Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD45 → Cipher
By taqoshaq and Jordan Toth
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 49 | 4.16 | 62 | |
| Fun | 73 | 4.01 | 62 | |
| Innovation | 114 | 3.90 | 61 | |
| Theme | 794 | 2.99 | 58 | |
| Graphics | 118 | 4.24 | 62 | |
| Audio | 133 | 3.85 | 59 | |
| Mood | 87 | 4.04 | 60 |
Love the aesthetics! And a really cool way to play a classic nonogram! :smile: It's good that the order of progression starts with simple concepts and gets more difficult over time, introducing only a single new feature per level or expanding on a concept already introduced.
Absolutely genius to introduce mechanics with "show don't tell" like you guys did. Also fits really nicely with the theme as you start with no information on how to play but gradually figure it out. Graphics are outstanding and the puzzles are well thought out and the difficulty curve is well done as well. I can't come up with any negative criticism.
It took me a moment to figure out how to play but this is a really pleasing combo of minesweeper and puzzle games!! The graphics are especially great, amazing job!!!!
Awesome idea, I struggled with understanding the first few levels but once I got into it, it just clicked. You have an insane level of polish here, would make a great little idle game, well done!
I got to progress some levels but I didn't quite understend how...
Very cool game ! The minimalist graphics are amazing. Your game is my favorite game of this ld for now ! Great work !
looks stunning, needs more instructions
Excellent puzzle game, I really enjoyed the simplicity of the start and having to figure out the rules as you go. The puzzles were great and the ending was a nice touch.
Love the game think it was a fun and challenging puzzle game, I hope you make future games as this was really fun.
Hey, it's me again ^^
Loved how you took a game that is geting popular (that pixel sudoku game) and gave it a twist and made it very unique of it's kind!
With simple but constant rules, this game surely entered into my "favorites list"!!
And the last level, boooy that was a great level!!
Puzzleprint.PNG
congratulations, for this awesome game, my friend ^^
at first i wasn't sure what was going on, but figured it out. pretty interesting puzzle game! great job!
A great puzzle solving game! The puzzles are fun, the graphics are charming. It's one of the best games I've seen in this LD!
Great game! So many levels and its actually very well polished. I like the lack of instructions (maybe it should at least have something though to get you going but I know you were trying to go for the theme "start with nothing"). I love the amount of levels too! A lot of good stuff in here. Great jam!
Ooh a puzzle game, and the simplistic but neat art was super nice!:)
V Enjoyable! Good puzzles and nice progression. The one thing I would change is the "fail" screen shake, as I found it really jarring
Best puzzle game of LD45, easily could have been a section of The Witness. Jonathan Blow would be impressed.
Took me a few levels to realize what was going on, but then it all clicked lol. Really clever minimal presentation and great aesthetics. Music is a bit repetitive until the variations kick in at higher levels (and I'm not sure it quite fits with the visual theme) but isn't unpleasant to listen to. I'm impressed with how many levels you've got though. It feels pretty complete for a jam game. Well done!
Really nice puzzle game, really nice aesthetics, it just took me a while to understand how the game worked.
Okay, so being honest here, I'm pretty dumb LOL. For like the first quarter of the game, I was frustrated because I was not being told what the symbols meant, and for ten minutes straight, I was in a blind fury of guess-clicking (literally I was stuck on the second level for a minute because I didn't know you could left click). But, and I thank your soothing music for this, I calmed down, and I realized, it wasn't so hard. You guys had given me all I needed to figure it out--but this wasn't a shooter like many other jams (I'm guilty for this lol). This was an actual stimulating puzzle game that I needed to fundamentally understand; this added so much more depth to the game. And so, I want to say I really enjoyed myself. I think that this was a beautiful entry to the jam, and wow, I just wasn't expecting that. Perhaps cipher is a worthy title. ;)
Nice game! I know that for a lot of people it was a little hard to understand how the mechanic worked, including myself, but I like your approach of teaching by showing. I think you just haven't found the optimal way of doing that yet :) I love the look as well! And the number of puzzles is astonishing! The music can get a little repetitive though. Overall, amazing job!
Love it. The puzzles are fun to figure out and the aesthetic is fantastic. Nice job!
"I have no idea how I'm solving these. Oh okay, I get it. Wait, no I don't. Nevermind, I do."
Seriously, though, this is my game of the jam so far. Well thought out puzzles. Even the tutorials are thought provoking. You introduce new elements at a great pace and you cap it off strong.
cipher_ld.png
No, thank you.
Wow, really well done overall! Took me a while to finish it, but I really enjoyed it. I love that you discover the game as you play through it.
I want 100 more levels. So well done. May not be someone's cup of tea if they aren't into logic puzzles, and I'll admit it took me longer than I'm proud of to figure out those blue circles (but felt very clever once I did), but I love this and love that you've found a new way to present this type of classic puzzle.
I like how this is "The Witness" made in 72 hours haha, pretty nice game but a bit easy imo, you might have add more complex rules maybe (though I know it's not always easy to implement). I just regret the theme is not really there ; of course you start with nothing, but I think you could have made something a bit more original with it!
5 stars for everything. There are so many different rules you can extend this game to 100 level game. I wish you expand this to even bigger game. I feel this game will be in top 3. I would love to learn how you programmed this game. Great job one of the best games I played in this jam.
So I just played The Witness for a bit. Can't say I complain :) Very nice puzzle that slowly went up in difficulty. And so many levels!
Great game! Give us more levels! :D
Big logic puzzle fan, I like picross and minesweeper, so this was a lot of fun. Nice aesthetic, great puzzle design. New mechanics were introduced and taught well through the gameplay without a text wall. I really like the series around halfway through where you have to solve the same grid a few different ways. Great job!
The game is beautiful in its simplicity. There is minimal feedback, yet I slowly started understanding what I had to do. Just when I fully understood the logic I thought I was going to ace this game within a minute, but right at that moment the dificulty increased and I had to think a little harder again. Great balancing and well done!
Loved the game! The sound effects are good, the game is beautiful and I spent a lot of time playing. It's very well balanced, although it sounds simple, it's challenging and catchy. A great puzzle. Congratulations for your work!
Very well polished puzzle game and cleverly designed. I could see this being a fun little app for people on the bus or train to play. Great job!
This is a very well done puzzle game, I love how the whole game uses no language other than symbolism, it's very effective! Great job!
Great game! Reminds me a lot of The Witness and I had a blast playing it, felt like time just flew away. The only issue I had with it is that the flashing background got a bit tedious on the eyes. Would love to see a expanded version!
Strange but efficient puzzle game without any tutorial - just an intuitive gameplay. Often I asked myself about this opportunity - a game without any explaination. Sometimes I solved a level, but I didn't know I did that :/ Well done with good visual and a minimalist aesthetic. I would like to use only one word - bold attempt. Thank you for this entry ++
Damn! My face is aching from the stress (i love it!). These puzzles are excellent, the way you introduce the logic is really well done, i like it when games do this.
Finally got to the last level: Cipher_last_level.png
I'm wondering how you generated these puzzles and whether you used a GA of some kind to generate and rate the difficulty to give you the levels or whether you are just a puzzle wizard?
The graphics style is top notch too, i really like these old style CRT UI's.
My only gripe with this game is when you fail and it removes the blocks you had set and you have to start from scratch (but granted it adds to the memory part of the game).
This is the best puzzle game i have played since TIS-100.
Excellent job!
Nice puzzle game with a great look and audio. It was nice how you introduced the mechanics, and that also added a bit to the challenge as it took me a moment to get the meaning of some of the symbols.
@cybersoftuk We made all of these by hand, actually. I'd say something close to 50% of our effort time-wise went into the puzzle design, difficulty curving, play-testing, and re-working.
A puzzle generator would be a fun project, though!
I really liked how you introduced new game mechanics. It was very clear and easy to grasp new rules. I also admire the visual feedback when we make a mistake. It helps to understand what have we missed in a very convenient manner.
The only thing which I would improve is the audio - it started to be boring after a few minutes. I guess this was caused by the repetitive melody.
I completed all of the levels and to be honest, I would like to play a bit more :sweat_smile:
Cipher finished
Awesome game! I love puzzles and I felt vibes of The Witness. Amazing work for such a short time. Congrats!
Wow this is a really well put together puzzle game! All the mechanics are clear, they are demonstrated within the tutorials, and then the puzzles are very fair. I got stumped by the last one so far but I'm still working on it. Great game overall, the presentation is clean, music doesn't get annoying, and the mechanics are very solid!
Edit: Finally solved it, really great work!
Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream! I played it today in the last few hours of voting :) Even though there were points where my brain hurt, I stuck through it and spent 43 minutes solving all the puzzles LOL. Chat mightve helped a bit ;D
If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/501424047?t=3h9m4s
Hope you got some valuable feedback on your game and looking forward to seeing you next LD jam if I dont catch you before then! :D
💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin