dadiaogames 2020-10-05 01:06
A little bit hard to get how to play at first, but once you know how to play, it's kinda fun. Nice job!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD47 → Loops in pool
By recher
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 513 | 3.00 | 31 | |
| Fun | 426 | 3.03 | 31 | |
| Innovation | 144 | 3.67 | 31 | |
| Theme | 530 | 2.92 | 30 | |
| Graphics | 578 | 2.43 | 31 | |
| Humor | 438 | 1.94 | 27 | |
| Mood | 545 | 2.44 | 27 |
A little bit hard to get how to play at first, but once you know how to play, it's kinda fun. Nice job!
I tied to play the game, but I was never able to make the water running.
Today I will make a little video on twitch or youtube, to explain how it works.
Just to help :
- make a vine loop near the fountain (but not connected to it), - check that the mud is removed inside this loop : the ground inside should become gray. - use the button "2" (special power) on the tiles between the fountain and your loop, to build a tiny loop that will connect the fountain and your first loop. - the water should flow. - continue like this.
You can not make loop by using the border of the map.
I finally finished it! Very interesting concept. A little difficult to get started, but fun
Hard to grasp at first, but quite fun afterwards. Congrats :)
Holy shit this is hard :smile:
I almost quit without ever moving the water, but than I finally saw what to do. And how man does this require some serious thinking xD
I like it! :smile:
Could use some point and click controls because sometimes you really need that tile the other side of the board xD
Overall good entry! Thank you for the game
Thank you to all for your feedbacks.
@evogengames : you are right concerning the need of point and click controls. The problem is that it is not implemented in the Squarity engine for the moment. I will add it as soon a possible, hope I can do it in a few weeks.
As promised, I added a youtube video to explain the game mechanics. Excuse my horrible french accent. You are allowed to mute the video sound.
The kind of game where - once you figure out what you're actually supposed to be doing - is great fun. probably spent about 20 mins on it
Quite hard to figure out, maybe a bit more resources could help get started. after a while I could figure out the mechanics but I'm having a super hard time visualizing how my swaps will look and how pools get formed, maybe if tile borders were more hilighted it'd be easier
@shp : Yes, I wanted to do a true tutorial, where you would be guided in doing your first loops and you would understand when to use the special power of adding vine. But as you may have guessed : lack of time.
Having no tile borders was made on purpose, so that you have to visualize tiles by yourself. Now, I realize it was maybe too much.
If I ever continue this game, I would split it in many levels, and the first ones would have tile borders more marked.
Like others I found it hard to understand, but once I did I had to replay it some times. It's hard! But a really cool puzzle game idea. I really like it!
Would be nice to have some sound effects for the water. Some features I thought about that could be added maybe: * Maybe have a preview of the tiles you're swapping, and could cancel swap pressing ESC or similar. * When you lost it took a while until I noticed because nothing was happening. It could maybe alert that I lost and ask if i wanted to replay again.
Like other people mentioned, it was hard to understand what to do. I feel like there's a fun game here, it just needs a little easier tutorial or something that explains what to do. Starting with smaller levels might be one way to do it, or making each tile a little simpler would also help. It would be cool if it got more difficult over time rather than starting out on hard mode. But all in all this worked well, so great job!
@paer-strandberg : the preview would be a good idea. I will think about it.
When you lose, there is a little message on the log text, on the down left of the screen. It tells that you do not have enough mana to exchange tiles, and that you have lost. But you are right on the fact that the message is not very visible, and there is no way to replay again, except reloading the web page :-) .
@kevinworkman : you are right. We need some tutorial and a better learning curve. Maybe, for the first levels : a smaller map, no diagonal vines, add some pre-built loops, add some nearly-built big loops, ...
I often found it hard to tell where tiles were, a light grid overlay would have really helped, as I often found myself going after a tile, only to find out what I thought was a tile was the corner of 4 tiles! I managed to beat the game, score of 753, wherever that comes from ^_^.
Really unique and interesting puzzle mechanic! I managed to get myself stuck on my first game (and not enough mana to repair the situation), before I knew what I was doing, but my second game was fun =).
It was fun. It was a good challenge. One part that was slightly challenging was that the colours seemed to blend a bit, but that might just be my computer. Red, blue, and green can clash a bit when trying to read and search for the pieces I need. Maybe some white and black lines could help keep contrast. Overall good job.
@jimbly : the final score is simply the Pool mana you have when you win.
As a reminder : - Exchanging tiles : -1 mana - Spinning tile on water : -4 mana - Adding a green line : -10 mana - propagating a little part of water : +1 mana
@naali : contrast is a good idea. I did not have time to draw some decent and contrasted vines. So they are just green lines.
Nice idea. The interface needs some polishing for slow learners like me. Funny backstory. Well done!
It was really interesting and good challenge of a game. Had a interesting mechanic and once I got the hang of it I really enjoyed it great job!
Nice game ! You have a concept here, but this game is a bit too complex, maybe it will be better with simplification (why loops far away from water create grey background ?)
It was good good once I eventually figured out what to do. Certainly not obvious. In the end I didn't need to use any of the special powers. Mostly a case of just hunting down the right tile. The interface was the problem I think. Having a mana display on screen would have helped, and a grid may have made tiles easier to find. Mouse control would probably improve it a lot too. Also a restart button. I had to restart a lot before I figured out how it worked.
@zacharieg : they create grey background to show it's a closed loop, and that the last thing you have to do is bring water next to it.
Also, you can not exchange a tile if it is a frontier between a closed loop and the mud. So, I had to clearly show all the closed loops, to help people undertand why they can not exchange some of the tiles.
@someone : you are right on the lack of mana display (though the fountain becomes darker when you begin to be short on mana), a clearer display of the grid, and the ability to select a tile with a click. I will improve Squarity (my game engine) so that all these things are possible.
There is no "official" restart button, but technically, if you click on the bottom right button, named "envoyez le code", it reloads all the game code and makes you restart.
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I did it!
The game is pretty fun, once you understand what to do.
The problem is understanding what to do... :sweat_smile:
The french buttons did not really help...
Nice entry :)
You have a good concept here, but it's not really friendly for your users ^^ May need some audios and more understandable UI ^^ (left mana should be more accessible).
Anyway very good concept ;) I did it with ~750 points
Congratulations to @steffo and @kack3y for finishing my game.
Sorry about the french buttons. I thought it was not really a problem, because these buttons are about Squarity (my game engine) and not about the game itself.
You do not have to use any of these french button to play. But I agree it may look confusing.
English version (and english documentation) should come quite soon.
Your final score is : 553 Interesting game. Reminds me of DOS games like Pipe Dreams/Pipe Mania :D Maybe having smaller levels with themes, puzzles or growing difficulty could make this better. It was a pretty big task that felt daunting at first. But I made it through!
Really intriguing game. It took me a little while to work out the mechanics (it seemed a little unintuitive how the water would propagate *through* the vines to the enclosed areas). After I got the hang of it though it was quite compelling to play. Once I got started, I never seemed to be in danger of running out of mana and not finishing. It seemed to be just a matter of hunting for the right tiles. It might be interesting to add one more twist to the mechanics (e.g. some fixed tiles that can't be swapped, or some intermediate points that the water has to reach) and/or rebalance the points a bit.
Definitely a game with a lot of potential. It would be great as a mobile game.
Thank you for you feedbacks.
I updated the game engine, to make python error messages visible when the game code is crappy.
It does not change anything to this game. But if it doesn't seem to work, try to do Ctrl-F5.
One last day before the results !!