toiletsnakes 2018-04-23 07:48
Idk what "But there is a second “game” hidden in plain sight but it is only for block haters evil people." means yet. but I really like this game so far. I keep playing it.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD41 → Binary Blocks
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 40 | 4.01 | 49 | |
| Fun | 93 | 3.79 | 49 | |
| Innovation | 35 | 4.13 | 49 | |
| Theme | 520 | 3.18 | 48 | |
| Graphics | 43 | 4.16 | 49 | |
| Audio | 26 | 3.97 | 47 | |
| Humor | 188 | 3.14 | 43 | |
| Mood | 59 | 3.72 | 47 |
Idk what "But there is a second “game” hidden in plain sight but it is only for block haters evil people." means yet. but I really like this game so far. I keep playing it.
Woah! Such polish and well-thoughtoutness, there's nothing negative to say about the game, the music, the sound effects, gameplay, balance, difficulty... hey there actually was a tutorial that was extremely short but extremely spot on! One does need to use logic here and not mindlessly fire those blocks (although that proves rather fun as well!) Well done sir, I sit here pleasantly amazed.
I like the smiling face on some of the blocks. It looks so cute.
Outstanding! The best game I've played so far this jam. A completely original concept that I haven't come across before, with loads of polish, a clear and concise tutorial to get playing, and it is genuinely fun! Well done.
The graphics, the gameplay, the execution! Awesome! This is the kind of game I would love to install on my phone :) Good job, my friend.
This was AWESOME :) ! Really polished, from the art all the way down to the audio ! The actual gameplay is really mind bending and oooo so satisfying when you nail it right ! Top notch :), cheers !
This is a very good game. I think it's a great challenge for my brain. Before I didn't know what is the working of the binary three. :)
Thoroughly polised, amazing gameplay. Overall a very solid game. Good job.
Thanks everyone for the kind words! 🤗
@iluvatar I could quite easily do an Android build (since it is possible to side load apps without the need to add them to the store) but not quite sure if it's worth the install at its current state (only ten levels).
@ragnta Oh yes, sneaking a bit of education in games is always fun...
@krystof-klestil Good to know that the tutorial works! I tried to make it as minimal as possible to get the player going without getting too hand-holdy.
I love how you gamified Binary Search Trees, this could be used in classes on the subject of 'data structures and algorithms'!
- Showing off a mechanic in the start menu.
- The relaxing music.
- The calm background which is mildly interesting but not distracting; the focus lays on the game itself.
- How rewarding the game feels. It can feel really good and satisfying when you grab a star or finish a level.
- The short and effective tutorial.
- How simple, challenging and fun the gameplay is!
Maybe some subtle horizontal lines indicating the height (in blocks) of each star would be nice.
In one level I pushed the 'reset' button while it was executing and got a floating block. 653804cb2bd61dadf36bbb279a7d6629.gif
But it was a bit of a monkey test case and I will probably not happen to most players.
But besides these 2 things, which didn't really bother me at all, I really can't name anything I didn't like. Your game is really nicely polished and worked out really well. **It is amazing that you were able to do this in 48 hours!**
@swen Thanks! Yeah, the bug you've encountered is probably quite rare. It seems like you got the reset time exactly right so the block is on neither the hand or the tree and because of that it doesn't clear with the rest of them. And now that I think about it, same might probably happen if you pick up one block and reset while holding it, resulting in one extra block for the next try.
But yeah, seems like it's not hugely game breaking (can always back to start menu and load the level again to do a full refresh on the level) so as per the rules, I won't do anything about it.
Amazing game, the polish is off the charts!
Also, I am starting to think you may be stalking me. First you make a matrix multiplication game while I'm taking linear algebra, and now you make a BST game right after a finish taking data structures.
Nice game, I like it although I didn't went very far, the game is quite hard for me aha.
Lovely music too!
Nice idea, teaches you binary trees and is a fun little game :-)
I must say, I stopped when the link length levels came, the mechanic seemed a little broken. Sometimes I changed the length before the number entered the field but it did not work properly. That was really frustrating so I quit. Also this mechanic is more based on luck and not skill, there is no indicator for how long the link will be depending on the slider. I really disliked this.
I see here in the screen shots that in following levels you already have some numbers set, that is a great idea.
The graphics and animations are nice, the sound fits them well. Overall a cool game, great job!
@gonutz Yeah the link length is set when a block starts moving, not when it enters the play area. Probably would have been a lot better if it gave you time to fiddle with it until the very last step of the movements.
I love your concept. Really really nice execution. Trains the mind and focus. Good job.
Loved it. the game really made me think and plan ahead also good background music
I really like the concept. It's really unique. Also good execution/polish.
This game was great! Really liked the puzzles and the music
I really enjoyed this game, cool puzzle mechanic and I felt it challenged me enough to want to keep figuring things out but not to the point of frustration. Until the chain lengths came in and I lost steam quick. I think having some way of visualizing the distances between objects would have been helpful (a grid or something in the background for context).
But for all the levels I got through, this was a lot of fun. I could see myself playing something like this on a mobile device to knock out a couple levels in some down time.
@atmospherium Yup, no one likes the slider bits, not even me. I should have cut the whole thing because it really didn't work that great, but it is so hard to do on jam games even if I only spent around an hour to make it. It's only three levels and they don't really add anything to the game (except for annoyance and frustration). That must be my biggest learning experience this LD. Thanks for playing and your feedback!
@antti-haavikko: I think the slider bits are CLOSE to being a good mechanic. With a bit of visualisation about the scale (gridlines or something) and delaying when the distance mod is applied could take it from being an inherent frustration to being difficult but fair. If you decide to develop this further I'd say your more in the realm of needing to iterate on that mechanic instead of scrapping it entirely. Now that I know I made it to the final level I might see if I can push the rest of the way through.
Okay, so I love this game! Probably not surprising since I'm a developer and all and count TIS-100 among my favorites, but I think it's very well done!
The graphics and audio are really great, their little faces, the explosions, delightful. The intro is excellent, exactly the amount of hand-holding needed, with good pointers and examples and such. The level of polish on this game is really impressive. And the mechanic is great - I know my trees well, and this got my brain thinking in a different way (okay, *everything* after this has to be greater...) that was really neat.
My first run I did with something like 20 mistakes in 22:59, the second run was 6 mistakes in 10:49, yay! And all but one mistake was in the slider bits (in the level with the two blocks up high, after the stars, I forgot to avoid them the first time, oops!)
Which brings me to the slider bits: I do like them, and I agree with @atmospherium that it is close to being a good mechanic. I think a couple things could improve the experience there. A few ideas: - It's annoying to have to re-solve the first part of the puzzle just cause you misjudged the sliders - it would be nice if those two bits were separate for at least the slider levels - a retry loads the blocks that you started with. - The continuous slider makes it harder to guess - I think with the existing game you might be able to just swap in a discrete slider with five evenly-distributed positions and have things still solvable. That would take some of the guessing out - there are only so many values to try, and makes it easier to visualize. - As others have said, it's unclear when the slider is gonna apply to which block - some indication there would be helpful - Some sort of grid/ghost block mechanic would be useful for the whole game (I had a hard time visualizing where they would go sometimes), but the sliders add an extra complication because the grid isn't fixed any more. Maybe show a ghost block pair for the next block to come that changes as you slide? - Perhaps for sliders, have it be more turn-based - set the slider, release the block, set the slider...maybe combine or not with the ghost blocks? I'm not sure on this one, because part of the challenge is the timing bits.
Like I said, I do like it - it adds (almost literally) another dimension to the game, and is a good addition to shake things up a bit once you get comfortable with the regular mechanics. I think just not having to re-solve the first bit each time would go a long way towards making it more fun, and a discrete slider would make it less guess-y.
I'd also second it being a great mobile game, albeit as you mentioned pretty short. Might be a great candidate for [Google Play Instant](https://developer.android.com/topic/instant-apps/) - I'm not sure if Unity supports that, but seems great for quick games like this. No install needed, while still giving a native experience.
One bug I noticed that's *not* recoverable: if you grab a block right after hitting the reset button (before the blocks fully load), it'll only load a few blocks, and those you can then just grab and position anywhere...and then after hiting play, it loads the rest of the blocks but then you can't interact with anything any more, or reset.
I made a video of the bug, which was too large to upload as a gif here, so I put it [on Giphy](https://gph.is/2HvjMlu).
Like the other mentioned, kind of a monkeying-around bug that most people probably won't hit, but...I'm good at breaking things! Oh, and one other minor thing: hitting Esc to get back to the menu dumps you right into the first level, but if you beat the game (or restart it) it re-runs the tutorial - probably not a huge issue as it's not like it's a huge replay-value type game.
Oh, and I did find the secret Dead Blocks game! Loved the alternate ending copy. Thanks for a delightful little game, definitely one that stands out for me.
@cincodenada Wow, thanks a lot for the epic detailed comment!
The tutorial is the first level so it is supposed to start from that one after beating it. It doesn't really save the progress but it just keeps it in the memory as long as you keep the app open. So it is working as intended, even if the intended way might not be the smartest way. ☺️
That is exactly what I was going for with the slider mechanic, to break the pacing a bit and not let it get too monotonous. And I ended up not liking it that much so only made three levels with it, and didn't even add in any new levels after that at all. I intentionally kept the block amounts small in those level so reordering them again after a failure wouldn't be that big of a deal. And I did actually have kind of a prototype grid system to help with the block positions but hid it because obviously it didn't work at all with the changing link lengths.
Nicely done finding the alt ending. You're the first one to comment about it here so I'm guessing it's not that easy to find. Will probably cost me some points in the theme and humor categories but what fun would such secrets be if I'd have to spell them out.
This is brilliant. It's totally my kind of game. I like everything about it. I played without realising there's a secret ending so gonna have to play again to try and find it. Not complaining though love it. Good stuff :8ball:
Very well done, especially for the time available. The post processing effects are a very nice touch. There's a nice element of originality in the gameplay mechanics. The beginning could have a bit more refined difficulty curve - putting the stone block one piece lower to give the noobs time to get a feel for the mechanics without as much cognitive overhead. Once there starts being more pieces, you sort of have to start writing it down. I'm guessing you need to be able to build a mental construct around how the puzzles work first before you can internalize it easier. Perhaps there could be some sort of helpful planning tool, but that might detract from the purpose of such a puzzle!
@huminaboz Thanks! I do like the idea of adding some kind of planning tool. Could be something as basic as adding a pen tool that the player could use to freeformly scribble some plans and notes on top of the game area. I'm a big crossword puzzle guy so it'd be kinda equivalent of dimly writing down words to try them out. And hell, the draw mode could even be automatically on since there is no clicking or other interaction with the actual play area at all anyways.
An astonishingly clean submission, well done !
This is quite an ingenious puzzle game and very well polished. Well done ja torilla tavataan :D
really nice polish to a great little puzzle game - not sure if its original but I've not seen it :) like the cute character you've given the blocks. The aesthetic makes a huge difference to the experience. Only let down here is the theme, but you def should be proud of your game! even moreso for compo :)
Clean af, super cool and simple mecanic, cool music/graphism, in 2 day... Awesome dude 10/10 would play it again on mobile
Wonderful game, I would love to download this as a mobile game and play it on my phone. Wonderful graphics, music and overall mood. I may be missing the theme just a bit, but overall what a fun game!
Great mechanic and fantastic presentation! The cute blocks and all the animations and sounds were plentiful and on point. The mechanic is quite fun. I wonder if this game could help teach kids about numbers. My main complaint is that I wish upon failure you could keep your set of numbers and just adjust it, instead of having to start from scratch, which is frustrating.
@patrickgh3 Thanks! Yeah, I get it that it is frustrating when you fail because you were just off by one and have to completely start from scratch. But that was the intentional choice I made. The perfect execution required makes the victory that much sweeter (especially so if you've previously failed it in the said last move). If the player got the same set in the same order back after a failure, they could trial and error their way through the levels. I wanted the game to be about planning the perfect stack, not just randomly throwing stuff at it until it works.
I think this game will be really difficult for non-computer science students :laughing: Anyway, nice polish and graphics, VERY nice music! It would be nice if the numbers weren't randomized every time you restart the level though.
@bauxite Why do you think it would be hard for non computer science students? The math is kindergarten level and the player doesn't need to know anything about the actual algorithm, recursion, or anything really. And for the randomizing part, I already explained my thought process for it in the comment above yours. Thanks for playing!
@Antti Haavikko Ah, that makes sense, thanks for the explanation. That approach probably suits the game better. However, I think there could still be some way to reduce the frustration I had. Perhaps a middle ground where you get 1 try to "fix your mistake" with the same number set and order, and then your second mistake starts you with a fresh number set. Or maybe just making the difficulty curve more gradual would have helped me, increasing the number of numbers in you set by about 1 every level. I felt overwhelmed onthe first level with the full bar of numbers. Anyways just ideas, not trying to win an argument or anything. Also forgot to mention I got a real kick out of the hidden game :)
Favorite game so far! Binary trees rejoice!
Super clever game. I'm pretty sure all the CS people here are gonna have a smile on their face playing this. Now you're making me imagine all kinds of games visualizing merge sort and such...
A puzzle in the Binary Tree Sorting genre, that’s a thing now.
The visuals are good as usual. Faces on inanimate objects is a mainstay for instant cuteness and in this case grimness too. Reminds me of one of my favorite puzzles, the oddly titled, [Jelly No Puzzle](http://qrostar.skr.jp/en/jelly/); the cuteness part that is, not the gratuitous deaths.
I do take issue in the memorization aspect of the exercise. It might just be me, but I like my deductive logic challenges separate from memory challenges. Here, there is no way to plop down tiles into the tree itself, meaning I have to keep the actual binary tree in my head in order to solve the level. The deeper the tree, the worse the issue becomes. Luckily you never went beyond depth 4.
Restarting randomizes the tiles, which results in having to deduce the same level again when making a small human error. This isn’t too interesting and it is just the sort of thing the user interface should minimize, not maximize. This was intentional so... To each their own?
Another UI issue is having no visual indication where the tiles are going to end up in. A grid, or something subtler, would help. Of course this would ruin the tile connection distance mechanic. Not a big loss; let me explain.
There is no way to deduce accurately how long the connections need to be. As such using the slider comes down to guesswork. Sure, you can make a guess, test it quickly and only start deducing once the slider value is correct in order to solve the level. Unfortunately the “fake” ending flaunts not only the time taken, but also the tries taken.
Due to this guesswork there is no way to finish all the levels without retries on the first go. The only way to achieve 0-retries consistently is to screen grab the correct slider values for each level on the first playthrough and then replay from the beginning. Sounds fishy to me.
Heavily hinting at the alternative ending is certainly smart, gets people looking for it. Something I should have done in the past. I’d hardly call it the “true” ending, though.
Good work nonetheless. Always glad to see another puzzle, warts and all!