweep the jelly out after, but i do recognise that due to the board being narrow it's hard to keep your stack perfectly clean for long, so you're forced to be in situations with your drains clogged, which if it happens after a big clear means you have to somehow get your pieces down through a couple rows high of jelly

as for the game not being very erotic i mean i did aim for being stealthy on a kinda specific kink so if anything that's doing its job lol

Submitted(+1)

I had a huge smile on my face the entire time I was playing. The number of times I tried shoving pieces into spaces they definitely shouldn't fit, followed by multiple lines suddenly bursting into liquid was so satisfying.

Submitted(+1)

Oh, I absolutely love this one from a gameplay perspective. I've seen "tetris with physics" before, but adding soft body physics takes it to a new level, as well as the whole fluid mechanics! The graphics and sound are really good, too.

Submitted(+1)

The soft Tetris pieces are definitely fun to play with and I love the accompanying squishing noises! The music is also a great match. 

It can be a little unclear what is considered a line, perhaps having some sort of light on the side of each row that shows how much the game thinks it's been filled could help?

It's neat how the characters move and react to things. Having them be stylistically distinct from the jelly Tetris gives the game an interesting mix of aesthetics, but I think the surrounding machinery could benefit from having some cartoony shading or elements to match the characters.

Making a functional and satisfying game with funny physics in a limited time is quite a hard task. Great job on bringing your wild idea to life!

Developer(+1)

thank you! i'm glad you liked how it plays

the thing with the way i implemented line clears in this is that there's no exact row positions, it just checks for 6 or more blocks that are within some threshold vertically and then clears that when it finds them, so implementing an indicator of how close to clearing a "row" is would have to be a continuous thing too... not impossible but I didn't have time to figure it out

as for the aesthetics i thought about making everything 3d but honestly this is like my second time doing 3d graphics so i wasn't confident enough to learn to model and animate the characters in 3d on top of everything else... but yeah maybe i could have tried to instead make the 3d stuff fit the cartoony artstyle of the characters more, you're right on that

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

I've seen videos of soft body tetris simulations which look quite cool, it's even cooler to play something like it! The block stacking aspect is engaging and it's a joy to see the little squishy blocks spinning and sliding around. I will say I found myself using the rotations almost exclusively, with very little directional movement, but that may have been the intended way so I can't speak for or against it.

Sometimes a block would get stuck in a weird position due to my own bad planning, but it was super satisfying when it finally registered and two lines would clear up at once, so in a way it's a very forgiving game. I also love the little blushing and spiral eyes the character in the jar gets as it fills up, it's straight up adorable!

Kink-wise it feels like it appeals to people who like slimy stuff, and being submerged in fluids which is not on the top of my list, but is definitely on my list somewhere, so I think I get what kind of appeal it went for, and it captured it in a way that's more stealthy than most.

Also, Maybe I'm unaware on the nuances of making this sort of soft body physics work, but it feels really impressive to make something that works well with them since it can be a pain to direct them to do what you want them to, props for making it work as the main gameplay element!

Solid game, short and sweet, and cute characters, love it ^^

Developer (2 edits) (+1)

thank you! definitely took some tweaking to get the physics to feel right for sure. when it comes to using rotations more than directional movement i think it's mostly a consequence of the playfield being relatively narrow, so you don't have to slide pieces around nearly as much

as for kink when i got this idea i thought "surely someone's into this right??" then as i made the game i realised hi i'm someone i like squishy things lmao

Submitted(+1)

Cool to see soft body tetris as a real game. Wasn't really that horny to me, i guess the dragon blushes when shes covered with slime and the slime noises could be horny, so ill give it a high kink score and low horny score.  I do like how it feels mostly like easy tetris which isn't a bad thing if you just want to relax to a puzzle game.

Developer

thanks! and yeah i was definitely going for stealth and kink there more than horny, so i'm glad you think it checks out

and also yeah the game was meant to be pretty forgiving, i wanted to make something not only for tetris grandmasters but rather aimed more at casual fun, so again i'm glad it lines up with what you said

Submitted(+3)

I had alot of fun with this one. 

The gameplay idea is very unique, and pretty genuis! The art was really nice, and the characters are really fun.

Im happy that theres a few options for making the game go on longer, cause I wanted to have a reason to play it a bit more.

Developer(+1)

thanks a lot! glad you enjoyed

there's a few things that didn't make it into the jam, like a loose campaign sort of mode to unlock more piece colours, or a puzzle mode for the true softbody tetris animation experience, but maybe we'll come back to the idea someday and add those in, who knows