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Escape The World
Escape The World
By ajayajayaj
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 254 | 3.35 | 30 | |
| Fun | 68 | 3.78 | 30 | |
| Innovation | 247 | 3.21 | 30 | |
| Theme | 475 | 2.60 | 30 | |
| Graphics | 474 | 2.53 | 30 | |
| Audio | 224 | 3.07 | 30 | |
| Humor | 371 | 2.12 | 26 | |
| Mood | 399 | 2.75 | 26 | |
Comments
This is a pretty good puzzle game.
I beat it 8:30 with 461 moves. I'm certain I could beat it with a lot less, as I restarted a few levels and fiddled around in the beginning until I understood the mechanics well.
I liked the simple design - by level 5 or 6 I was able to look ahead at the structure of the level and come up with a game plan, so the mechanics were communicated well enough through the gameplay that they taught mastery. I do think if it had been a bit longer it would've needed another twist in how the mechanics were used or the gameplay would have suffered. As it was, I thought the mechanical difficulty was well-matched to the number of levels and each level ramped up the difficulty at a good pace.
The one thing I would definitely recommend you add is some way of seeing at a glance which color is currently active. I screwed up a few patterns just by thinking the wrong color was selected.
Thanks for a fun puzzle game!
@endlessplumber Thanks for the feedback! Showing the active color is definitely something I should have done. Thanks for the compliments on the level design, it really took me a while to create them (that's why there aren't a huge number), and I felt really proud of the effort I spent making them.
mrtroy
2017-05-01 05:52
8:31 with 411 moves. I didn't realize starting the level would not reset my moves, but I still beat @EndlessPlumber so I'm happy. I agree with the showing current color, I found myself hitting spacebar unnecessarily and getting confused when the 3rd color was added. I'd also go a little bit further and says some kind of success sound when a color goes through, or an indicator of how many blocks are left. I know it's clear to see how many are left, but seeing something change when you accidently shift a block off of the screen makes you say "Ooooh".
(I'm taking a big guess with the 8:31 time, I'm sure it was 7 minutes something, but the time appeared to have changed when I switched to my web browser)
Good job @ajayajayaj
@mrtroy Thanks for the suggestions! Also the time changing is kinda weird, because it's just doing subtraction (timefinished - timestarted).
The reset game code was added in the last 5 minutes of the compo, so I'm sorry for it not resetting the moves.
I'll make sure to try out your game when I'm on my computer.
Kind of strange but still enjoyable.
merrak
2017-05-02 02:54
I like the block moving sound effect :D
I agree that showing the current color would help a lot, but it was enjoyable as is. If a score was added, it'd be neat to see a bonus for removing several blocks in a row.
Swoosh Swoosh. It's a fun little puzzle game, I like the concept. I fell this game would be much more popular on mobile (with some polish)
@merrak a score would be a cool idea, never thought of that. Thanks for the suggestion!
@martenscedric yea, maybe mobile. Thanks for playing!
great puzzle game that puts an interesting twist on the theme. i love how simple this is yet can make you try to master it for much longer than you expect it to, with charming sound effects too
i also agree this would be great as a mobile game, love to see what you create in the future!
caterein
2017-05-10 01:56
This is a clever little puzzler! I agree with other commenters that it'd make a great mobile game, as well. I do think implementing something to indicate which colour blocks are active would be a good idea for future releases, but overall, you did a great job here :)
@electr1ca and @caterein
Thanks for playing!
Great game! Simple but you managed to get some difficulty out of it. I echo the interface suggestions, but it's still playable as is. Good job!
Completed it in 544 moves! Sometimes calculated, sometimes by just shamefully moving everything until the solution appears :p A classic concept that fits the theme quite well. Nothing much to say really, I liked these little clouds and the good response of controls ^^
One thing that could be cool is to know which color we control (by highlighting the corresponding squares for example). The music is also too repetitive and catchy imo. For reflexion games, I like a nice relaxing track, with some quiet moments in it.
Anyway, good job for a compo!
doc-ill
2017-05-12 00:22
Very interesting puzzle mechanics! I don't think I have played a game like this before. You should definitely consider porting this to mobile and adding more levels!
Hmm, my comment didn't go through the first time...
@david-cookie Those are some really good ideas. I am still learning how to make good music, and it's still hard for me to create a mood out of music. But, that's a good idea. And maybe highlighting would be nice.
@nedmakesgames Thanks for playing!
@doc-ill Wow, thanks!
veralos
2017-05-12 04:20
This is a pretty interesting puzzle game. I like the idea, and it takes some careful planning in the later levels to figure out how to complete them. The visuals and audio are both pretty simple, but they work well enough (I like the sound for moving blocks). It could be improved by having a way to tell which colour is currently selected (without needing to move the blocks). I also noticed that blue is always the last colour you need to get out. This isn't really an issue, but it could be good to mix this up so the puzzles require more thinking.
Oh, and it took me 438 moves over 7:36 minutes.
w1n5t0n
2017-05-12 04:22
Definitely one of the most creative LD entries. I really enjoyed solving the puzzles!
qzqxq
2017-05-12 04:53
This was pretty fun! Agreed with the others on showing active color, it made the 3-color levels quite a bit more annoying. Another thing that was confusing was that blocks of one color could "push" blocks of another color, but the animation when that happened had both blocks moving at the same time. For example, if you start the first level and press A, then one of the blue blocks moves with the red blocks, which confused me at first. I think it would have been more natural to have the red block move first, hit the blue block, and then both of them move together.
One small nitpick is that you didn't need so many colored blocks in each of your levels: I think all of them could have been made with 1-3 blocks of each color while keeping the main logical ideas. This is mostly personal preference, though - I feel that puzzles are more "elegant" if they express their ideas without any extraneous information, but maybe I'm just being snobby lol. To be more specific, on several levels, I felt like I got the "aha" of where to place some blocks so that everything worked out, but I then had to get 5 more blocks to the end in identical ways, which isn't the fun part.
Overall, I thought the puzzles were quite good (extraneous blocks notwithstanding) and the difficulty curve was perfect. If you added some more mechanics and levels, I could see this being a really great game. Nice job!
@qzqxq Thanks so much for this feedback! And, that elegant point is really nice. I feel like I'm getting better and better with level design, and any feedback about it helps. I am trying to be more and more elegant, and I see how that could help.
The game is pretty tricky, I had a hard time with it. It was fun trying though!
The graphics are simple, but well polished. The use of animation is really nice. The woosh sounds are good, but it could do with some better music and maybe an effect for hitting a wall.
I was not able to get the JAR file running, and did not see a batch file. It's helpful to have them pre-made or wrapped in an exe so folks who are streaming can just jump in and start playing. I'll try and revisit it when I have my JRE properly configured.
@etucker1 Thanks!
@occultone Yea, sorry. If you have java installed there is no need for a batch, you just double click the jar file, and it should run with java, and not open with winrar to extract.
wtoa
2017-05-13 05:27
Interesting puzzle game, I like the idea here, I think showing active colors would be a great indicator of which color I am currently on. Good use of sound effects and music as well, great work!
saxops1
2017-05-13 05:35
Nice job! I like it!
jin47
2017-05-13 11:34
Nice job! I really enjoyed the puzzles and some level are really well thought! Nice music. I would have enjoyed a visual feedback to see which color is currently selected. Really good job on this compo!!
devorc
2017-05-13 12:46
Probably my favorite game I have played so far! The concept was amazing and it was brilliantly executed!
@wtoa @saxops1 @jin47 @devorc Thanks so much!
Hey, finally got Java installed and could run this. Took me 334 moves and 5:23 to beat the game (not sure if that's good or bad).
Great use of taking simple mechanics and turning into something that is challenge and requires thinking through the implications of your decisions. I think this kinda game would be good for mobile platforms (tap to change colors, swipe to move). My only real complaint is that I wish there was an indication of what your current color is.
Great work!
@atmospherium That's a pretty good score (better than me :) ). Thanks for the suggestions for mobile controls, those actually seem like they'd be perfect. Thanks so much for playing my game!
One of my favourite games in this Ludum Dare. Very well executed, fun and smart. Takes that 2048 fad that was going around a while back and gives it an original spin.
The woosh sounds were brilliant.
Good job.
I like the general design of this, however I have a few suggestions:
* It might be more engaging if you were tasked with completing the level in a certain number of moves (not the minimum possible number of moves, that would probably be too difficult, but close to it). Or, you were ranked with a gold (minimum number of moves), silver (something close to minimal number of moves), bronze (completed it at all) Or, you got badges, 1 for completing the level, one for solving it quickly, one for solving it optimally. * If you do that, though (and maybe even if you don't), you'll want to introduce some easier levels to start off with.
Neither of these suggestions are strictly necessary; they would have increased _my_ enjoyment of the game, but I'm not sure they would actually make it a _better_ game in any broad sense. My specific problem was that in many levels, solving the level (in the sense of just clearing all the squares) was trivially easy, and could be accomplished more or less by just dicking around, but I often had the sense that I was missing some more elegant, clever, "correct" way to solve the level, and that the 'real' puzzle would have been finding _that_. Of course, in the later levels, actually clearing the cubes at all became a significant puzzle, but I still felt like I had probably missed the 'real' solution.
To a certain extent, you've already addressed this with the move counter and timer. My suggestion is basically, "emphasize that more", but if you have a different direction in mind (for example, if you prefer the at-your-own-pace, any-solution-that-works sort of puzzle game), then that's also cool.
Anyway, whichever way you choose to go with this, I'd love to see more levels.
My turn move count was 300-something? I don't remember exactly. Time take was 84 minutes, 'cause I went to go eat lunch in the middle :stuck_out_tongue:
@gaiusjulius Thanks so much!
@philomory Thanks so much for the suggestions, I agree with it. I do think a ranking would be a cool idea. Thanks so much for the long detailed comment!
drkr
2017-05-14 11:17
Nice puzzle designs, I do agree with @philomory that a move limit (or maybe even a bonus if you got a within a number of moves) would be make for a more interesting experience. I say that mostly because my move count was over 800 something lol
2017-05-17 11:52
Simple, but nice game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ-D40BBNhA
Great job on this puzzle game, it's a fun play and my only feedback has already been mentioned - that a "max move limit" would increase the difficulty and make you have to take more time to make your move. Congrats on another successful Ludum Dare, keep it up!
@daisychubb thanks a lot for the feedback!