Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → Ionnect
By akirassasin
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 372 | 3.08 | 26 | |
| Fun | 499 | 2.33 | 26 | |
| Innovation | 55 | 3.83 | 26 | |
| Theme | 340 | 3.20 | 26 | |
| Graphics | 264 | 3.29 | 26 | |
| Mood | 471 | 2.45 | 22 |
Nice puzzle game :] But to be honest i feel a bit bored when every stage demands to complete one or more _[Cr2][O7] (2-)s after stage 10 :<. Can't find joy doing it over and over so I stopped at stage 13. Love the graphics and the idea, and I find the process to complete puzzles interesting, but imo the game needs better level-design...
@ikigaiseitetsu haha :P it was a last-hour change to the difficulty mechanic (it was spouting 10 different compounds on stage 8) that caused it! I did not have my chemistry textbook around, so I could only go with what little I remember. Thanks for playing :)
Nicely done @AkirAssasin,
I really like the graphics there are simple and clean. The gameplay idea itself is great! But as IkigaiSeitesu said I was gettin a bit bored after serval rounds. But I really had fun in the first 8 puzzles :smile: Smart take on the theme. And good chemistry knowledge^^
Good job!
@akirassasin, refreshing and entertaining entry. Any chem nerds out there will flip on this! Well polished and delivered. Makes me want to brush up on my stoichiometry. Great game!
Nice niche game and nice work on doing something different. My chemistry is quite rusty, but I worked out what I needed to do in the end (especially once I realized there were instructions further down the page :)
To tell the truth I know nothing about the chemistry.I watched Breaking Bad, but I think it won't help haha I spent nearly 7 minutes at the very first stage and still I can't understand what does the game want - I made some random stuff and get the level. This game can be very educational but only in case you understand the basics of chemistry. As for me - O3 is already a challenge, it took a while before I understand something. I need more visualation at the end of a stage - show me the real configuration with the names of every object at the same time! Buy the way a little information about these configurations can make this game even smarter - where do people use them or do they react funny with other stuff I really miss some sound effects. The level doesn't seem "done" because of that. Where are the sounds of a winner lol?
Hoy!
Graphics are really clean, but the game mechanics are quite difficult to grasp: I just managed to complete the 4 first stages, but i am stuck at 5, and i have no idea what to do (tried to link all atoms, but looks like i am supposed to do more than that obviously....) Maybe throwing some pieces of advices when you're struggling would be great. Otherwise, imo it's quite difficult to wrap your mind around the concept ( you can't even look at the solution at the end as it disappear really fast).
Quite interesting game, but making it more accessible and intuitive would be a good and interesting way to improve it: make people learn about chemistry with a game is indeed a cool idea !
I like this! i think it could make a really good teaching tool if expanded upon. i wasnt sure exactly what went where but kinda fumbled my way through it by connecting stuff.
Cool, a chemistry game in JavaScript! Congrats on finishing this all on your own in 48 hours
Like @shillingburg I basically just fumbled around, but it seemed to fall into straightforward patterns. Pretty easy to interpose the "extra" atoms in with all the rest just by making it a link in a chain.
Ended up being a bit easy (even for a chem n00b like me!), maybe something else is needed to make it more challenging. But it's always great to see good educational STEM game ideas!
Even just a sound effect or two for the start/end of making a connection, and maybe finishing a compound, could make a difference in the "feel" of the game. But I know everything's a scramble in these jams to fit what you can in the available time.
Anyway, great job! And thanks for checking my game out too. ^_^
@micahcowan it's made with Unity, then exported as WebGL :)
@shillingburg haha, the answer recognition system is a bit wonky so correct answers may be seen as wrong and vice versa :)
@juan @redblack-spade @samurai-spark I spent too much time trying to make it look clean, and overlooked the difficulty and the fact that people may not be able to grasp what's going on just from the first level. This is what exam does to your mind :P
Clever idea! I really had no idea what I was doing though to be honest... and yet I could still make everything work by just connecting every dot. It'd be nice if there were a *bit* of explanation along with it, unless you just want it to be for those more familiar (which would be fine).
I really liked this game, but I stopped after level 20. The graphics and art style were very clean and suited the game well. The mechanics were interesting and the game felt very polished. I do have some gripes with the game.
I think the main issue is repetition. From what I saw, there weren't very many compounds in the game, and they showed up quite often. I also felt that later levels simply added in more compounds that had already been seen rather than new or modified ones. This made a lot of the puzzle aspect go away after the first few levels, and I found that as I progressed, the game was more about sorting through the pieces than actually solving puzzles.
The levels themselves also sometimes seemed needlessly crowded, specifically in level 14, where you need to make three of the same compound. I feel like the game would've benefited from removing these extra compounds, as they simply acted as filler.
The difficulty curve was also very odd, and I feel like after level 5, it could've increased a lot quicker. Prior to that stage, the player is still learning the mechanics and how to connect atoms, but if they make it past level 5, I feel like they have to have a good enough understanding of the mechanics to solve pretty much any level in the game without too much trouble. I think that increasing the number of compounds per level faster and adding in a new type of compound every level would help keep the game's difficulty from leveling off and add a lot of variety.
That being said, I gave this game 5 stars, which I feel like I should mention since this is a harsher review than I'd normally leave. I feel like rating anything less would be punishing you for putting in extra time and creating more content. I would love to see an updated version of this with some new compounds, a higher difficulty, and maybe some new mechanics.
@stevenjmiller thanks for the review! I am currently compiling my high school chemistry notes, and noting down anything that can be improved. I'll release an updated version filled to the brim with Cambridge syllabus compounds! Polymers, metal extraction etc.
Nice gameplay idea, very unique!
It is a quite relaxing puzzle game. From an UX perspective, I accidentally connected the wrong components a couple of times , and there did not seem to be an easy way to sever a connection, except for connecting to another atom? A reset-button for the level could also be nice, in case the player has really jumbled the elements around.
I missed having a bit of feedback and/or context for the different puzzles - as it is, it feels very abstract. However, the dragging and rotating mechanics felt very natural. As has been mentioned by others, some of the levels felt a bit repetitive, but as you mentioned, it would definitely help if you add some extra compounds. I also think the game has a good potential as the foundation of an educational game.
I was particularly fond of the "morphing"-effect when completing a level.
>Isolate compounds. >Connect methodically. >Master chemistry.
Great game! (even though I don't know chemistry). I think it would be a great practice / teaching tool with a few refinements, like drill-based levels (for instance, 10 puzzles with 2-3 connecting components for Level 1; another 10 puzzles with slightly more complicated connections in Level 2, etc.) I also think it would be interesting to add challenges. For instance, perhaps there is a partially formed connection with an objective at the bottom instead of the substance to make. Maybe the formed substance is an acid and the object is to create the correct connection to dilute it (with only one valid connection out of the three on the board). I could even see two games, with the first being drill-based for learning and memorising connections while the sequel is challenge-based and designed for understanding chemical reactions in context.
*You might already have these later in the game. I didn't play very far.
** As I said, I'm horrible at chemistry so my suggestions might not make sense for actually learning chemistry. That was written with a completely novice POV :)
@somnium are you writing haikus for every game you comment on? Sweet :) There was a reset button but since I was fairly new to Unity UI I did not have time to set up a confirmation window for it.
@kaystar I don't have those later in the game, haha :) I am currently planning out a similar drill-based level for the whole chemistry syllabus, so even novices can learn a thing or two (may not be applicable in real life though)!
@akirassasin Yes I am :) My thought was, that it could be a fun way to make the feedback feel a little less impersonal, and I enjoy trying to distill the essence of a game into a few sentences.
And that definitely makes sense, it would be much more frustrating to lose all progress accidentially, than having to change a few wrong connections - good call :)
Really neat idea! 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=4yuMfX69kxA
This is a great idea for a game and it's executed really well too. The controls (mostly) work how you expect them to, and it's easy enough to figure out what's going on without prior chemistry knowledge. However, I feel there could be a bit more variety in the compounds and maybe some more mechanics added as things progress (if there actually are new mechanics they should be introduced sooner). Sorry, I don't know enough about Chemistry to offer any ideas. It would also be nice to have some way to zoom out (things start to get pretty cluttered in the later levels) and the ability to right click to cancel creating a bond. The visuals look really clean, with some fluid animations. This isn't a game that really needs a lot of audio, but some simple sound effects could help to make it feel more alive.
Is there any end to the game, or does it just infinitely generate new levels? I only got to level 13.
@veralos it just infinitely generate new levels :) I'm planning a post-jam version with these fixes and new variety now!
Tried the game but didn't get it... I never got chemistry at school ^^' Still like the minimalist graphics style :)