Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD47 → Stuck in a Loop (station)
By erikiene, Mackandrius, Cerka and rytisruk
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 347 | 3.84 | 70 | |
| Fun | 378 | 3.70 | 70 | |
| Innovation | 146 | 3.97 | 69 | |
| Theme | 343 | 4.00 | 71 | |
| Graphics | 360 | 4.03 | 72 | |
| Audio | 44 | 4.29 | 70 | |
| Humor | 623 | 2.93 | 54 | |
| Mood | 380 | 3.79 | 69 |
I tried to play it but apparently my computer can't handle the graphics haha. I wonder if there is a way to lower the graphics settings, like with those older unity games that had a launcher with the option to select the resolution and graphic quality.
Hey @eduardo-yukio, welcome back!! Sorry about that, but hang in there we'll throw in a patch after work today with quality settings and a bit of optimisation.
@eduardo-yukio we've done a hot-fix for you now, should be working better, if not we will look into it more thoroughly later today.
Wow so the graphics are very good and so is the sound, incredible presentation overall. I also liked the idea and the first two rooms were put together very well, the flashing light challenge was quite fun to overcome. Then, however, the third room came and I could not progress past that point. I spent a solid 10 minutes figuring out what exactly I was supposed to do about the notes that were not told to me (4, 15 for example), those that were given twice in different colours (9) and those way past the number of notes (23, 26 etc). Even though it was very fun o play and fit the theme quite well, I had to give up at that point, sadly without reaching the probably very satisfying ending. 4.0 Overall and personal winner in Graphics (4.0), Mood (4.5) and Sound (4.0) so far but beyond my puzzle solving skills, sadly.
I love this game because the game adds a whole new dimension to the theme, because you are stuck in a music loop, instead of a level loop like most games added! Also the music is very on point! Love it!
Actually a beautiful game in my opinion. The graphics are well done and the sounds are very nice. A pretty little jam
Great game, but how to solve the room with a lot of TVs??
This game is not easy, but in the way that feels really good when you figure out a puzzle. Sound design is great and the game itself looks amazing and runs well. Keep up the great work!
Super cool idea with the music and it sounds great! I could not get very far and spent a long time on the TV room but could not figure it out. I tried to line up the colors with the numbers, but it seems it was more complex than that. I would also suggest to make the rooms brighter, it was hard to see anything except the lights. Overall cool idea, wish I could have experienced the whole thing. I will definitely try again if you reveal any spoilers to help me beat that room :)
@noirox @watermelonandme thanks a lot for the feedback and the kind words and apologies for the frustration! We're getting a lot of people saying that the TV puzzle is confusing, so it's nothing to do with your puzzle solving skills, rather the design of the puzzle itself needs improvement. However, instead of telling you how to to solve it just yet, we'll do a quick patch for the puzzle, so that if you ever come back you might be able to solve it yourself!
@klaaswag @giordas thanks a lot! 🙌🙌
@bonobomaximus thanks a lot! @abdul-zakkar thanks, puzzle fix on the way!
@mackandrius Thank you very much for the consideration! I still have some lag issues, but it's playable and very enjoyable. Got stuck on the tv room too though haha
Sooo we've tweaked the TV puzzle, hopefully it should be solvable now 🤞
By the way, drop us a screenshot of what you come up with in the sandbox mode, so we could recreate and jam to it here! Here's mine to get the party going 🕺
sandbox.jpg
I didn't know what to expect when I started the game, but wow it took me by surprise. That's a super clever take on the theme, and the gameplay of sound-related puzzle in order to make music is awesome. Good job, great game!
Very clever puzzle design! Beautiful environments, too. Would love to see this finished as some kind of environmental puzzle game not unlike The Witness : feels like so much could be done with this idea.
Very clever puzzle! Maybe a little too dark? Good job to the team!
The game was very creative, I liked the mechanics involved, the graphics, and especially the sound haha. If you allow me, a suggestion that I can give you, is that you have some kind of simple tutorial at the beginning of the game (even if it is a few words explaining the importance of watching the lights), because I for example was very lost until I understood the first one puzzle (I almost couldn't see the red lights on or off). Sometimes it could have been something on my monitor (or in my eyes, who knows hahaha). Anyway, your idea is magnificent, and it was really a good job. Congratulations.
@toulou @don-tnowe @tipyx @vphyre - thank you all for the kind words!
@don-tnowe - funny you say that, we mentioned The Witness a few times during development! We'll try and launch a twitter page in the coming week or two so that anyone interested can follow for further developments as we do intend to push on with this project. Will notify you one that's ready (whether you want it or not :) )
@tipyx - yeah, we had better ideas for lighting but good old time ran out.. :D hence the addition of a flashlight, which I recognise is not the best solution but hopefully works somewhat. We've got sorting the lights out in the pipeline.
@vphyre - "allow you"?! We love the feedback! We were thinking something like "press h for hint" to give hints in each room when a player needs them, but a tutorial might be an alternative solution.
Heya! Thanks for submitting your game to my stream [twitch.tv/drjavasaurus](www.twitch.tv/drjavasaurus). I had a great time playing it. I really loved this escape room simulator. Would work perfectly in VR ! :) I'm not a very audio-savvy person, but with a little bit of help I was able to discover the puzzles and their solutions. I probably would be able to get it but it would take me quite some time. Challenging, but fair. Well done, I enjoyed it ! And offcourse the added touch of a sandbox mode deserves praise !
I wish I could play this, but I'm on mac:(
Very fun game! I loved the creative puzzles. I also loved the sandbox mode- as a graphics guy, this game was very refreshing with the amazing audio.
Really great game, one of my favourites so far. My only complaint is that there isn't a way to pause or exit the game from within the game.
Thanks for the rates and comments!
@jogy34 the good ol' "alt+f4" does the trick... :D
@unhandyred - sorry about that! We didn't have a mac available for testing and couldn't figure out that the mac build was not working until recently.. I will look into solving it, but suspect it's due to a 3rd party audio engine and so might be slightly difficult. Though will try my hardest! (And let you know if solved)
@jogy34 - well, as per the theme, you are *stuck* in a loop! But yeah, lazy excuses aside - we aim to put that functionality in soon and until then hopefully alt+f4 does the trick as per my teammate above. Thank you for playing! ;)
really really great puzzle game, i enjoyed playing a lot, like the rest i was stacked on the 3rd room, wish igot passed it. amazing graphic, mood, and generl game!!!!!
@javasaurus Thanks again for playing and very glad you liked it! Definitely thinking about VR for this as well. Regarding the difficulty, we think that the learning curve is too steep at the moment, but if there would be more levels in between the second and the third rooms, the players might become more accustomed to the mechanics and puzzle types before reaching the TV room and hopefully it wouldn't suddenly become so difficult. Something to consider taking this project further! :smile:
@dani-tufeld thanks for the feedback!
Incredible game. I love the interpretation of the theme, the mechanics and of course the music. I got stuck on the TV puzzle but I've already read you're working on that so I'll wait to the 2.0 version to play it again. Congratulations!
Loved the idea, very creative, and the audio was really good. I think the puzzles were mostly intuitive, but unfortunately I couldn't figure out what to do on the 4th room. Still, pretty solid game, good job!
Hey a jam game based on music where the final product caused by user interaction actually sounds good! That was a surprise. The nature of the game made me think of The Witness. Could be a cool take on a similar design with areas that all create their own little songs and then mesh in a final zone in some way. I'll admit I had to cheat a bit and watch @javasaurus stream on it to solve the TV puzzle though. I got close but the color of the L in the updated version threw me off a bit. Actually the old hint in the stream is how I solved it funny enough. Cool entry
@gonzalol @bibicio @thevideogamester Thanks for playing the game and for your feedback, we really appreciate it! :heart: As many people are getting stuck on the more difficult puzzles, we're in the works of implementing an optional hint system, so that people who get stuck and want to advance could do so. @thevideogamester Thanks for pointing out the L colour problem, even though they were the same, because of the lighting it didn't appear to match perfectly, we'll fix that in the next update!
Game very well done, I liked the fun provided, good job!
Ahahah, its very good man, thanks for finishing it. Dont forget rate our game too ^^
Cool concept of solving the puzzles to create a beat. The music was really good as well, would love to see a more finished version with more puzzles. Could have also used a screen to signify that you beat it, an in game menu and a tutorial explaining what you are doing.
the one room with the color codes, I couldnt do it ): ... Not colorblind friendly, though, maybe using shapes instead would be nice
Nice game!
Sooo cool ! It reminds me The Witness, but in music ! The ambient, the puzzles, the final when you can applause (so funny), it could easily win this game jam, and it could be a great game concept
Very cool concept. I couldn't figure out what to do in the fourth room, just FYI. But that's the nature of puzzle games, people get stuck sometimes. Sounds like you guys might be planning on continuing to work on this later. Do it!
Really solid entry. Exciting, fun, interesting, nice take on the theme and then i got to room 3 or something with the tv's. There's too many things in this room that doesn't make sense and the odds of randomly guessing based on deduction scales out of control. The tv's have different sizes but that doesn't correlate, there are more colors than what you can pick on the keys so those don't correlate, if you are supposed to combine the number colors you see for Tertiary colors you see the colors don't match with the guesses. Some numbers have more than one valid color which negates that connection. There are numbers not on the wall, my guess was that they don't get a color. I'd be fine with that, but I want to figure it out so much. I had a hard time with the witness puzzles too, trying and then often coming back to see if i could deduce what the solution was over and over. I was hoping someone in this chat knew, but i haven't seen the answer to these puzzling issues with logic.
@somogy @cargamoni @blue-pin-studio @lucbarr @pedrocoden @zacharieg @aflatthrasher @commanderstitch - thank you all for giving our experience a spin and for taking the time to rate it and even comment!
@blue-pin-studio - yeah, we recognise we're introducing some random concepts out of nowhere without really easing the player into them and so will aim to fix that with.. (drumroll).... **more rooms**! in our post-jam releases. And yeah, a pause menu is something we should probably give some focus to creating :sweat_smile:
@lucbarr - that's a very good suggestion! we had it in our minds that we need to solve the colour blind friendliness of this game, but didn't yet know how. Shapes might be the answer. If we apply such a solution soon, I will be sure to notify you!
@zacharieg - y-....you....... might be the first player to have completed all the rooms! (at least going by the comments) congratulations! Thank you for the kind words! Humbled by the winning though and definitely by being likened to (although far from the quality of) The Witness :bow:
@aflatthrasher - you have no idea how the puzzle-building parts of our brains are relieved to hear such words coming from a player! (regarding the nature of puzzle games). And hell yeah we're continuing! I invite you to follow our [spanking-new twitter page](https://twitter.com/UnvrsllyAbsrd) (despite its lack of content) where we will try and inform people on updates to this experience and any future developments.
@commanderstitch - damn. We are honoured by you thinking of some fairly advanced ways of solving the rooms, while in reality we wouldn't have been able to think of such puzzles in the first place! :laughing: Room 3 is in fact simpler than that, but we do recognise it's causing friction for many players and are therefore trying to work out ways of making it less confusing and more pleasing, while still keeping it more difficult than rooms 1&2. As I am a big fan of the comment you left, I offer you and others reading this reply an exclusive (which might go out of date if we apply a patch..) - the word above the door offers several clues. One contextual (via the meaning of the word) and one more direct (via the parts of the word).
This reminds me a lot of FRACT OSC. Great idea with the music loops. I didn't make it past the TV screens unfortunately. The first two puzzles were I think easy.
I don't have much to say other than that. The game is good overall for me not to have anything really relevant to say ^^. Continue like that !
Congratulations on making it to LD47 ! It's a solid entry !
Great Concept and Execution. The Main Game Progression Too Was Wonderful. I had a lot of fun creating melodies in game and in the sandbox mode as well. well done.
A few issues i had were: - The FPS (It was around 20) So I'll Recommend At Least Enabling Unity's Default Graphics Options. - The Sensitivity Just Having a Slider In The Menu Makes Your Game Way More Accessible.
Other Than That, Great Game! Really Enjoyed It.
Wow! Best thing I've seen here!
Before feedback even given - You're being way too liberal with patching. This isn't just bugfixes, this is patching bad puzzles to make them more gettable, balancing, polishing, etc etc. Post jam updates SHOULD not be including this kind of thing, and I'm fairly sure couple of your patches violate ldjam rules. Living with mistakes is part of the gamejam experience
Other than that; game was fairly enjoyable. I really felt no motivation to solve the puzzles, same issue I had with the witness. The only reward was more puzzles, which is a bit of a shame. I get that's it's own fairly successful niche that I'm just not a part of though. Great visual and auditory polish as well
Hey @tuatarian! First and foremost - thanks for pointing that out. Our reading of the rules (specifically the allowance of bug fixes and **not** new features) was that while we don't change the puzzle itself, it would be ok to alter the hints (mind- static hints, not some intricate mechanics) that help the player proceed. You suggest that view might be wrong and we acknowledge it. But at the same time, I would argue we have not changed any mechanics or features of the game and kept each puzzle as it was, but in altering the hint provided, we allowed more players to progress through something that was an uneccesary friction point. The fact that more players are now able (probably) to progress beyond room 3 doesn't really make the game better as the game is the same as it was. If our game contained a bug that led to a particular door not opening when it should, us fixing that would be of the same importance, scale and eventual effect as what we did.
Above all I agree with your sentiment that living with mistakes is part of the gamejam experience! We are living with the classic mistake of overscoping, bad UI, very poor difficulty scaling and a long long list of more such mistakes.
I think your point about motivation is a very interesting one. Our needs for motivation in games likely differ, but that's not to say I don't understand your point. In our minds the main motivators in this experience are 1) the same as any escape room's (i.e. escaping) and 2) seeing yourself create a groovy track as you progress through the rooms. I fully get not all people dig such motivators and appreciate your comment because it will make us think more about this for future developments.
Finally - huge respect for being able to write a critical comment and at the same time point out what you did like.
@nik184 Thanks a lot!
@fluffy-kaeloky Ah, the tv puzzle... :sweat_smile: Thanks for playing and the feedback! Had a look at FRACT OSC and it looks amazing, I definitely get where you see the similarities, thanks for showing it!
@whynotyt Thanks for the kind words and super happy you enjoyed the sandbox mode! If you make some cool loops there, be sure to share it with us via a screenshot, so we could recreate it! :man_dancing: Sorry, that you had performance issues, that's definitely something we need to look at and your suggestions will be addressed!
This is a very nice game. As a composer myself, I love the sound implementation and sound effects. Cheers!
@thales-guimaraes Oh wow thank you, flattered! :pray:
This was so cool! I am unfortunately among those that got stuck in room 3 :( but hopefully I'll figure it out, I really wanna see what's after that! But otherwise this is a really cool game!
@krysh Thanks so much for playing and for the feedback! Regarding the TV room, this might help - as @erikiene put it "the word above the door offers several clues. One contextual (via the meaning of the word) and one more direct (via the parts of the word)."
I like my simple but hypnotic one :smile: (see screenshot) I wish we could have increased the BPM of the loop station! Thanks for this pleasant (game?) experience! :D loop.PNG
Wow I really liked playing that game, I love puzzle games and this one is based on a music loop, very clever ! Great job about everything in this game ! I love it and I want more !
Cool game and great execution ! It's fun how you started with the same base idea as our team, but ended up with something totally different. That's really inspiring !
I had so much fun in the game, The puzzles were not easy, but solvable. You've found a good balance there ^^ the graphics are gorgeous and really gives the game a polished and futuristic feel. The music is absolutely amazing, you can hear your progression which is such a cool reward for solving the puzzles. the addition of a Sandbox is also nice, I had some fun there ^^ this is definitely a must play of this ludum dare :D btw, here is my Sandox creation ^^ a2a8224f-ea9a-4e6e-9b85-9d8863814c3e.png
@matlab First player-made Sandbox track, woohoo!! We love it! Thanks for sharing it with us and yes, a BPM changing option was definitely within the list of things we wanted to do for this jam, but in the end didn't have enough time for. If you ever feel like listening to your music easily again - we recreated your track and put it up here!
https://youtu.be/1Wxlb8IoQH0
@hoolop Thanks for playing and for the feedback! Oh yes we're definitely thinking of doing something more, consider following us on [twitter](https://twitter.com/UnvrsllyAbsrd), we'll be posting updates (even though there's nothing there yet haha)
@jrevel haha I knew more people must've thought about something similar! Very inspiring indeed and thanks for playing!
@loligxp Oh wow, that was amazing, we recreated your track and hell yeah - it's killer! I just wish we had given you more options and more lines for each instrument, perhaps an option to change in between sections, I can only imagine what you would've come up with then! Thanks so much for sharing and if you ever want to hear it again, here's your recreated track:
https://youtu.be/eXzKxMO-6Tw
This was unbelievably fun! I loved the idea and it fit the theme perfectly. The 3D models were beautiful and the lighting created a great ambience. I could manage to get to the end, but I don't blame you for that.
good game
Cool game!
Really cool game! Great that it's not just a puzzle game and not just a music based game. The mix of both makes it very enjoyable. I didn't get through all the puzzles but it was fun exploring that and the sandbox mode for a bit. I'm awful at making any kind of music but an attempt was made StuckInALoopboxSandbox.png
This is magnificent! My only complaint is that it was a little too dark for me to see my way around... Alas, I couldn't get past the hi-hat puzzle... which was really frustrating as I desparately wanted the next part of the loop!!
Oh, yes, one other thought: In the sandbox, please add a CONFIRMATION BEFORE RESET!!!!111one My first composition was much better... ahh well. _Loved_ this entry. Well done.
StuckInALoop.jpg
Cool idea for a puzzle game. Like many I was stuck in the TV room but after a bit I think I figured it out. The room after had me stumped for the longest. I liked how each step added to the background music and the models really added to being trapped in a machine. I think having a smaller puzzle before the TV room could help with introducing needing to look for more than a flashing light would be a good stepping stone but not sure if it would be able to fit with the song being built around you. Looking forward to a release with more puzzles, and playing more with the sandbox.
Snare room got me longest, but on tvRoom i thought im gonna give up, fortunately i read in the comments that someone managed to do that so i didnt quit :D great entry, had a lot of fun playing it!
Great entry! I really like the concept. I got stuck in the screen room for a long time, but finally managed to figure it out. Then I got again stuck for very long in the next room, because I was so confused by the play and pause buttons... Then I thought, maybe I have to think in a similar way as in the previous room, and that worked. :slight_smile: And then suddenly the game was over, I won! :confetti_ball: I enjoyed playing with the sandbox mode for a while. Nice visuals and sounds. :)
scrshot.png
Thanks @papver, that was the hint I needed to complete the game! Gutted there wasn't a keys puzzle. :(
I really enjoyed this! I liked the literal interpretation of the theme, and how solving each puzzle gradually added onto the background music. I managed to figure out the first three puzzles without much of a problem, but the final one really stumped me for a while. I think it could be made more obvious what the hints actually mean, but I managed to figure it out eventually!
@Anonymous thanks a lot for the feedback, whoever you are :spy:
@hicko thanks :)
@apfel thank you :)
@cdunham thanks for playing and for the awesome entry! I beg to differ regarding your comment on your music making skills! I really love the way that the keys line seems to morph and variate when listening together with the bass, seems it's always kind of evolving, love it! Here - listen for yourself!
https://youtu.be/v8cXDk-mcvk
@garys Hey thanks so much for playing, the screen and the feedback! Apologies about the room being too dark, our original idea was to play around with the lighting so that it would react to the music, but unfortunately we couldn't do that in time... buuuut we added a flashlight hahah ('L' to toggle). And we wrote down the confirmation thingy on our to-do list, thanks.
Very happy you managed to crack the hi-hat puzzle with the help of the community, that's awesome! Yeah we're sad as well that the keys puzzle isn't there (...yet, something might happen after the jam ends...). Again, we had a puzzle in mind, we even left the models for the keys that @cerka made (we think they're very pretty), but alas we envisioned a bit too much :smile: That's something we will try to rectify with our next Jam.
Lastly LOVED your composition, super groovy and I particularly liked the way you used the attack on the orange Keys notes, sort of introduced a rhythmicality to the line, really cool! Here's your stuff on youtube :raised_hands: :
https://youtu.be/MBccLaoY_CI
@jammygunns Thanks for the feedback and playing. We totally agree that the learning curve is way too steep after the second room, some easier puzzles before getting to the TVs would definitely help set players in the right mindset for the puzzle. Looking forward to hearing what you make in the Sandbox!
@palemek haha thanks for playing and the feedback, very happy you didn't give up! :muscle:
@papaver Thank you and congrats on beating the game! So cool that your hints are helping other people as well, that's great. Totally blown away by your track, it's been playing here in the background for ages and it still remains fresh. Very musical use of the stops as well, really really great stuff! :bow: On youtube:
https://youtu.be/yt2hXZ6qByc
@f1krazy Hey thanks for playing and very happy you managed to get through it! Happy to hear that even though it's not particularly easy, it's still doable :pray:
Wow, I got stuck for so long but finally figured it out, the fourth room was the most challenging as I really went wild and tried anything and everything until I found what the relation between some of the colors on the board were supposed to be, I thought it would include all of them but in the end only two were the important ones.
Whoa! Loved the puzzle! Did take a few minutes to solve the tv room and the following, but with reading a few tips on this page, I finally managed it!
"F" to applaud yourself on this creative puzzle you created (and the audio prototyping tool, aswell)!
ld_s6.png
@killerkun hell yeah, so cool that you didn't give up and got through it :muscle: Perhaps the hint you left will help other players if they get stuck, nice one!
@trexxak hahah thanks and great that you found some help in the community! :raised_hands: and thank you so much for the submission, loved the track has this uplifting positive vibe to it, it fascinates me how different everyone's compositions get to be, very inspiring! Standing "F" ovation from our team here to you sir :clap: :clap: :clap:
https://youtu.be/ftiLURSP-5o
absolutely loved this one!! short as it may have been the music puzzles were delightful and well-executed - i love the gameplay idea of basically being stuck inside an audio sequencer, heh -- and all around you pulled the visual design off very well! moody dimly lit setting was very nice -- and i appreciate that you threw in a sandbox mode after the end for everyone who'd like to play around with the sequencer more!
@jjoeyay Thanks for playing and your feedback is very much appreciated, really glad you liked it!
Thanks everyone who rated, commented and played the game! This was an amazing and truly inspiring experience. Difficult to put to words how much fun it was recreating the music that you guys created with the tools that we gave you, it was amazing how different and interesting every single entry was, even though the tools themselves were quite limited. Massive thanks to everyone and we're bashing 'F' to applaud every single one! :heart: