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Great job simplifying and implementing this game in the short time allotted. Considering you implemented 17 levels, you probably also had a nice workflow going, which is impressive.

Interesting puzzle concept. I wouldn't call it a Möbius strip because there's often more or less than one half-twist in the loop. It's more like Sokoban with two layers, which is still an interesting concept to explore. I don't like that I can't see the whole map at once, so there were several moments where I discovered a critical piece only after walking around aimlessly for a bit. I didn't enjoy having to search the map just to see what I'm working with. A button to look at the other side would have gone a long way. Sometimes I ran into the solution on accident just by wandering around, so I felt like I didn't earn the win, and simultaneously encouraged me to not think too hard on subsequent levels because that seemed to work. The other thing that isn't indicated is where the loop twists, i.e. where when you cross a boundary the piece that goes across flips over instead of staying in the same orientation. I wish I could see that somehow, because at the moment I have to just keep it in my head, which is just a fast track to me forgetting entirely and shutting down.

While a lack of undo does make me plan a bit more carefully, sometimes my execution isn't perfect and those cases do warrant an undo button in my opinion, especially at the end of a long sequence of moves.

I'm curious why you chose to limit twisting only to the right. Was it because it forces the player to consider the state of the whole loop rather than just a local area?

The final level is larger than the rest and I can see more of it twisting. The animation for this is a little confusing, because the two twisting segments sometimes twist in different directions, which causes my physical intuition (that I'm just twisting and splicing the segment nearest to me) to break down a bit. Mathematically the result is the same, but I think there's something to be said about channeling the player's spatial intuition to encourage more interesting insights.

I feel like as the levels got harder, the difficulty was coming from obfuscation more so than from interesting insights about the properties of the space. Maybe it's telling that I solved the final level on accident, while simply exhaustively searching the space.

Ultimately I don't feel particularly smart for having cleared all the levels. I would have preferred fewer, smaller levels with a stronger focus on fewer ideas. I really liked the idea of tucking away a cube on the other layer, which interrupts my normal intuition about a 2D space. I also liked having to think about the half-twist points, though it was hard to grasp this at first. In particular I had trouble remembering that a change I made on the right would change the topology of the left, but this is critical for solving some of the puzzles. Maybe because of the segmented way the map is laid out, it's not obvious that the half-twist points are going to be preserved when you loop around. Maybe extending the display (like how in the last level you can see that the twist is affecting more than just a single segment) would help with this confusion.

Sorry I don't have the energy to write a shorter post.

That game sounds fun! Do you remember what it was called?

Fun! On the third lap I really started to lock in; don't think I bumped into a single wall the whole lap. Wish I could see my lap times.

Super impressed that you basically designed the same level twice. I thought it might be hard to tell what I was supposed to do, because there's no obvious indicator as to what was in the past and what is in the present. But it was always pretty obvious based on the context and I usually guessed correctly how the bubble would change the environment. So great job communicating the intended path while also not being too obvious about it.

I did have an unlucky moment where I turned on the bubble and immediately died because I happened to be standing in the same space as a shadow person, and I couldn't see it until it was too late. That's a tricky design problem to solve I suppose. But anyway it didn't sting too much because I knew about the shortcut already. Very clever design on the shortcut, since you can only use it once you go the normal path once. Next time I went to that area with the shadow people, I made sure to use the bubble quickly. That was scary because I caught a glimpse of them standing very close to me but luckily I turned off the bubble before they could even move. lol

The characters and architecture make me very curious about the world. I want to see more of it!

I like that your game fits the theme in multiple ways. At the same time, I think the stronger mechanic is creating loop shapes on the board, and the screen wrapping doesn't really add much. If anything, the scrolling camera makes it hard to predict where the next piece is going to spawn. This means I can't pre-calculate my inputs, which inhibits my ability to build muscle memory over time. In normal Tetris this usually isn't a problem because pieces always spawn in the same place, in the same orientation.

On the other hand, I think copying the full roster of 4-block shapes from Tetris maybe adds too much complexity on top of the multiple colors. Since you have multiple colors, I think it's ok to tone down the complexity in other aspects so that the player can focus on building the shapes they want. As it stands, even with just two colors, it's too hard to execute on a strategy IMO.  I'd be very interested to see how this game would look with 3-block shapes, 2-block shapes, even single blocks, or only 2x2 boxes (like in Lumines), etc. Might be more manageable, and the player has some hope at improving, and maybe even build some chains?

Maybe a good reference point is Dr. Mario. In that game you have 2-block shapes, 3 distinct colors, and you have to make 4 in a row. That sounds super simple on paper, but it's complex enough to make the game a timeless classic. Compare that to your game which has 4-block shapes, 3 distinct colors, and you have to make a shape that is more complicated than 4 in a row.

Also IMO, if "loop" is the terminology we're using, I think it has to have a hole in the middle, whether that's a different color or empty space. This would add a type of friction that I think I like, because you have to be a bit more intentional about arranging your colors. It counters the strategy of grouping colors together, which seems to be kind of a natural thing for humans to do if you look across lots of different falling block games.

Very cool and inspiring idea, impressive implementation especially as a solo dev. Would love to see where you take it from here.

Love that, I think you made the right choice even if it meant deviating from the theme a bit. In the end you made an awesome game that celebrates whimsy and brightened my day and I don't mind at all that the theme got a bit lost

Won't lie, I clicked this game because of the hilarious thumbnail. And the game was hilarious as promised.

I basically held down Shift forever, next time could you please save my pinky and just make me run automatically

I liked the little variations in what people said each day, even though I was already running away to my next task when they said it I appreciated it, I promise

For the record I got a hole in one on day 8

The fruit stand was definitely bugged as people mentioned. The way I did it was I put the fruit in the "holes" on the bottom and then drag the orange "hole" back onto the stand, which makes no sense but it worked

What does Scringlo have against old people tho

So cute! My favorite moment was when I was thinking of a new pose to do, but I ran out of time and the picture was taken before I was ready! That was really funny!

The timer made me have to think fast. Loved the frantic feeling and the music reflects that really well (also very danceable and I enjoyed making my lil dude just jive for a bit). In the end it was really easy to put together varied poses that all look intentional, so great job on making it look and feel super good to play! And it felt very authentic to the purikura experience. My fav pose was when I crouched down and did a kamehameha.

If I played more than once it seems to show all of my poses, even those from previous sessions. Is that intended?

Also I didn't really understand loopability. What does that mean?

Took me a minute to realize I could zoom out on the map. It started out very zoomed in, so it was mostly water. Just figured it might change from day to day. Then it didn't change so I tried clicking around and figured it out.

I enjoyed reading the headlines y'all came up with. It's a fun bit of lore that this civilization seems to live on a ring world, which I guess explains why the map is vertical.

In the end I felt like I didn't really know how to synthesize the information I had into making any progress, so I just started randomly choosing headlines. I got a number at the end but I didn't have a sense of how good or bad it was. Maybe a quick sentence summarizing each faction's opinion of my newspaper would help with that?

On paper I like this idea, I would love to role play as an editor of a major global (ringal?) news network but with the lack of concrete systems it's hard to develop a mental model of the game's internal logic. The newspaper headlines feel like they could be flavortext in a board game, but it seems like you're relying on them to also communicate how they affect the systems of the game, so it just feels kinda opaque and I don't know how to make good decisions.

I enjoyed exploring the lore of the fictional world through the lens of a newspaper! That's a really cool premise. That would be an awesome concept for a fiction novel and if you wrote one there's a good chance I would read it.

Just curious, was the photon limit due to performance? I feel like most CPUs these days should be able to handle updating more than 3 entities per frame. Assuming they only interact with a small number of stars. Also why do the stars have to be physics objects? They basically aren't affected by any force right?

My favorite moment was realizing the interaction between the arrow block and the Möbius strip. It was not immediately clear to me how it would help, and then when I realized I could "flip" the direction of the arrow even though relative to myself it never changed, was a brain-mini-exploding moment and I really cherish that. You're really onto something with that.

Screenshot of me moments before brain-mini-explosion:

I think the level right before the arrow block is introduced is too tedious though. It does require you to loop around, but it effectively doesn't matter that it's a Möbius strip.

The level after the arrow block is introduced is also tedious. It kinda teaches you how stacked blocks interact (I personally find it unexpected that the blocks "slide off" each other and it would have been easier if they had some friction), but once you learn how that works it's not used again, and it takes too many moves to shuttle the arrow block to the right place. I think I would have been willing to do it 3 times max before feeling annoyed. Maybe more if a pushed block could push further blocks.

I eventually understood how the time travel works, but I think the ticking clock was throwing me off a little because the fact that it ticks at a constant rate implies there's some real-time element to it, but really it's all still turn based. There's some incongruity in my head though because I feel like the player character should be going backwards in the time-reversed zone too. Have you thought about reversing the block pushing into block pulling in the time-reversed zone? The blocks wouldn't move on their own in that case. When you cross into the time-reversed zone, your character's orientation (if that was displayed in the game) flips as well (the same way a spatial Möbius strip mirrors you across the major axis when you cross the splice point) so it would look like you walk into the boundary facing forwards and come out the other side facing backwards. In this hypothetical I'm using character orientation as a shorthand for time direction. Even though the character would be moving backwards, you'd still control it as if you're moving forwards. I haven't thought this through all the way so maybe there's some problem with this premise when it comes to designing puzzles around it.

Like how the arrow block creates an interesting interaction with the standard Möbius strip because it depends on the direction of the flipped axis, maybe you could explore objects that behave differently depending on the direction of time, like a cliff that functions as a one-way door.

Very creative and inspiring idea and excellent tutorialization. Keep up the good work!

Often got stuck in situations where 3 photons got stranded in space, so the photon gun stopped shooting. I didn't want to reset because I didn't want to redo all the work of moving the stars (?) back into place. The result is that I couldn't really experiment, I just have to know exactly where to place the stars, and move them there quickly so the photons don't get lost while I'm moving things around. Really what I wanted was a continuous beam of light that reacts effectively instantaneously to my changes, and stars (?) that wouldn't drift while I wasn't holding them (sometimes I thought I had the perfect placement and then it changed by itself without my input).

Screenshot of me basically stuck:

I really enjoyed the clean and minimal UI, and the particle effects are very satisfying.

Fascinating concept. Now I want to see more gallery-type games. Reminds me of Monster's Expedition and Namco Museum. Also reminds me of a game I want to play, Museum of Mechanics: Lockpicking

While admiring the art I figured they must have been drawn by different artists because of all the different styles, so I was surprised to find out it was all you! Very impressive range and imagination.

It's fun to observe an artifact, have some thoughts about it, and then read the story behind it. Your game made me realize it's a good and simple framework for storytelling in games.

I kinda wished there was some connection between the stories. Like a linear sequence of events, told out of order because of the layout of the exhibit. Or like, some of the artists knew each other or something. Even if it was a tenuous connection, like a shared name (stole that from Calvino).

It was not immediately obvious to me that when I looped around, the museum had changed slightly. I thought I had just reached the end of the game, so I closed it, but then I read your description and went through the rest of the game.

Loved the industrial environment design. I really like the car model, it has a lot of soul. And great choice putting the timer on the car itself rather than making it a UI HUD element. What if the boost meter was also diagetic? (maybe a step too far lol) Loved the music changes as well. What if the environments changed too :0

At first I wasn't really conscious of which direction was up, but I soon gained a hyper-awareness of when I was on the ceiling after several falls to my death. It's a brilliant bit of risk-reward design because the ceiling is often safer (at least I feel it has fewer obstacles) but you have to use boost to stay on it, so you have less time to move out of the way of the obstacles that are there.

At first I felt it was really janky to hit a box and get misaligned from the pipe, but I learned to love it because it was really cool to recover from spinning out, or just do some crazy fast spins before dying.

It was really hard to successfully draw a loop. Connecting the ends is really hard, especially when the screen is scrolling. I ended up trying to draw the loop as fast as possible, because otherwise the enemies would destroy my loop. At first I was trying to avoid drawing a loop around myself, because I thought I would damage myself, but that turned out to be safe. After a while I started trying to kite away the fast enemies from the slow enemies, so I had more clearance to draw a path that was safe from getting trampled. After some experimenting I discovered that my player could move through the path without destroying it, so what I started doing was drawing a U-shape around myself, walking through it, then closing it really quick after the enemies chasing me walked inside.

I'm really proud of that strategy, and it's fun to do. Unfortunately my computer started to lag after about a minute of playing XD It's too bad because I would keep playing otherwise!

When I figured out the right solution I wish I could say I thought "of course that's correct" but instead I was always thinking "that worked!?" But honestly I loved the jank. It was fun to watch the robot take an unexpected path, which happened often at first. My process of figuring out the solution was fuzzy but not entirely aimless, so it was at least a little more rewarding than blind guessing. For the most part I didn't have to read the instructions but the one thing I couldn't intuit was the condition for when the game would decide to move on to the next input.

I have a suggestion for this scenario:

Suppose the input sequence is <Up>, <Right>. I think it's reasonable to expect the robot will jump up and to the right. Instead it just jumps in place over and over. I think this is because the <Right> instruction is not accounting for the wall it's already touching. If the player is already touching a wall, maybe the <Right> instruction should only terminate after the next wall it touches.

Good job! Love this idea and hope you develop it further.

I like that the level layout changes depending on the season. It was fun to notice certain patterns, like the trees growing taller in the summer and losing their leaves in the winter and plan around that. Sometimes I could move through the level faster by taking a specific route with a specific timing. I guess there was supposed to be a door next to the sign pointing to Mrs. Turtle? I wish I could say I observed the pattern of the seasons and devised a perfect route to reach the goal, but I ended up just guessing most of the time.

I like the core idea of wrapping around the screen to solve puzzles. It's something people don't intuitively do, so it can be fun to discover the solution. Reminds me of the game Arranger, which really pushes this idea. The windows needing to be aligned in order to travel between them felt contrived given the premise of the game, but maybe if the windows had little sockets/pipes on them it would communicate why that makes sense. Making the elements in the final level invisible is truly a bold choice but somehow I managed to get through! To my surprise I loved that feeling of being completely lost and just feeling around blind with no concept of what I should be doing, and pacing-wise it's a nice little dose of chaos before the final dopamine hit of the game end screen. Good job!

279 life forever changed

I drank so many smoothies I'm gonna be sick

yumz

really creative concept, I like it a lot.

love the frantic few seconds it takes me to look down at my controls and figure out which button does what I want

can imagine some high-level strats. like coordinating two hands at the same time. but I'm not good enough yet for that lol

I'm probably biased by how much time I've spent playing Velgress but I feel like all the enemies in Velgress are basically neutral or borderline friendly. Like especially in stage 3, the lack of platforms really encourages you to bounce on enemies heads, so the "enemies" start feeling like friends. I think this goes for Spelunky too but I think the reason I don't feel the enemies are particularly evil in Velgress is because they follow fairly predictable rules and they often have traits that can be helpful instead of being unilaterally harmful to you.

Interesting enemy modifications, I like the idea of enemies that latch onto you (though this might feel annoying in practice), and also shooting an enemy to put it in a vulnerable state. Certainly these changes would make for a much more hostile and organic feel than what I feel from Velgress. Interesting choice to also replace the currency with souls. There was no explicit mention of this but I'm assuming any "souls" you don't spend are preserved when you decide to jump back in, and are lost when you die? Or does it work some other way? In any case, I'm excited to see you validate these ideas with a prototype!  

Nice work. Your new procgen segments were interesting! I think the enemy visualization was a bit deceiving, like the actual hitbox seemed smaller than the visible circle. One difference in the movement mechanics I really liked was the gentler arc of bouncing off an enemy while not holding jump; more forgiving but also better-feeling than the original Velgress IMO.

Caught a glimpse of this in the GMTK results video and it piqued my interest! Really fun idea that is relatable and well-executed :D

Having a lot of fun with this! I play Panel Attack as well, and while there are some pretty big differences I like this game's unique take on the genre, e.g. being able to scroll the screen while a combo is going off, being able to catch a falling block with a block from the row immediately below it, etc.

One thing I noticed that is a bummer is that the game slows down noticeably in Mirror mode*, which puts competitive Mirror players at a slight advantage. I've also considered casually streaming the game using Mirror, but I find the slower game speed a little off-putting. Really hoping that performance can be improved to the point where the game performs exactly the same, with or without Mirror!

*footnote: subpar Mirror performance is actually a widespread problem in the Playdate community

I got the sense that I could think carefully about what I was doing, but in the end I didn't want to die so I just started mashing buttons and that seemed to work. The font was hard to read in places; maybe it was broken? 

I didn't really know what I was doing but it was fun to figure out the likes and dislikes of each kind of pet. I eventually figured out a way to make money kinda quickly, but it required a lot of mindless clicking, I knew I could get the money I needed if I kept going, it just kinda hurt my hand after a while so I stopped. Loved the cute characters and pleasant music.

I liked the character art. The beginning cutscene explains the characters' motivations well. I didn't realize I had to go left at first; that was unintuitive for me. I didn't enjoy navigating the world in the dark; I wished I could see the whole world so I could plan ahead and keep moving without stopping.

This is a really solidly built platformer. The collision detection and speed control was perfect so I had no problem navigating the world with confidence. It was fun to collect the apples, so even though it was optional I still did it. It was also fun to climb high up because the stakes felt higher, so I appreciated having that excitement towards the end of the game. I also liked that you leaned into the momentum mechanic of the moving platforms. Great job!

I loved jumping around and seeing all the different areas. Some of the switches were hard to see. I loved the vibrant colors and iconic character designs.

It was fun to explore, collect items, and upgrade my stats. I got stuck in the water one time, that was funny. It's really tough to get past the spiders, but if I move just right I can avoid them without taking damage. I really like the drawing of the shadow power item.

The game feels well-balanced, I felt compelled to optimize my moves to save as much time as possible. I enjoyed spending time thinking a few moves ahead. After getting more used to the gameplay I would have liked to know exactly how many turns I would have left, but I understand the tradeoffs that come with information overload. Another ability I would have liked would be to simply pass the turn so the creature would move on its own. I really like the complexity the creature adds to the puzzle, though I wish I had a better understanding of how it decides to turn. The 5th round of the 4th day is a cool twist, my jaw dropped when I made my first move lol. That's where I gave up though.

I found the controls hard to learn at first, and I would often rotate something the opposite way from what I intended. An undo button, a more explicit "toolbox"-style UI, or more indications in the UI might have helped with this.

I enjoyed the music. It was at once chill but also moody and dark and it complemented the cerebral gameplay. The writing was lovely and evocative.

I think I found a bug, by the way. I completed a puzzle by rotating the creature around using the alembic, but it didn't trigger the victory condition.

Great work! I'd love to see further exploration of the core gameplay!

I was in a similar place (figuratively not literally) a few years ago. Your thoughts reminded me of my thoughts back then. I haven't met anyone who could relate to my struggle but now I feel like I have. Thank you for sharing this with the world.

(mild spoiler warning)

A beautiful puzzle within a world that's more than meets the eye. I got stuck a few times, but the next step was always in view and that enticed me to keep trying, to keep asking, "what if I try this?" Many discoveries were literally groundbreaking; they completely shifted my mental model of the world. Theorems -- mental shortcuts -- I had previously established about the world, now had to be thrown out the window and re-evaluated. This was not frustrating; it was liberating, if that makes sense. I really enjoyed those moments. I wish I could erase my memory of the game so that I can experience uncovering the world once more.

In the beginning the platforming was frustrating because I often knew what I wanted to accomplish, but I frequently fumbled the jumps, which either slowed me down (which adds up when I'm repeating the same section many times while I'm testing strategies; perhaps a fair punishment for my lazy unwillingness to visualize the steps in my mind) or I end up in the wrong section of the world and I can't go back without restarting. I eventually mastered the platforming, but only after stepping away for a day. I realize that the platforming is an homage to Atlantis no Nazo, though, so I understand it was intentional and I respect that decision.

I'm reminded of Spelunky. In that game there is also a secret path that occupies the same space as the main path, but is "unlocked" by a combination of knowledge and items. In both games, I appreciate how the worlds fold back onto themselves, each layer separated not physically but temporally. Hidden in plain sight, as it were. You could say that all Metroidvanias have this quality I suppose, but I think there's more to say about the flavor of this particular game, so let me make an additional distinction. There are "hard" obstacles, the kind that require a specific item to reach a specific area, but it's pretty obvious what needs to happen (like, say, a keyhole). There are obstacles of obscurity, which require only knowledge (like, say, a secret door, or see interactive fiction 9:05). Then there are "hybrid" obstacles, requiring a non-obvious usage or combination of items, and thereby some global knowledge about the world. This game has a lot of that, and on top of that I think it's fair. Like it would be really easy to devise a sequence that no one could reasonably figure out on their own (I think Spelunky is like that), but you made discoverability feasible, somehow!

I could go on but anyway that's a lot of words to say you made an awesome game that made me think, and then made me think about my think. Thank you for making it.

Also, what other games should I check out if I liked this one? (edit: now that I'm playing this game more, two games come to mind: Go and Slipways)

Very well made game. It's fun when the solution falls into my lap, which happened often in the early levels since my choices were limited, but finding that solution comes down to a lucky guess (a roll of the dice if you will) when the possibility space branches just a couple of times. The gameplay is essentially trial and error because it's not feasible to plan more than 1 step ahead. I don't feel like I have the ability to find the solution through thinking alone.

The sound effects add a nice emphasis to the steps. Makes me wonder if there are more "mnemonic" melodies or rhythms that can be associated with each number. Not explicitly suggesting this but an anecdote that comes to mind is the idea of rhythmic solfege, which associates different sequences of syllables with different rhythms (say "ta-ki-ta" for triplets or "ta-ka-di-mi" for a group of 4 notes, etc.) A melodic approach might be:

1. root
2. root-fifth
3. root-third-fifth
4. root-third-fifth-octave, etc.

Or maybe there is a pre-programmed song in the steps and the player essentially controls the pacing of it through the act of walking to the goal, which would add some tension and release to the gameplay, increasing the satisfaction of reaching the goal. Anyway, neat submission.

I like the idea that difference die faces have different physical properties, and that you can use those to solve puzzles. But if it's really just a tool for solving the puzzle, then I don't see why it has to be random and in fact it is frustrating to get the wrong die face when there is only one outcome I'm looking for which will work for what I'm trying to do. Issues of controls aside, on the whole I like the puzzles and world you put together and it was fun to figure out how to solve them and I appreciated the snappy sound design and moody ambience.