Apparatus

craigmc08 2018-08-13 14:42

Nicely made. The visual style is quite polished and cohesive, the menus work well, and I didn't find any bugs during my play time. The game fits very well into the idea of "running out of space," you are forced to manage where you place things. The sound effects are simple, but they didn't need to be anything more.

I'm not a huge fan of the movement. It feels sluggish and I would sometimes walk a tile too far and would have to take a step back. I also got stuck in the progression of the game because I didn't have enough electronics for the electronics maker, so I had to restart.

Anyways, it's a really well-made game. Great job with it.

pkenney 2018-08-14 04:25

Very cool - I love how there are zero instructions outside the game's narrative. I enjoyed the feeling of discovery and building. I didn't realize at first that you can hold shift, and then move orthogonal as opposed to just push/pull as in many other block-puzzle games. It was cool that this little block-puzzle was used as a base layer for a larger machine-building puzzle, too. An impressive amount of design scope for an LD compo!

I did get dinged by dead ends. First I ran out of a electronics and couldn't make the electronics-maker. It happened because I hit space when I meant to hit shift, and I discovered the battery before the second set of schematics was unlocked.

I really wanted to open the second lock and see more, but after I had built some automation I ran into a problem and trapped myself. Setting up an array of electronics production units along a treadmill, one of them slipped onto the treadmill and ran away from me. It get ran down the line to do the doorway, but there was a control unit there which stopped it from being affected by the treadmill. This also turned the production unit back on, which in turn blocked the treadmill. That caused a pileup logjam and soon my map was crowded with electronic blocks that were meant to ship but were't moving.

At first I underestimated the extreme danger of this situation, and spent some money to dig out a new zone so I could come around at another angle. The problem was I could not get to the units to move or turn them off, and when I moved blocks to get through they would instantly refill with electronics. I tried to time a pair of quick moves, but wasn't fast enough. I hadn't computed the consequences of failure in advance, and that was it.

Here is my final state: https://imgur.com/cxVnp6b

I guess I took your implementation of the theme all the way to the extreme there, huh?

That's a pretty cool game that this disaster emerged from the systems! But it was slow paced enough - which I enjoyed - but slow paced enough that I didn't want to repeat the early game a third time to get to the end. At least, not right now as it's getting late.

I felt like the art supported the game well, and the controls were thankfully smooth, and I was hammering out my turns pretty quickly. It's actually pretty easy for a turn-based game with animations to frustrate me, but you avoided this problem nicely.

Very nice and unique entry here. You accomplished your goal of makes a Zachlike I think. Well done!!

timbals 2018-08-16 13:06

Nice idea for the game. It's very fun to combine the blocks and create challenges for yourself in the small space.

shp 2018-08-16 13:34

I'm not sure if I get the idea, just crafted stuff using the blocks I have but more clear goals would be nice! I think you could do quite a lot with the mechanics you already have in. one thing missing is background music as well, would fit nicely in a game like this!

aszu 2018-08-16 15:42

This game is great! Loved it, played it through the end. I think there's a bug, also, the last building (wich i forgot the name) seems to do nothing at all, wasn't it supposed to give you money? Anyways, good job, very complete and fun.

rakart 2018-08-16 16:57

Cool concept and implementation !

It's pretty rare to see good automation based games. This one is pretty hard, I failed three times and the last one was pretty weird : I was putting arrows on the ground and at some point they started disappearing. "Oh, okay you have a limited number of arrows" was I thinking but even by deleting some of them while trying to reoptimize my path they kept disappearing even if the pool was smaller.

Other than that it's a pretty great game, I really loved it. Congratulations on the entry !

stevenjmiller 2018-08-16 17:34

It took me quite a long time, but I managed to complete the game. I really enjoyed it, though I felt it did have some flaws. Having a limited amount of arrows available to place greatly limited the level of automation, a bit too much in my opinion, making it difficult to get a good system set up. Additionally, trying to modify an automated section was a hassle, as turning off the generator meant all of the producing blocks would be carried away and sold. I also think expanding the play area takes a bit too long, and I feel like the game might've benefited from having the first few expansions be only 100 rather than 500 right away, just to speed things up. Lastly, the crypto-currency miner didn't seem to do anything, though that may have been a misunderstanding on my part. I think that for the purposes of the jam, the game might've been better off being a bit shorter, as I worry that most people won't be willing to put in the time necessary to complete the game in its current state. That said, I greatly enjoyed it.

derpyjish 2018-08-16 18:57

I made it to the end! I thought that the game was really well made, and a great take on the theme. I had to restart the game a couple times as I got myself into situations I couldn't get out of, but I actually had a lot of fun playing! (I reckon if there wasn't an ending to it I could have spent longer playing your game than I spent making mine!)

I did get confused when I started adding propulsion arrows and others disspeared, and it was kind of sad that I couldn't build one huge factory because of that, but besides that the amount of polish on the game (even if it is quite small) meant I was quite happy to play it to the end. If ever you make a post-jam version of the game I would love to play it. :smile:

c1fr1 2018-08-18 04:06

I got a bit addicted, this is good, but at the end I don't feel like there is enough of an incentive to build generators for the more expensive blocks, and it gets really menial. I still really enjoyed it though, especially the first part.

lastleaf 2018-08-18 09:18

Great idea! I really felt "the space is not enough" while playing this game!

I have not played this type of game before, but I think the crafting system could me more complex. Anyway, it is already a game fo great fun!

candlesan 2018-08-18 17:43

I love Zachtronics games. I definitely got a sense that I didnt' have enough space but I also found the movement to be overly constraining. I guess it's because I'm working on two different puzzles at the same time, one being "what do I want to do" and the other being "how do I want to get there" I liked the crafting system though I wish it could detect patterns even if there were additional blocks adjacent.

I was getting some cubes made and started selling them but they were worth 1 or 3 each and the expansion cost 500 which seemed like too much grinding. I'm not sure if there is a way to automate selling the cubes for 3 each but I found it too tedious. Overall I found this super compelling and I hope you work on it more.

negativegeforce 2018-08-18 22:16

Intuitive and well put together entry. I can tell the UI and controls have alot of polish in it. The game feels well put together overall. The feeling of being cramped and need of expansion was communicated well. Although I personally didn't really enjoy this game - levels, more items to craft, better graphics and sound could easily change that. Although I scored it low it's one of the few in the compo I can see being pursed into a full release. There's a big market for zachy games and this one has it's own twist on the genre.

c0nst4ntin 2018-08-18 22:19

Great little game. I really enjoyed the time playing! Nice Audio!

willbl3pic 2018-08-18 22:38

Took me a while to work out how to play, but once I did, it was really fun!

rother-games 2018-08-18 23:37

I seems easy at first, but it failed several times until I got it. Innovative idea and fun game.

deaymon 2018-08-19 01:51

I wasted too much time on this one, but it was worth the 3~ restarts and 2~ hours to get my automated producer and unlocked every unlockable space :grin:

Definitely one of my favourite entries on this jam! Great job! :thumbsup:

merpader 2018-08-19 03:54

Liked the game! played it till the end. the Core Computers or whatever they're called should sell for WAY more! It got boring to build the same giant thing over and over again! other than that, the graphics are really good and the audio made it feel rewarding!

jamison 2018-08-19 12:16

I didn't get too far (1 door and 2 spaces unlocked) but I enjoyed it and I could see the potential for getting mildly addicted. Needs to be easier to restart other than closing the game and reopening, since I sure had to restart a few times in the beginning. Also, it wasn't clear to me that I had to open one of the doors to get another set of blueprints--not obvious how to proceed.

Nicely done though!

predominant 2018-08-20 06:19

Very fun. Nice work :)

danilo-chiarlone 2018-08-20 13:34

F A N T A S T I C ! ! !

I absolutely loved your game! It all worked really well together and kept me playing for a long while!

danilo-chiarlone 2018-08-20 19:07

So, I **really** liked the game and now I've played for a ~~couple of hours~~ good bit.

Thing is, when I reached the end, the game completely glitched out and got stuck.

This is what I see:

print.png

I can't move and my computer sees the application as non-responsive.

justinmullin 2018-08-20 20:56

Oh no! I'm sorry to hear that @danilo-chiarlone. Certainly a bug, though I'm not immediately sure what crashed things. Sorry you lost your progress!

megalink 2018-08-21 09:31

This is amazing! Concept is so innovative and original, it is incredible how this was put together in just two days. Animations were very smooth and looked great. Only area where I thought the game was lacking was in audio and mood. I think some background ambience could really improve the players immersion within the game. Theme interpretation was very creative and the crafting system was polished and well made. Great work, keep it up!

wabble 2018-08-21 16:02

this game is amazing!

ithildin 2018-08-26 13:30

I'm loving this so far! I've had to restart a couple of times because I got stuck, but it was early enough that I didn't mind at all. On the contrary, there was an "A-ha!" moment attached to every "Oh sh*t!", and validating those a-ha's on the next run felt awesome (not sure if I'll say the same if I need to do the same after half an hour or switch to table flipping mode, though :sweat_smile:).

Graphics are clear (Having both controls on different areas on the HUD looked a bit odd at first, but after trying the pull/push myself everything was clear), sound doesn't feel out of place and the controls work smoothly, no weird precision or collision issues at all.

I think you've done a great job at your Zachlike attempt (and it's really addicting, this combination of discovery, crafting and space management works great!).

Amazing entry, congrats!