Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD39 → Flicker
By john-li, littledonutg, tehgamedev, roaderful, alex_fncypnts, librorumque64 and christoph3225
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 334 | 3.48 | 45 | |
| Fun | 649 | 2.79 | 45 | |
| Innovation | 196 | 3.47 | 44 | |
| Theme | 458 | 3.44 | 45 | |
| Graphics | 224 | 4.02 | 45 | |
| Audio | 64 | 3.97 | 45 | |
| Humor | 551 | 2.00 | 34 | |
| Mood | 70 | 4.00 | 44 |
I really loved the visual style, the sound and the overall atmosphere. The game mechanics seem interesting and unique but I didn't find them very intuitive. By the 4th and 5th puzzle I felt a little lost - I was dragging wires around and flicking switches without really understanding the logic behind how everything worked. Artistically it's superb - I'm just not very good at it!
@zyzzyzzyz
Thanks for playing it! I recently just added a game mechanics guide on the itch.io page so that the puzzles are a bit easier to understand! Hope it helps!
Really enjoyed the mood of this game! Wish there were a way to reset the puzzle and try again, I got stuck and had to quit the game to keep playing.
@rift
Glad you liked it! To exit out of a puzzle, hit escape. That will reset the puzzle and you can re-attempt it
Just a PSA: The Mac version doesn't appear to work. Throws a "This app could not be opened." error on launch.
I'll play/rate this tomorrow when I get back to my Windows computer.
@Cliffracerx
Hmm that's interesting. I noticed the mac app was working for others. I'm releasing HTML5 build soon so hopefully broken downloads will be less of an issue.
Solid puzzles, felt like they had a good progression of features and difficulty.
Really liked the puzzles which were very impressive for the short amount of time given for development. The mood was amazing, best iv'e seen so far. Really good job!
nice idea of puzzles, it would be better to have first puzzles as tutorials for a better understanding instead of a huge written guide tho. Graphics are awesome!
Nice game! The puzzles are fun and challenging, and the graphics and music are fantastic and create a great mood.
Nice noir style, the atmsphere is pretty great, I didn't see the puzzles going anywhere but it turned out really well, congrats.
Absolutely great mood; seems really polished - that parallax!! I've never seen puzzles quite like this before; aka a puzzle about electricity that includes volts and switches. All it needs for it to be a full, sellable game is a tutorial scene/easier learning curve/more levels.
Argh. This is a beautiful game, I like the background music too. I just didn't find it pleasant to play (I played the HTML5 version btw). The graphics really are great in the city section, I'd pay for a whole game that looked like that. Once you get into the puzzles though, without the instructions on the itch.io page you'd just be lost. With the instructions... well at least you know it's something to do with circuits.
Just adding a visual indicator as to what the current shortest path(s) are, i.e. where the current will flow once the switches are flicked (or even up to the first un-flicked switch), would have made the puzzle-solving element of this much clearer and (therefore) engaging. Also, the display of the voltmeter is difficult to read in black & white, maybe remove the background digital lines (semi-transparent ones) to make it easier.
Maybe this is a bug in the HTML5 version but when I finished all 5 puzzles, a dude floated down from the sky and then just hovered there, no text or interaction. You might want to change the 'escape puzzle' key for the HTML5 version too as it takes you out of full-screen when you press it.
@kodiqi @angela-he
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I think the addition of tutorial puzzles would definitely allow for much more intuitive gameplay. If we ever decide to continue this production, we will definitely introduce mechanics slower and in a more user-friendly way! Happy you stuck with it for all 5 puzzles!
And yes, the ending is supposed to be a super hero falling. HTML5 doesn't respond to Application.Quit(), in downloaded games the application would just end. Hope you guys enjoyed it!
Cool, cool game! I love puzzle games and after reading the guide, I can say this is one of those games that are just fun. Stick to it, cherish it and build a story around it, and you got yourself a great game. Good job everyone!
Nice Graphics ! The music is so atmospheric, and the Puzzles are an awesome idea.
Very cool game! The mood and the art style really contributed for the amazing experience. Good job to the team
Interesting puzzle game! Loved the mood, the music and art style complemented it well. It was confusing at first but made sense after reading the guide. I think once it's polished a bit more it could become a really fun game! Good job :)
Very creative puzzle game, loved the mood, especially when the sirens started. Great job
It took six people to make this game? Yikes.
Noticed a few bugs. ESC pulls you out of fullscreen mode so backing out of the puzzle means you can;t play fullscreen on WebGL. The boundaries on either side of the game become passable, I think after exiting any puzzle. I completed every puzzle and the hero showed up, but nothing happened (game unfinished).
Seemed like an interesting start of a game though, I was eager to find out what the hero/villain aspect would be.
Played through the HTML5 version, and...Oh man. If you haven't already, put the soundtrack up somewhere. I dig it.
You've got solid puzzles, solid audio, and solid visuals. The only nitpick I've got is that it might help to highlight powered wires, but...That's a tiny little detail.
I can confirm that the ending is a little broken in HTML5, but...that's okay. This is still amazing. Great work. :thumbsup:
The graphics, music, and audio were absolutely superb. The puzzle mechanics were a little confusing (I never figured out how to remove a wire) but the mechanics are additionally confusing if you know how electricity works. I know it's probably supposed to be a fictionalized little world and it's unimportant if it's realistic, but maybe you could rework how the puzzles work and use it to teach Kirchoff's laws or something.
@grandthetftmarmot
Yeah, the rules we gave were not real-world physics, simply because we didn't want to be bound by the electromagnetic rules of physics. I think the best thing we should have done was to introduce the puzzles in a much more friendlier manner; having a giant guide isn't as useful as a slow-development into the puzzles. We also didn't implement wire removal in this iteration, though that should definitely happen in the future!
nice puzzle game. the game mechanic is orginal and fun. the mood is amazing.
Very nice audiovisual aesthetic in this game! I love the style, and the puzzles were fun too. Since HTML5 games aren't quittable, it was a little bit weird to just be able to freeroam after the point where the game was supposed to end, but it wasn't really a big issue.
Well done, I liked it!
The aesthetic is fantastic. I feel thoroughly spooked the whole time. I wish the Flickering Man did something when you got to him or at very least exit the game. Finally, the reason why no one can figure the puzzles out is because electricity doesn't work like it does in this game. It's very counterintuitive and if I didn't read the rules, I would have been totally lost!
I love that atmoshpere which you achive guys :) Nice graphics and audio.
- \+ Holy shit, are you feel that atmosphere ? - \+ Nice simple graphics - \+ Ambient sounds which are very well handle - \+ Simple but good soundtrack
- \- I switch 5 lamps and after that city ends, and walk 1 minut to the right but nothink else happend.
Needs a short tutorial and it will be great.. And also check the player sprite i think he has a small line on top of him or was it like that only for me(windows)?
I was really lost on what I was doing until I scrolled the page down and saw that you had written guidelines there, heh. After that, it was quite simple.
Fun little puzzles. Most annoying part was that I didn't figure out how to remove the wires I had placed wrong, or even how to restart the game (short of refreshing). There was no indication that the game had ended, be it through running out of wires or reaching the end, which was a bit confusing.
Otherwise, audio-visually this game is really enjoyable. And the puzzle mechanics were very interesting as well. Could easily expand on that, I'd think. All in all, well done.
Reading through the tutorial takes about 3 times longer than finishing the game. I understand why: your concept is really good, but hard to explain. If you manage to make a good tutorial (or if could do even better, and explain it with no tutorial but just with a few introductive puzzles), then I will definitely be interested in seeing your concept developed into a full game.
Also, before writing this gigantic tutorial, you could have at least written the input buttons. Because I spend a few minutes searching for the button to restart a puzzle before finding it
The graphics, music and sound design really help to create this dark atmosphere. Great game, but puzzles are counter intuitive hand almost impossible to solve before reading the looooong guideline.
Liked the story behind why the player is doing what they're doing. Thought it was quite humorous. The puzzles took a bit for me to figure out even after I read the instructions, never been good at understanding circuit boards but I did like the challenge. Was able to make it to the final one and think I'll have to try again later to see if I can finish it. Just wish it was a bit clearer in game how you do the puzzles. The art and music also worked well in setting the mood.