Thanks for the feedback, I very much appreciate it. What part was particularly confusing? Where to click? The different "frames"? The amount-of-dots mechanic? The scaling pixels? Something else?
Nice stuff, really liked the zoom idea, somewhat reminded me of Gorogoa, cute drawings too.
I think the zoom direction was a little fidgety, it might have been better to do click-to-zoom (+click-to-zoom-out) instead of pitch / mousewheel, so it would be more obvious when a "zoom choice" was happening.
I did brute-force the last number of the code, but I guess that's on me for ruining my own fun. As they say: "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game."
As this was a jam, I didn't attempt to create a perfect algorithm to determine the optimal solution, but I did figure out an optimization rule that helped me design the levels. In groups of 4 pixels that could be flipped together by the previous scale, it would be "economic" to flip them together if most of them need flipping, I.E. 3 or more.
Anyways, it is possible that I made a mistake and some of the levels could be solved using less pixels, (and in fact, one level intentionally wastes pixels), but because the game requires specific amounts of yellow pixels per scale, that would not count as a level solution.
Please send me / post a screenshot if you do find an extra optimal solution.
p.s. Later in development I did consider counting the pixels together instead of per-scale, to make it always about optimization, but wasn't sure about the change and didn't have enough time anyways.
I especially liked the idea of lining up the filled lines.
As for feedback:
I'd avoid the mixels (graphics with pixels of different sizes)
I think waiting for the player to choose a side negates tetris's inherent urgency, I'd find a gameplay mechanic that keeps the game going without waiting for a player's choice, such as moving between sides while the piece is dropping, or at least picking the side randomly for the players if they take more than 2 seconds to pick.
Edit: I see now that it does pick for the player after 10 seconds, but I think that's way too much time, and there's no indication for it
WebGL is a basic feature of browsers these days, it's definitely 100% safe and not malware. I am also using the same version of Firefox (but the 64bit one), if it keeps not working for you perhaps your graphics drivers need an update, or WebGL is disabled in your browser for some other reason, in any case I'd go to this URL to make sure WebGL2 is working properly:
The game is a web game, yes. That zip file isn't meant to be downloaded, you're supposed to click "Run Game" to play it in the browser.
I think I see the error you're getting, "Cannot create WebGL context, aborting", you're using Linux, correct? It looks like your computer doesn't support WebGL for some reason, which is required in order to run the game. You might want to try updating your browser and/or graphics drivers.
Solved it. Very nice game, figuring out the main rule was a fun challenge, and then applying said rule was also fun. I'd post a screenshot of the solution but I don't want to potentially spoil it for others.
I only finished 4 levels for now, might return later, but already I can say this is a super smart idea and amazingly polished for a one-man jam game. Well done!
Really nice game, I enjoyed it, great graphic design and overall polish. In the beginning it slightly reminded me of my own game, "Clority", but it ended up being very different.
Thanks! I very much appreciate the detailed answer. :)
It's always nice to get the validation that I'm not doing anything wrong. I hope the creator of the original game will feel the same way and won't get mad. Given that they open-sourced their code (which again, I didn't use), I think I can be optimistic.
Honest question - I'm currently working on a game heavily inspired by an existing game, it has similar mechanics but with some new twists, all new art and all new code, would that be considered a "ripoff"? I looked it up and legally game mechanics aren't copyrighted, but still, should that be considered unethical in some way? I think that building on existing ideas is fair game, but am I missing something? I am planning to give credit to the original game within the game itself, and link to it.
Great little thinky game, I enjoyed figuring out the mechanics. Would've liked a slightly more dramatic ending. Scanning QR codes was slightly tedious but no biggy.
I think this mechanic has potential, I'd pay for a full game with more "sub-mechanics" to figure out.
I had the same critical bug "Tulenväki Productions" described, so I played the post-jam version, I hope you didn't change anything other than fixing that game-breaking bug, because that would be unfair to the other jammers, rating-wise...
Anyways, presentation-wise, the game looks very good, much better than most jam games.
About the gameplay, as you mentioned it's somewhat similar to my game. It took me a while to figure out how the roll-each-heart-to-check-if-hit mechanic worked, and that the character in the middle of the screen is the opponent and its die-sides, after figuring those things out, I think it's pretty clever. One downside for me is that there really aren't any choices to make accept for the initial choice of "die-sides". I think the game could be more interesting if you could see the upcoming opponent in advance, and build a die specifically to counter that opponent. Also it probably would be an improvement if there were any choices to make during combat.
From a UX perspective, the game is way more communicative than mine, cudos for designing it in a way to that helps intuitively understand what was happening. I was too bogged down in getting the core mechanic to function that I never got around to working on that, but it's super important.
Good stuff! finished it. I'm surprised someone actually found a solid puzzle game idea for this theme. Presentation is nice too, getting some Baba is You vibes with these wobbly lines. :)
Finally finished it 100%. This is a great thinky puzzle, you've got some very clever ideas. I'd pay good money for a sequel or a similar out-of-the-box thinky game. Keep at it. :)
Great game, so far only got 42, but I'll keep trying. I love games that let players experiment to figure out what the rules are, and how mechanics work.
Only feedback I have is that I'd make the player's tile more graphically distinct from the other tiles.
Cool stuff, survived 10. Graphics and audio are very nice, seem quite polished. Gameplay was fun to figure out but started to feel a bit tedious later on.
Nah, I'm sure you're not dumb, it's a pretty confusing game, I just uploaded another version that might make the game more fair. By the way, if you get stuck you can watch the walkthrough video (it's 40 seconds) to figure out how to continue. Anyways, glad you found the idea interesting.
I'll probably work on a better version after the jam voting is done, I doubt I'll make a full game out of it, but I do want to polish things a little more. (and fix that silly ghost tree bug...)
Great feedback! I definitely agree, the interaction with the hose is very confusing and uncommunicative, I also saw the same confusion when I let my colleagues try the game at the office today... I'll probably release a better version after the jam voting is done. Anyways, I'm glad you liked the rest of it :)
