Impending chemical catastrophe

nick-rafalski 2022-04-05 13:10

This was a mind bender a little bit! I had to play a few rounds to get the hang of it, but once I did, I really loved it. I don't think I've ever seen this concept in a game before and it was really cool!

It definitely delivers on the theme; even when I was getting the hang of it, that unstoppable speed-up caused a sense of terminality.

One question: is there music? I see a check box for "mute music" but I didn't hear any music at all, even when there were other sound effects playing. Maybe a browser issue?

Great game!

codebug 2022-04-05 15:25

@nick-rafalski Thanks! There should be music during the start screen. It plays in Firefox for me but not in Chrome (now that I've had a chance to test it). The sound effects are WAV files but the music is in both OGG and MP3 so perhaps there is an issue using the correct file. It wouldn't a game jam without, at least, something small going wrong :)

yello 2022-04-05 16:32

great game! maybe a platform animation when <- -> would be a possible addition to juiciness

t-c 2022-04-05 16:35

Fun game! Got a 3500, it gets REALLY tough when it starts getting faster, and I'm pretty sure there's a time where you take one of the 3 colors and have a drought of like 15 =) It makes the game work and stops you from likely being able to keep the board entirely clear. I like it, good work!

damakuno 2022-04-05 16:37

I like the concept, pretty fun once I got used to knowing which colors neutralized. I wished the controls were better, like if there is keyboard support but overall it's good fun!

ezra3 2022-04-05 16:40

The game was fun once and I was happy to get my score of 4600, but the game is actually extremely short and limited in content. Separately, the choices in colors seem very odd as the three primary additive colors are red, green, and blue, and the three primary subtractive colors are yellow, magenta, and cyan. I think it would've made more sense to have done:

Red, Green, Blue

Red + Green = Yellow

Red + Blue = Magenta (or Purple if you want to use a word people would actually be more likely to know)

Green + Blue = Cyan (or Turquoise or Teal if you think those colors are better known)

angelicad 2022-04-05 16:50

So much fun! I don't know if my brain is broken from 72 hours of coding but I really struggled to remember which colours went together which added to the challenge. I thought it was pretty easy first but the speeding up definitely made losing inevitable.

kristinamay 2022-04-05 17:10

This was such a good little game! It was really stressful but such a unique mechanic. I also wished I could use the arrow keys on my keyboard but otherwise this is a simple yet well-made game. Great work.

castoor 2022-04-05 17:12

Well Done ! You nearly success to broke my brain but nice one ! :D GG for graphism, audio, gameplay :)

sodoj 2022-04-05 17:58

A rather simple game that fits the theme quite nicely!

The simple art reminded me of games I used to play when I was 5yo. Brings back the simpler times!

Bonus points for including WebGL build!

Great job!

codebug 2022-04-05 18:13

@kristinamay @damakuno Thanks for your feedback. There are keyboard controls (arrow keys). This is mentioned in the instructions at the beginning but it is buried in a wall of text, sorry.

If you tried the keyboard but it didn't work, please let me know. I only managed to test it in Firefox so I don't know if there are issues in other browsers.

codebug 2022-04-05 18:20

@Ezra3 Thanks for your feedback. You're right about the shortness of the game. I was attempting to make it more of an infinite game like Tetris etc. but it needs some balancing of the speed ups and me to be a better game dev.

Thanks for the note about the colours, RGB would make more sense. I'll add it to my notes for when try and improve it later on.

reispfannenfresser 2022-04-08 21:16

This is a neat concept. The speedups came a bit aprupt and felt kind of unfair in the later parts, but it works well aside from that. I got a score of 4000 twice and felt completely out of control with that high dropping speeds. (which is the point, I guess)

While playing I tried coming up with a bunch of strategies, but all of these ultimately failed which is exactly what I want from a game like this.

I can imagine this to work well as a mobile game. Here's some random thoughts on that: - I'd love to see a leaderboard - Maybe you can add some white or black balls that dissolve anything - Colorblind mode where there's symbols instead of colors (maybe just thirds of a circle) - More gradual speed changes to more clearly see the differences in speeds the players can operate at. (I'd be very interested in seeing a graph of the high score distribution and some ranking within that once the game ends)

codebug 2022-04-08 22:48

@reispfannenfresser Thanks for your feedback!

Given the time constraints and this being only my second Jam, I'm starting to think of this as more of a prototype rather than a finished game. I'd now like to take my time to make a more complete version.

Your thoughts have been really helpful and I have added them to my ever growing list of improvements and additions for the future. Thanks again!

fredrik-rosell 2022-04-09 11:24

What a great game! I'm happy to report that I have discovered a new type of chemical mix, but unfortunately it appeared to be lethal....The speedups were a bit too challenging for me, but I'm simply not very good at this type of games. Very well done.

jozgames 2022-04-10 23:10

Bem criativa a ideia, só acho que deveria ficar mais difícil mais rápido, porque depois de um tempo achei que fica monótono

sheldonzs 2022-04-10 23:10

Fun and tricky little puzzle game. I think it might have been a little more intuitive to move the dropper rather than the tray. I don't think the abrupt speed changes was an issue, classics like Tetris have jumps in speed at certain benchmarks. Well done!

eonarheim 2022-04-10 23:15

Definitely had me trying to remember the color wheel frantically while playing! I was reminded of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, it'd be cool to incorporate a similar chain reaction/combo to this.

flying-dog-fish 2022-04-10 23:21

A match colors puzzle game with a color mixing twist, I like it. It looks good too. The speedups take care of the inevitable ending part. I struggled a bit because the controls seemed to be reversed, before realizing that the platform was moving and not the dispenser, which is rather uncommon for this type of a game.

There seems to be a bug with the music: it stops when you start the game. It also stops when you check the "mute music" checkbox, but it doesn't come back when you uncheck it again.

codebug 2022-04-11 00:50

@flying-dog-fish Thanks for your comments. The music was supposed to stop during the game but if I'd had more time I would have liked to put some music during the game itself. Perhaps with an increasing level of tension. The mute button was a similar things where I had just enough time to implement turning it off but not the time for turning it back on again and with a volume control. Apparently, the music doesn't work at all in Chrome :(

gbgames 2022-04-11 03:18

I found that it was mentally challenging, especially as the drips kept coming and I was quickly trying to remember which color takes out which.

You've managed to make something that is at once easy to understand and play while also being hard to master, I think.

ryusui 2022-04-11 04:06

I really like this! It's neat seeing a unique take on a puzzle game.

I do think the controls would've been more intuitive if you controlled the dropper rather than the test tubes (as it stands, it feels like the controls are backwards!) I also will admit I had trouble keeping straight which colors result in a neutral compound - thinking that maybe you could have some kind of visual indicator on each drop, showing which colors it consists of (and hence what colors it's missing)? It would definitely be nice to make the game colorblind-friendly!

rustywolf 2022-04-11 05:38

Very fun for such a simple concept, executed well

rubixnoob13 2022-04-11 20:08

Nice job! I think this was the first P5.js game I've personally seen on Ludum Dare. I agree with some of the other people who played and left comments that it makes more sense to me to move the dropper rather than the tray at the bottom, but other than this, it was a fun little puzzle game!

boroboro 2022-04-20 20:44

Simple, but effective game! Although it gets a bit frustrating when you get the same color over and over again...

ava-skoog 2022-04-21 15:27

As others have said, simple but fairly fun! Started off kinda easy and I got overconfident, only to get overwhelmed once things did start to pile up 😅 Some music would've been nice and I'll echo the sentiment about colourblindness. Not sure there's much more to say, it works well and keeps you busy for a while, cool stuff C:

evgeney24 2022-05-18 15:24

Simple, but fun game. I struggled a bit because the controls seemed to be reversed.