Play Left in Layers
Left in Layers's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio / Sound Design | #2 | 4.125 | 4.125 |
| Art Style / Visuals | #2 | 4.312 | 4.312 |
| Devlog | #2 | n/a | n/a |
| Overall | #3 | 3.938 | 3.938 |
| Theme | #11 | 3.875 | 3.875 |
| Gameplay / Fun / Engagement | #15 | 3.438 | 3.438 |
Ranked from 16 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?
You start with more than 30 minions, that are only saved once they reach a door. Until then, every mistake may cost you a few... or many. But no worries: Reset a region to try again.
The good news?
You cannot lose the game. But you can't save them all either.
Devlog Challenge?
Devlog link
https://sherlocklini.itch.io/leftinlayers/devlog/1456529/devlog-left-in-layers
Easter Egg Challenge?
Easter Eggs
The Easter Egg
You will find some minions playing ONU, their favorite game. They have a little conversation about playing ONU. If you finish the game without any skipping you will notice that the final text hints to this Easter egg scene.
How to find it:
Within the first 'actual' level of the game (after the tutorial), go to the left. You might think there is a wall...did you try jumping? Going left is an easter egg itself, while the title hints to it already (LEFT in layers...).
Game Engine?
Game Engine / Tools (Other)?
Aseprite, Inkscape, Audacity
Self-made & used stuff?
Have you joined a game jam before?
Roughly how much time did you spend developing? (in hours)
~30
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Comments
Great idea and visuals!
Could have used more testing and polishing though. Displaying how many minions you have of each would be very helpful. I quickly had only one red minion which made nearly every puzzle impossible and I guess I would have had to restart the whole game. Sometimes blocks got weirdly stuck, like I had two blue minions trying to push a blue block into a hole in a blue path but they just got stuck with the block half in the hole and the minions pushing it against the side of the hole preventing it from falling down further.
Often I didn't really know what I was supposed to do. Maybe try to keep an equal balance of the minion number and balance how many and which I sacrifice. I had a lot of yellow minions when I gave up and only two blue and one red so maybe I messed up somewhere early. This is a bit like a strategy game where an early decision or mistake can give you huge trouble much later and fixing it would require loading a savegame from many hours ago and replaying half the playthrough...
With this "sacrificing them equally" idea and a counter per kind it would be interesting to try again. Just like learning something new in a strategy game and applying it in the next playthrough or next set up of whatever.
Great aesthetic, that shadows and bright colored minions look great together. The music/sounds also fit perfectly!
I like the concept of the puzzles – Different minions in different layers, but had a little trouble with the crates. I wasn’t sure when I was supposed to be moving them vs. the minions – It seems they interacted with like-color backgrounds but then also the player and minions?
Maybe you could pay out minions more slowly and then interact as they were going? I had fun playing, but it felt like my control was mostly limited to the order I released them.
Really cool. Had a great time playing this one and figuring how best to play the blocks and the visuals and audio fit the concept very well. Minions had a very cute vibe about them that made me want to help them, but were nonchalant enough I did not feel too bad if some got left behind.
Something about the jump animation felt a tiny bit off at first, though it was not something I thought about much while playing. I think just having some arms stick out slightly during the jump might help. Of course, I hear you made this quickly, and probably did not have time to over analyze the jump animation :)
Making this in roughly 30 hours is crazy impressive with how well done this game is!
I love the limo aesthetic so much and the presentation in general from the shaky text effect to the fact you have a fully fledged out tutorial instead of just a menu or prompt explaining the controls, it genuinely feels like a game you would buy from steam, incredible work there.
This isnt a huge negative by any means but in the first room of the tutorial after dying I ran forward immediately, and got the box stuck on my head, which then spawned in the left hand corner which I was unable to move it from, restarting the level with R may have fixed this problem but that jump is actually before the tutorial tells you about it so I did refresh the page to restart the game.
The puzzles are a simple concept, with just mainly having to press the arrows at the right time, which makes it real easy to pick up but you still did a great job at making me have to think.
I don't know what else to say this was actually just great and blew my expectations out of the water, even when puzzle games are not really my thing.
Thank you so much!
Yeah, I struggled with the physica of the game, but I learned a lot. Glad you tried again after this weird bug and liked it still!
The minion voices are soooo cute!!! Seriously, I had to start this feedback by praising that sound effect, because it turned out so cute and fits them absolutely perfectly. Every single variation. No exceptions.
This Limbo-style aesthetic with dark tones is one of my all-time favorites in games, and I really, really loved the visuals here. On top of that, the colors of the minions and their respective platforms break that gloomy harmony in a way that doesn’t feel weird at all—instead, it feels totally intentional and cohesive. Such a great use of color to convey the atmosphere and guide the player’s focus to the key gameplay elements.
The easter egg was really cool! Honestly, I would love to play Uno with the minions—the match looked so fun in that moment. I actually stopped for a few seconds just watching the dialogue and imagining how they were playing.
I also have to say the music fits the atmosphere perfectly. It brings such a pleasant vibe that, combined with the core puzzle mechanics, makes the whole experience really memorable. You’re amazing at making puzzle games—I’ve been learning a lot just by observing your work, since it’s a genre I personally struggle with.
Even with all these amazing points, there were only two things that had a slight negative impact on the experience—but just to be clear, nothing major at all! They’re more like small tweaks that could make your game even better.
The first one is the jump. It’s a bit hard to explain exactly why, but it felt just a little too short. I assume that was intentional to prevent reaching unintended areas, but even so, I feel like it could be slightly longer or smoother. As it is now, it feels just a tiny bit abrupt.
The second point is the overall physics collision of the minions. I saw that others already mentioned this, and that it was your first time working with this kind of physics system. So I have to say: for a first attempt, you did an AMAZING job—seriously, be proud of that! If this is what you achieved on your first try, I can only imagine how far you’ll go once you dive deeper into this system.
And by the way… did I mention the minion voices are SOOO CUTE??? Hahaha, they’re REALLY, REALLY CUTE!!!
Amazing work as always! Another fantastic puzzle game. Keep it up, and best of luck in the jam!
Thank yoi soo so much for this detailed feedback. I really appreciate it! It was very fun recording all the sounds, glad you liked them, as well as the easter egg! I'm still struggling with player physics and all those things, but this is what a jam is for, right? I know now what is not the best and hopefully will be able to avoid certain things in the future:D
Thanks again and good luck to you as well! :)
Love the art style, it creates a nice Limbo aesthetic and also makes it very clear and readable with the different colors!
The little voices are really cute, the music fits perfectly with the mood, and the puzzles are nice and forgiving, it was nice trying out new paths in each level.
What bothered me a little are the physics, they had a hard time working sometimes 🤣
Other than that the game is great, with a good theme implementation and gameplay loop!
(Also the timescale multiplier is such a nice QOL addition!)
And lastly, is that THE UNIVERSAL TRANSITION SHADER ?! I RECOGNIZE THOSE SQUARE PATTERNS 😂
Many thanks for your feedback!
Yep. Need to improve my physics skills... :D
Glad you like it anyways! And yes; It IS the unibersal transition shader ;DD
I like the wobble walk :-). overall very nice presentation, use of color, tutorialization/cold open, charming voice acting. the collision/pushing on some of the puzzles seemed a bit finnicky but a really well done jam entry
Many thanks!
First time I actually used this kind of physics in game... did not work the best :D Glad you liked it though :)
Great style choice and fun idea with the separate collision layers. My favourite was the level with the platform that moves up and down, requiring you to time each color at a separate time. The physics were a little weird sometimes though. I even send a cube flying at light speed somehow... At a certain time, I didn't have any red guys left so I had to either fully restart, or keep playing without that color, which was a bit of a harsh punishment for failing an early level. I really liked the game though, and gotta say, top-notch voice acting!
Thank you!
Yeah. the collision system was new too me :D
I think tge problem of losing minions is that: If you step through the door too early and next checkpoint is activated, while some minions still move, the ones that did not cross yet are lost...I now know that this option was not the best.
That’s very stylish! I really liked the atmosphere!! I was also genuinely impressed by the text style 😄 The visuals overall feel very clean and polished.
The audio part is great too. Good music and solid SFX. But the minion sounds…😆 I was laughing the whole time. Did you record them yourselve or find them somewhere? I actually played the game together with friends and we all enjoyed those sounds a lot.
For me, the gameplay felt a bit too simple. Most levels weren’t very challenging and had quite a similar structure, so after a while it felt like you could just activate things without needing to think too much. I’d personally love to see more variation or mechanics that require a bit more strategy.
I also ran into a few small bugs. Sometimes minions of different colors seemed to collide with obstacles they probably shouldn’t interact with. I know this kind of layering / interaction logic can be tricky to implement during a jam, but I just wanted to mention it.
One more question, about the crates. There are black crates (which I assume are meant for the player), and colored ones. Is the player supposed to be able to interact with the colored crates as well, or only with the black ones?
Overall, this is a very stylish and polished entry.
Good job!
Many thanks for the feedback!
Haha. yes the minions are actually voiced by myself :)
if you like hearing them: Try finding the easter 🥚 :D
I intended the levels to be veeery easy because it is not about actually making it to the next level, but making it with as many minions as possible. You can save at least 27 minions in total (maybe more if I missed some).
For the bugs: These were actually the ones that drove me crazy ^^ I am sorry they occurred when you played:/
For thr crates: The player and also fhe minions are actually supposed to collide with any crate. My idea was that minions can help you reaching a crate (by pushing it down of their layer for instance) and then the player can use it to save e.g. other minions etc. :)
I think there are sooo many possibilities of creating much more advanced levels and you're totally right that for now they can feel repetitive. However, there is only one 'perfect' solution for the game and if you skip through entirely there will be a bad ending as well :D
Wow this was such a fun little game!! I am not lying I was loughing looking at the minions and hearing those sounds, it was really a fun game. The puzzle elements were quite unique and hard, I loved the idea and the art + the audio really integrated it all in. SUper fun concept and again, the sounds made me laugh so hard! Congrats on the game!
Many thanks!! Glad you liked it.
I saved 15 minions. Devlog is so well-written.
Nice!!
Haha, sorry about that. Currently working on the devlog. Will provide the full godot project as well :)
i like the art and everything - but playing it and having to read and learn all these mechanics sort of lost me. i think you need to force the player to learn the mechanic before you assume the player knows what the mechanic is.
if i cant figure it out, most people wont, i’ve been gaming for 35 years.
Many thanks for the feedback.
May I ask: What actually was hard to understand?
You can only walk/jump and hit buttons within this game...the main thing you actually need to learn is to get past a door and how to open it in the first place (letting a minion of each color cross it) :D So what "mechanic" you mean?
I assume you did not play that many puzzle games so far? Usually puzzle paltformers are much less forgiving when it comes to not knowing or mastering a mechanic :D
Or did you skip the tutorial? I actually 'force' thr player to learn stuff here (will jump into spikes -> respawn, get stuck -> need to reset, closed door -> need to activate minions etc...Generally interested what you would like to see or do here to improve the tutorial part!
I'll be honest here. It's pretty late, and I was supposed to finish jamming a while ago, but then I thought "just one more". I was not in a headspace to play a puzzle game, so I was pretty glad, that yours was pretty forgiving. Of course forgiveness went out of the window, when at the end the game goes "you could've saved at least this many more". We'll... I guess that's some points for encouraging replayability :)
This is also a nice play on the theme. You can't save them all, but you are encouraged to do better. For a game with graphics this dark, it's an optimistic message.
The game looks and sounds nice. The art has a nice style (reminded me of Limbo a bit), and the sounds the squares make were appropriately cute.
As for the gameplay. I liked the "forgiving puzzle game" thing. It would be nice if more games did this- to pass the puzzle you have to be this good, but feel free to look for the perfect solution if you feel like it. The thing I liked less was platforming. This was not a big deal- the game didn't require too much precision, but the jump was a bit too fast for me. I'd go with slower falling speed, with more control. It would make the parts where you nudge the boxes that are bit higher than you easier.
Over all- I enjoyed this a lot, and it's pretty likely I'll try to beat my score!
Many thanks for this honest review!
Platforming on this one can get quite tricky. I decided to go for using less of platforming because this usually is something people tend to 'hate' :D But yes. thr mechanic itself needsaome improvement.
I am glad you liked the game anyways! :)