Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → Summoning Circle Specialist
By jimbly
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 44 | 3.98 | 29 | |
| Fun | 48 | 3.96 | 29 | |
| Innovation | 12 | 4.29 | 29 | |
| Theme | 34 | 4.25 | 29 | |
| Graphics | 90 | 3.88 | 28 | |
| Audio | 127 | 3.36 | 28 | |
| Humor | 251 | 2.34 | 24 | |
| Mood | 128 | 3.53 | 29 |
This is a really cool concept. I made some really cool looking summoning circles but struggled a little to balance cells with components. I suppose that's probably the point, but my post-jam brain was really having a hard time lol.
I really like how that leader board is implemented, it pushes you to do better :). The symmetry part was a bit odd, as it seemed random circles would turn green, is it only on one axis?
I got to level 6!
It's interesting how deep these mechanics are for a short jam game, and it's very polished as well! To be honest I still don't 100% understand the mechanics, specifically power, but I started to get my head around it by about level 3.
@aevek Thanks for playing! Yeah, those two are the hardest to balance - I actually had a 5th metric, "ink" (total pixels drawn) during a lot of development and that one was nearly _impossible_ to increase without increasing the others too much. For those two, you have to add power cells to spaced out circles if you want components without cells, or add long lines crossing each other and splitting lots of cells if you want cells without components. I kinda wish I'd added a quick image share thing or something, I'd love to see your cool magic circles =).
@dotblank I tried to do my best to explain the symmetry in the full help, but it still feels odd sometimes. If something random is seemingly turning green, it's likely the second case, that's in there to allow triangular to be symmetrical (one thing with two identical things rotated equally from the first, which ends up meaning if you've got 3 equally spaced power nodes, the middle is going to consider itself symmetrical, and the other two are not, which feels a bit odd (especially if the two it's matching are way on the other side somewhere).
@magnusfurcifer Thanks for playing! For power, it's just flood fill Manhattan distance of 255 pixels or less from a power node, done on the fixe-resolution buffer you see if you mouse over the Cells metric =). I was going to do something fancy with graph theory and graph distance, but it's a jam and that was something that only took a few minutes to do once I had the buffer (plus a couple hours futzing with shaders to visualize it, hah!).
This is an interesting idea, I finished the main 10 levels. Sadly the best strategy seemed to be spamming a bunch of lines until the numbers matched, it would have been cool if it actually forced you to make well thought out structured diagrams. After 3 or 4 levels it was a bit repetitive. Something like each demon having a different symmetry group you need to match or some other restrictions like only use circles might be neat.
@kaliuresis Thanks for playing! Yeah, it does get a bit repetitive, and trial and error and tweaking did seem more useful than careful planning. I perhaps had the most fun when I started by trying to draw a cat, and then modified it to get 100% :laughing:
Screenshot 2024-04-15 143547.png
That's a really interesting idea, and the execution didn't disappoint! Good work and impressive result, especially for a compo game
Tough puzzler! Managed to make my way through the 10 levels but I still have no idea how to properly strategize :D
Excellent presentation, and quite engaging to play. Well done!
@sozey Thanks for playing and glad you liked it!
@frib Nice job making it through 10 levels. I'm also not quite sure on strategizing, besides the one thing (that presumably you figured out) of using power nodes to up components without upping cells, or lines for the opposite... Unfortunately since symmetry and power are maybe mechanically not tightly coupled with the other mechanics (simply moving a line / power node will change symmetry/power but not change cells/components), there's perhaps not much strategy there, just some tweaking until you get the right numbers...
If I'd spent more time carefully choosing metrics for the first levels instead of them being (mostly) generated, I probably should have done a few with very low component counts and very specific other requirements, that would, perhaps be more interesting (and strategizable)...
Well made puzzle game!
I got to the tenth deamon and there it both felt like I didn't really get it and that it was unfair to what felt like symmetry to me! But as a whole a very good entry.
I found it a bit fidgety removing lines at time and knowing exactly where the smallest and largest circle would be. But other than that the controls were smooth and the feedback while playing the game really nice. The hover help on the categories what also really fancy and useful. It could perhaps have triggered when hovering in the graph showing the alignment of the summoning circle too.
One thing I noticed though was that after a couple of levels, I started by trying to clear what was given to draw my own, and since it was a bit hard removing stuff it would have been nice with a wipe the slate clean button, or clearer removal hitboxes.
At time, though I understand why there wasn't any such feature, I found myself attempting to drag the nodes along the circles while keeping their connections. But I guess that would interfere with connecting nodes. It would be sweet if that was a thing though.
Feels like something that ought to be ported to mobile...
Very good entry.
Playthrough: https://youtu.be/alKZdNu4Ru0
@local-minimum Thanks for playing, and for posting the video! The hover on graph categories I also noticed as soon as I watched someone else play and is already in my post-jam version (not linked here until after rating is done though ^_^). I did consider mobile, and tried playing a level of this my phone, but basically the density of distinct hot spots is about 2x-5x too dense so I could never actually drag a line where I wanted to, but I guess if there were 1/3rd as many circle spots, and 1/4 as many angles, maybe it'd work pretty well (and, perhaps, be less confusing/finicky about symmetry at the same time!)
Checking your video, yeah, the symmetry is pretty fiddly, I could tell your were often clicking like 5 degrees / one step off from what would have counted as symmetrical, but it's really hard to eyeball (in hindsight, the fact that I found myself moving the mouse slowly and counting how many steps away from the horizontal or something should have been a big red flag!). The 10th level is the "end" (it basically just pops up a "thanks for playing" if you beat it), so good job making it that far =). I probably shoulda "ended" it around level 5 though, while people were still having fun :laughing:.
Love it! I really liked the color palettes and the puzzlers were tough at the start, but good... just great work!
Love how complex yet simple the game is, really well done! Here's the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2124124914
It's sooo cool, I spend way to mush time on this ! But one of the endless level is impossible. We can't have les than 10% of symetry with less 2 cells. Capture d'Γ©cran 2024-04-19 232650.png
Very cool idea, wish I was better at it! I wasn't really sure what I was doing at any point. I found myself wishing that there was some kind of tool tip (maybe I missed it? I got really tunnel visioned there, haha) for what each component was would have been nice. I had fun playing it, though and it felt very complete!
@kiddy Thanks for playing and glad you're liking it so much! By "impossible", do you mean to get 100%? Yeah, I did mention that "a perfect answer may not exist for every puzzle" in the description, it's not ideal, but it's hard to know what combos are or are not possible (various high cell low component and high component low cell combos might also be impossible to 100%, I think...), so they're just random ;). If by "impossible" you can't even get to 80% and continue, then I should do something to fix it, I guess... If you're still playing, there's also a post-jam update [here](http://www.dashingstrike.com/LudumDare/LD55/) with slight quality of life improvements =)
@kinart Thanks for playing! There is a tooltip-of sorts, if you hover over the 4 metrics in the upper right, the bottom of the screen gives a short description (and it shows a visualization for some of the more complicated ones). There's also the "?" in the upper left which gives an more in-depth description of each of them. It's definitely something I wish I could have communicated better in the game though -_-.
Oh wow, what a novel idea! Was very fun and I feel like the "open endedness" works really well here! I only had some difficulties with purposely drawing symmetrical elements. Maybe there could be some tool added helping with that, but that potentially spoils the fun :smile: Fantastic entry!
@oadt Thanks for playing and glad you liked it! Yeah, when I noticed I was sometimes counting steps on the circles to place something exactly symmetrical I considered adding some guide-lines or something to help with that, but nothing seemed quite right...
Really good concept. Pretty hard though. How many levels are there? i only got to the fourth one ;-;
@euler-moises There's a "you win" screen at level 10, but you can keep playing indefinitely past that, it looks like a couple very eager players have played through 25 levels ^_^. I recommend stopping after the 4th level though, you've basically seen all there is to see =).
It's a really great puzzle game, I liked it a lot! At first I was confused for, like, 5 minutes that I need to draw that demon icon on the left, but then I realized that it has nothing to do with what you need to draw. Some kind of tutorial would've helped in that regard, or some example which totally differentiate demon icon and what is drawn.
@apoly Heh, yeah, that does seem a common confusion, so much so that I put big bold text at the top of the game's page to warn you not to do that ;). But, I don't actually expect people to read (even if it's in-game!). Didn't occur to me during the jam though. In the [post-jam version](http://www.dashingstrike.com/LudumDare/LD55/) I moved stuff around to hopefully alleviate that a bit too =). Thanks for playing!
incredible concept and realization, i love this game and i can spend so many hours on it, be sure i'll come back at it later !
it is SO COOL just to imagine the how many possibilities there are for each level!
UI is very clear, showing different layers when hovered. music is cool, i'm not sure if it's the more fitting to me but that's personal taste only, as well as the type which i'm not a fan of.
it could be cool to see how people got their 100%, for example by clicking on them on the leaderboard? or even to see any circle by anyone on the leaderboard. that would be the only thing i'm missing.
but clearly for now this is the entry with the most "wow!" effect! congrats!
This is a excellent concept for a puzzle game, and I like that there are multiple ways to complete each level. Audio and visuals are great as well!
Did you consider locking some of the puzzle pieces in later levels from being deleted to increase the difficulty? I only got to the 5th level.
This is a great game! The music, sound effects and visuals all work really well together and I got sucked into fiddling with the circles to try to get 100% each time. The information on the right is also really well presented so that the trial and error portion felt somewhat scientific rather than just randomly moving things around. For example, if I needed a few more percent power it was really helpful to be able to mouse over the power and see exactly what was "unpowered" when making adjustments.
Overall an excellent entry, well done!
@amarokczukay Thanks for playing! Yeah, seeing other people's solutions would be cool, I kinda regret not putting in a "share this circle" thing that saves off and image and generates a link for sharing or something like that. I didn't think about tying that to the leaderboard though, that's a fantastic idea.
@riv-roy Glad you enjoyed it! I didn't think about locking pieces, but that's a neat idea, it would also perhaps have made a good sequence of tutorial levels where you just need to add lines or something like that...
@perfectsquare Glad to see you also chase after that 100%, I definitely do as well =). I think there's a bit too much trial and error sometimes, but am really glad to hear the power visualization helped! I found that, in theory, that could tell me what I might need to know, but I ended up just deleting and re-adding a node one step away at a time until it hit 100% :sweat_smile:
Got through three levels, it's tricky! Smart and good looking, it wasn't really overcomplicated like a lot of the games this jam. Very solid compo entry, especially with leaderboards and everything πππ
I loved this one!! I flailed for a bit, trying to absorb everything, but I kept at it, because I knew there was an awesome game to be learned - and I was so right! What a beautifully simple set of rules and objectives that synthesize to such a complex and engaging experience. It makes me so happy to see a magic system that abides by an internal consistency, allowing you to summon the same demon with countless different symbols - but ultimately the demon's summoning sign _will_ have a certain look, by nature of its objectives. Of course, I don't need to explain it here - that's the whole point of the game - but I found it deeply satisfying to experience "discovering the science behind the magic" when drawing the symbols, rather than just "copying what the developer drew" (like in my game). Allows you to form your own heuristics and intuition about how the magic works - like a real wizard! I would love to see a similar system incorporated into a larger game some day - RPG devs take note!
I will admit - the portrait on the top left threw me, and it took me embarrassingly long to figure out hovering over the requirements - but even just fussing about was such a satisfying experience with the visuals and audio cues - so well polished. Does not feel possible for a jam game, this level of depth and refinement.
Yeah, I could gush about this game forever. You should all be proud --- wait --- just checked, THIS IS A COMPO GAME? Floored, absolutely floored. And jealous of your mastery. Not to mention your own engine. Flabbergasted. Gobsmacked. Amazing job!!
5 out of 5 for innovation here for me ! I really like reverse engineering games and this one was a great example of it ! I have to say I was super confused at first cause I didn't pay attention that there were 2 diagrams, one for the current analysis and one for the requirements, so I was super lost and thought the game was random. But once I've seen it then it was really more about exploration and reflexion and it became way funnier !
Good job for this (and even adding a scoreboard ! don't know if it's part of the tool you used or not)
@ugly-robot Thanks for playing, and the touching words of praise! Really glad you stuck with it long enough to figure it out and got into it, I think you summarized what I was going for way better than I could =). Apologies for the obtuse UI (it's _slightly_ improved in a [post-jam version](http://www.dashingstrike.com/LudumDare/LD55/), with more places you can mouse-over, but still pretty hard to figure out, I bet). I did spend every waking hour working on this during the compo, and _so_ much of it was just polishing (when the game is basically just UI, that's really all there is to do ^_^). I ended up cutting every hint of a larger game from it to focus on polishing instead, which was certainly the right call in the end (in hindsight, it would have been _even more_ stuff the user would have needed to figure out...). Using my own engine definitely helps (I spend my work week in the same code on other projects), and comes with features useful for a jam like a high score system.
@tyrannas Thanks for playing and glad you liked it! The high score system is a component of the engine, I just needed to hook into it (probably a half hour or less to get the scores into a suitable format and get them updating and displaying in an appropriate place).
I stopped at level 7 for now (and for some reason level 3 was way harder for me than all the others together π ). The way you count the cells was clever - if it were me, I'd try to figure out a "geometric" way, fail to do so and give up.
One very small issue I noticed is that the % appears to be rounded, so a score that is almost 80% (the goal) would show as 80% and yet the puzzle wouldn't complete.
Anyway, great entry :)
@wendel-scardua Thanks for playing! Nothing clever about the cell counting, that's just the low-resolution way in which these demons see our reality. Nah, I originally planned a geometric way, started just trying to figure out the data structures that would be required, then shortly after the overwhelming panic started to set in I realized this'd be easier (and, as long as it was a fixed resolution buffer, should be deterministic ^_^). Really happy I did that instead of trying the geometric approach, and it _mostly_ gives the right number (a couple edge cases it doesn't seem quite right, but not enough for me to lose sleep over ;).
Ah good catch on that bug! Yeah, it's rounding the display. I've just now changed it to flooring in the post-jam version, shouldn't ever seen 80% (or 100%) unless it actually is =).