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Loop Expander's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #2441 | 3.618 | 3.618 |
| Enjoyment | #4609 | 2.735 | 2.735 |
| Audio | #4724 | 2.588 | 2.588 |
| Narrative | #8042 | 1.500 | 1.500 |
| Artwork | #8640 | 1.618 | 1.618 |
Ranked from 34 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?
An actual 2D loop on which the player moves and which the player expands
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
By Rafael Hernández Pereira
During GMTK 2025 Game Jam
In 20 hours net (4 days a 5 hours)
All game logic during Game Jam
Using
- Unity
- CurvySpline asset
- Own sounds
- Own graphics design
- Some generic own C# libraries
(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
Rafael
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Comments
Nice game with excellent incorporation of the theme. Good job.
Thank you for the nice feedback!
Got stuck after expanding the loop a bit, couldn’t catch the blue balls anymore. Guess it’s skill issue xD Solid entry though! Great job!
Thx for feedback.
The sounds effects of collecting the blues and expanding the loop are very satisfying. It stopped collecting blues after I expanded the loop a few times though. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not.
Thank you for the feedback. Happy you like the sound effects.
Yes, it’s a bug that happened late in development and I could not find.
Interesting game concept! A rather simplistic gameplay loop though (pun indeed intended), and it seems blue dots gravitate towards you less the larger your loop gets and then the progression slows to a crawl (at around size 80-90). I can see the potential though, bet if ya had more than just those mere 20 hours you'd have been able to tackle all these.
Thank you for your feedback!
Yes. The blue movement has a a bug/ not right balance, I could not find.
This is a very cool idea, and could be fun as a full game, but its a bit unclear what the purpose of expanding is at the moment. The sfx and splines work very well though!
Thank you!!!
Good point. One I always struggle with. What is the purpose? ... I was just thinking of expanding for high score in the game jam. But there must be more for a full game, I agree.
Today I might not be able to play your game. I am here at a Mac. My PC is at home.I played, enjoyed and rated.Yeah it would be really cool to see mechanics like encapsulating objectives in the loop to increase blue spawns or gain defence against other types of pickups.
Don’t worry if you can’t play my game today, but if you get a chance another time I’d greatly appreciate it!
I really like this game! Something about the sound effects were so pleasant and pleasing to hear! I love the simplicity of the game and the creativity! There was a point where the balls could not be collected anymore, but I saw you mentioned that on your page. It would nice to see like other balls are maybe things that could shrink the loop, etc. Great game!
Thank you for your feedback!!! Happy to hear you liked it.
Yes, there is a bug which I could not fix about no collection of blue in further zoom out.
Thx for the ideas for expansion (other balls I did not think about, but that's good: positive and negative balls) and shrinking.
Today I might not be able to play your game. I am here at a Mac. My PC is at home.Played your game, I thought "wow, great art style and music and story telling", rated it.You play as a circle going around a loop. You click to expand and collect blue circles which in-turn allows you to click and expand further. Not much other guidance or goal other than that. Not really very challenging either. Did do one run where nothing spawned and so I was just stuck the entire time. Very satisfying sound when you collect a blue circle. :)
Thank you for your feedback!
This is a jam game, created within 4 days, while having other obligations. I.e. I only was able to put about 20ish hours in. This is not a finished game.
But during game jam time I was not able to create a perfect balancing. 1. Balancing multiple parameters (scaling, speed, location of creation, …) is difficult as they depend on each other 2. I had several late bugs, which needed my attention.
Sime but very efficient!
Thx!
Very cool idea and implementation! I like the simplicity of it and the contemplative vibe it gives. I couldn't expand past a certain point, though. I could be wrong, but I think the more we expand, the weaker our gravity force gets?
Thank you for the feedback! Happy you felt it was contemplative.
Yes, the force reduces, which is a bug in the scaling I was not able to fix, it was intended to reduce less.
Really cool!
The loop felt satisfying and the sounds were good!
I enjoyed looping around collecting the orbs.
Well done my friend! :D
Thank you for your feedback. Happy to read this!
This one didn't really feel too much like a game? Was the goal to just make the chord as long as possible? The concept is interesting though
Good point. It is not (yet) a game. More a game mechanics exploration. That's what I was able to do in restricted time (I only had part of the four days available).
But the initial goal is to expand as long as possible. Restricted by number of blue you are able to collect. These appear at "difficult" parts. BUT balancing in the jam version is just ... I am happy that there is any balancing, as I had some larger bugs towards the end.
Really creative idea, love this! Some of the other commenters used the word meditative and I totally agree. With some more consistent scaling as the loop gets larger I could see myself playing this for quite a while, nice job :D
Thank you for the feedback. Happy you as well think it is meditative.
I definitely have to adapt the scaling, as well as balance the whole thing (creation of blue, etc.).
Simple, but cool idea. It's fun to play around with the shapes - along with the sounds it creates an almost meditative atmosphere. Also nice how well the expansion of the loop works
Thank you for the feedback! Happy it feels meditative.
Damn this is so much fun! One of those things where you just want to keep playing with it purely for the tactile joy. A really creative and well executed concept as well. It seemed really simple to start but the loop can really take on some bizarre shapes once you get into it and that just adds another layer of satisfaction. The sounds design was really nice too, reminds me of picking up all the orbs in little big planet as a kid.
Such a cool and unique entry, thank you for making it!!
I liked this more than I initially expected. It felt almost like a Zen garden experience. I tried to make a pteradactyl shape, nice to have a canvas to play in.
Super creative idea, and I love this interpretation of theme. There's something really meditative about this, growing the loop and collecting blue balls. It's simple but it's surprisingly satisfying. I agree with some of the other players that a bit more refinement and polished but hey, it's a game jam. Incredible work!
Thank you for your kind words!
Happy you say it is meditative.
Yes, it needs polish/ balancing/ removing bugs.
really joyfully designed game; with some refinement and tlc i could see this being a really good mobile game! i managed to get into the thousands before i became far too fast to collect blue.
it's so loud though!
Thank you for the feedback!
Is it loud? Interesting, neither on my Mac, iPad, not PC it feels louder than others. I will check.
at first, i was shocked by the sounds and they did ring very loudly towards me - at least through my soundsystem! audio settings and sliders would 100% fix this though tbh
On my Windows download version I only ever collected enough blue to reach a maximum length of about 20... then I played the web version and reached 760! It was weirdly satisfying to watch the loop grow, though I have no idea how to control where it expands. Something strangely satisfying about the gameplay and a cool interpretation of the theme!
Thank you! Happy you say it was satisfying to watch the loop grow and the gameplay.
Strange about the Windows version. On my Win 11 it works without issues. It is possible to reach several thousand points.
But once the zooming out is too big, then collision detection and visual issues appear. But fixing them would require a complete refactoring to change the way the zooming is done.
I was using WIndows 11 too, but it might be something about me playing on 1440x3440? The tutorial screen at the start was cropped as a result, maybe it messed with some stuff internally too?
Interesting concept. I feel like a few QoL features would've made it easier to "live with" some bugs. When trying to make a bigger circle, I had to wait quite a long time until something happened for me to do. A possbile speedup button might've helped. But "ironing out the wrinkles" was also my favourite part of it :D
And I felt like decreasing could make this into an interesting morphing game where you might have to "sacrifice" size to get some points inside the circle.
Thank you!
An happy you liked the ironing out wrinkles. That's as well my favorite part, and just evolved during iterative self-playing. The idea of sacrifizing size to get inside blue is good, I will think about it.
I had to squeeze development in between various events/ obligations over the 4 days. And I had some unexpected behavior/ difficult to find bugs. So, I agree, there are many things that I have to adapt. The following is more for me as notes.
- One thing that did not work, even I thought the code was correct was the scaling of the speed and distance the blue move/ get towards the player. It is too slow.
- Not having intersections is not a trivial algorithm. I have implemented a simple brute force one, which has a few border cases. But I think, all wrinkles can be ironed out and there should not be any creating 0 or infinite points, which lead to crashes.
- The game is only roughly balanced. As there are so many parameters which interact and one change might damage another. For the game jam I am happy that it works. Just 2 hours before deadline it did not.
Very Creative! Was fun and Satisfying!
Thank you!
Happy you say these words! Creative, fun and satisfying sounds great.