Lights Out

lupercalia 2022-04-04 09:16

I like your minimalistic design. And I like the smooth, clean graphics. Theme-wise, i like your idea, gameplay-wise, it is too easy and repetitive. Different patterns of tiles being lit would be nice, especially so i couldn't be sure where i had to click next. Like it is now, i can click anywhere near and be sure that there never would be a gameover for me (thus contradicting the theme) unless I stop clicking. Which i did: I set my goal for one million points and then stopped. Still: I know about time constraints and balancing stuff regarding games for jam, so i like to conclude with: very promising and good idea and thumbs up for the clean design!

dan-livings 2022-04-04 09:29

@lupercalia Thanks for the feedback, those are all fair points. Originally I had plans to introduce more mechanics, such as tiles fading faster the more there are, as well as a set of black tiles being fully enclosed by non-black tiles all becoming white for a score boost. As you mentioned, time constraints are real and I wanted to submit something rather than nothing.

tellyhead 2022-04-04 10:14

Loved the minimalist graphics, however I could just click the same square constantly and never lose, could have made it so the same square cannot be clicked again, so that you have to keep moving

christian-zommerfelds 2022-04-04 10:46

Like the minimalistic graphics! Beautiful game.

I can last for ever by just clicking on the edge for ever. There is some core element missing to give you a challenge or puzzle. Maybe you are a dot in space and can walk around? Maybe add one more color transition and you have to click at the right color? Just a few ideas :)

I'd avoid forcing the player to click repeatedly, as I find it a bit hard on the hard and is repetitive. Maybe some press and hold motion would work?

badoomtch 2022-04-04 11:19

I like the concept, the graphics are simple and effective. It was a bit too easy to keep going, but overall good submmission.

nick-barrash 2022-04-04 14:42

Lol is the score tracked in like microseconds? Echoing what most everyone has already said, nice, simple concept!

guardaro 2022-04-04 14:48

Very clean and polished. Simple mechanics, simple design, very well executed. Because there's no way to win and you can't lose unless you stop clicking, I'm not sure if I would really call this a *game* exactly (more of a toy, maybe?), but it's still pretty neat.

cruise-elroy 2022-04-04 16:22

You've got the groundwork for a really good idea here. The presentation is as perfectly simple as it needs to be; it just needs a little more meat to it to be considered a game. I don't the solution is to strictly discourage clicking on the same square, but to encourage branching out to different areas (such as by having the brightness gradually fade with each click but can be recharged by going over a highlighted tile, maybe?). That's just one way you could expand on the formula, but I think there's plenty of different ways to do it.

I would absolutely consider looking into a post-jam version if I were you - I do see a lot of potential in the idea.

dan-livings 2022-04-04 16:31

@cruise-elroy Thanks for your suggestions. I'm thinking of continuing work on it for the currently running [Black and White Jam](https://itch.io/jam/black-and-white-jam-8) on Itch, and I've got some ideas for it to be a bit more of an actual game.

robert18 2022-04-04 21:59

Wasn't too sure what to do, I was moving the white tiles across the screen thinking I might end up finding some kind of upgrades or something. Interesting idea nevertheless

jsmitq 2022-04-04 22:25

It's a great base concept that I would love to see expanded on. I enjoyed the simple visuals and straight-forward gameplay.

ambrits 2022-04-04 23:20

Is there any audio in the game? I didn't hear anything and only hearing my mouse clicks kind of ruined the otherwise great atmosphere of the minimalist but nice graphics. Creating different shapes and patterns was engaging and my guess is that fitting audio would strengthen that even more. In the current state it became repetitve relatively quickly but otherwise it was a nice experience. Nice job!

ideaspersecond 2022-04-04 23:28

Screenshot 2022-04-04 162720.png

My finger is tired! Nice job!

mat4dor 2022-04-05 00:49

If we keep clicking the same tile it just continues on forever. Love the design though. Think it could be improved with a way that rewards you to explore further.

cosmo8 2022-04-05 01:15

It's a neat concept, though there's not much to it.

phoenixofforce 2022-04-05 11:49

Really nice concepts, but you are missing a twist. Something that prevents you spamming on tile

vozme 2022-04-05 14:19

Such a minimalistic art design, but I agree with the general toping of the people on commentaries, the fact that you could click on the same spot repeatedly makes the game feel repetitive and without a clear direction on where the challenge is.

Aside from that, I encourage you to keep working on it and came up with some cool mechanics for this basic idea, think they will make a great game!

kazuren 2022-04-05 17:53

Cool minimalistic game :)

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cakestorm 2022-04-06 11:28

I love the idea, and it fits really well with the minimalistic design; it's simple, but works really well as a core gameplay loop. My favourite part of the gameplay was trying to cover as much area as possible, rather than maximising score - if you work on the game in future, it might be nice to expand on that idea (maybe each tile supports the surrounding ones, like some pseduo-game-of-life?) Even without that, though, it was addictive to play, the game itself is very solid, and I had fun - well done on making it!

geckoo1337 2022-04-11 15:37

Minimalist aesthetic for a fun gameplay. At first I did not understand what I was supposed to do, but after a while I understood the main mechanics. You should add some sounds and/or music. However, at this stage, you made a solid entry in less than 48 hours. Well done. I wish you the best ++

rolferm 2022-04-14 20:45

Maybe I don't understand this game, but I feel you could get infinity score by just clicking a tile in a constant interval. Maybe if some challenges were added this would be more interesting.

doot 2022-04-15 14:48

As many other already said, the idea and minimalism here are very good. The mood it creates is quite pleasant even if a bit sad. It definitely would need something to make it more a game than a weird interactive experience, but if that's the later you were aiming for you did a very good job!

gbgames 2022-04-20 13:13

The aesthetics were very well implemented. The color scheme, the minimalism, etc that everyone has been sharing above.

I didn't hear any audio? Unless the silence was purposefully part of the experience?

I found that the rule about "clicking on a white square doing nothing" seemed either untrue or not relevant, as everything fades quickly so there is almost no time in which a square is fully white.

I could see doing something interesting with the scoring based on how many gray tiles are "old" vs "new", so you might encourage players to avoid sitting in one place and clicking the same tile over and over.

It's a good start, and I hope you explore the concept more going forward.

lakedev 2022-04-21 01:30

The art style is simple but fits the game quite well!

I think the basic idea going on is solid, but it needs more unique ideas to really stand out. Maybe having a cooldown on clicking a block so you have to expand out to a wider area, or maybe there's a "sweet spot" that moves around the level so you have a reason to explore different sections of the board, adding some time-based mechanics, or something along those lines.

I think this could be quite promising as a mobile game!