fabelay 2026-04-20 19:53
We want the links :smile:
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD59 → STAY ON AIR
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 563 | 3.38 | 23 | |
| Fun | 727 | 2.81 | 23 | |
| Innovation | 477 | 3.31 | 23 | |
| Theme | 53 | 4.40 | 23 | |
| Graphics | 462 | 3.69 | 23 | |
| Humor | 1.87 | 6 | ||
| Mood | 673 | 3.15 | 22 |
We want the links :smile:
"something" :eyes:
@fabelay It’s already up and running on the web now! You can play it directly in your browser. Hope you enjoy it and thanks for checking it out! :smile:
I don't really understand it :(. it feels like no matter what i do the final transmission is unstable
Interesting idea, although I had a hard time setting the towers up correctly within the time limit and only got 2 towers connected before I lost all my lives. I think I wouldn't have minded a bit of extra time. Liking the art and conceptually I think it's cool, though it just needs a little something extra game play wise. Nice work though, a strong foundation for something more.
@igorekkedziorek Thanks a lot for playing!!, and I’m sorry it wasn’t a great experience. I’ve just uploaded some balance adjustments (there’s now a bit more time in the first rounds, and slightly more in the others too). I’ll also add some tips to the description to help out.
I know the game can feel a bit complex and not always very clear.
Tip: When you move the node sliders, it affects stability. Power is the most important factor — try to keep it as high as possible. Frequency only matters in certain power ranges, so it’s usually less important.
@max-corke Thank you so much!! I’ve just pushed some timing tweaks... I think you’re absolutely right. After testing it over and over, I kind of lost track of how it feels for a fresh player.
Really appreciate the feedback, it means a lot!
No problem! Feels much more forgiving now with me still stressing over if I'm gonna get them all in time haha
The game is good! Maybe a bit easy in my opinion (It's just adjusting values, y'know), but the idea is consistent and overall is fun! Well done
This is fun! My highscore is 600! At first I looked only for the signal colors and was pretty helpless until I found out I can look at the actual number of the signal quality and then I understood what I was doing!
Heres my full review:
What I loved: - The music, holy shit, its really good and so fitting - The SFX is also super fitting - Is the map procedurally generated? I was positively surprised that it changed from try to try - The game play and knob optimizing is really fun, I felt the urge to try again
What felt off: - The signal quality achieved didnt seem to influence score. It was always +100 per station. I think the signal quality on 1.00 for every step would be an easy way to create more need to balance between time spent optimizing and making it at all. - The overlay sometimes overlays the stations and they cant be clicked anymore. It works, because you can close the overlay first, but that would be an improvement.
Thank you for making this gem!
Nice polish on the sounds, music and art! It was quite hard to figure out at first, and still I was not able to stabilize much of the signal, so got through only two broadcasts.
This type of game would definitely benefit from a more complete tutorial (hard with the dev rime limit). Also it felt quite annoying that once just I had stabilized some towers, there would be a end of broadcast and again all towers were unstable. Instead there could be levels that get harder and some indication when the broadcast is about to end.
Over all good job👍
Cool idea, signal tuning feels pretty unique and fun. Music is great and fits perfectly.
Was a bit confusing at first how stability works, but once it clicked it got much more enjoyable. Time pressure also feels a bit harsh early on.
Overall really solid and interesting, just needs a bit more clarity 👍
Good game, like this idea, art and music. Good job
Chill music. Hits theme perfect. Got to grips with stability. Only irk was the left menu covering the left most node.
@vinnnie Thanks a lot for the feedback, really glad you enjoyed the music and got the hang of the stability system!
And you’re absolutely right about the UI... there are 3 maps, and in 2 of them the left panel ends up covering the leftmost nodes. It does break the flow a bit since you have to keep closing the panel instead of leaving it open.
In hindsight, I probably should have kept the panel always visible and separated from the map, like two independent sections.
Really appreciate the feedback!! it helps a lot, even for future projects!! :smile:
@krawa Thanks a lot! Really glad you liked the idea and the music 🙂 Totally fair on the clarity — the stability system can be a bit confusing at first.
Really appreciate the feedback! 👍
@duudel Thanks a lot for the kind words, really appreciate it!
And yeah, that’s totally fair. The game can be quite hard to grasp at first, and I agree it would really benefit from a more complete tutorial (jam time constraints hit hard there 😅).
Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback, it really helps a lot! 👍
@fabelay Thanks a lot for playing, and wow 600 is an awesome score!!
Really glad you enjoyed the music and SFX, that means a lot 🙂
Just to clarify on the maps: they aren’t procedurally generated. I actually built 3 different handcrafted maps, and they’re selected randomly each run. One of them is excluded from the tutorial phase since it’s slightly more complex, so early runs should feel a bit more controlled.
It’s also great to hear that moment when things “clicked” with the signal values, that feedback about clarity is really helpful.
Your point about the scoring is very interesting too. Right now it’s a flat reward per station, but tying it more directly to signal quality (like rewarding closer to 1.00) could definitely add a better risk/reward balance between optimizing and progressing.
And yeah, the overlay issue is a known one, it can interrupt interaction even if it’s fixable by closing it first, so I agree it could be improved.
Thanks again for the detailed feedback, really appreciate it! 🙌
Pretty fun overall, I like the concept of "balancing" a meter, and the music and visuals were quite fitting as well. I think potentially differentiating between the different sliders. and some visual "clues" could add some more detail to it. As it is now, I'm mostly just fiddling with the knobs until it works. A more "chill" mode could also be fun, without time pressure just adjusting the signal.
@pastmoments Thanks a lot, really glad you enjoyed the concept, music, and visuals!
And yeah, you’re totally right, a more differentiated behavior between sliders and clearer visual clues would definitely help make the system feel less like trial and error.
A chill/free mode is also a great idea. It’s one of those things that just doesn’t cross your mind during the jam rush, but I’ll definitely keep it in mind for the future.
Thanks again for the feedback, really appreciate it! 👍
I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea what I just played. Looks cool though
Nice idea and good implementation.
@venomousmouse I swear I’m seeing you everywhere
Direct but pretty cool theme interpretation! I enjoyed tuning knobs longer then expected=) but it is hard to say is there any type of ending, so I stopped after third run.
@captandrey Thanks a lot! Really glad you enjoyed it 🙂 There isn’t a fixed “ending” as such, it’s more of an arcade-style experience. When you fail 3 times, you get a game over screen with stats showing how many transmissions you completed and your final score. Really appreciate you playing and taking the time to give feedback! 👍
Nice, I had a similar idea with my entry. The art was really good! Went through a few levels, would love to see some ramp up on levels if you continue this. Tower/Relay amount, different nodes to spice things up, etc. Good job!
Awesome game! As far as I can tell, there are several maps—it’s cool how well this was put together, especially considering the jam’s time constraints. On the downside: the black round indicator on a black background. Here’s an idea: instead of progress bars, use tactile sliders to enhance immersion. Great work!
@kassanu Thanks a lot! Really glad you liked it! Yeah, I can see we had a similar idea, it’s always fun to see different takes on it! Totally agree on the progression, adding more variety with towers/nodes and scaling things up would definitely make it more interesting. Thanks again for playing and for the feedback, really appreciate it! :smile:
@sinemual Appreciate it a lot! Happy to hear you liked it! And yeah, you’re absolutely right, the time progress indicator doesn’t stand out enough against the background. That’s definitely something I missed in the rush of the jam.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, it really helps!!
The in-game tutorial is gold and the game easy to understand: you directly know what you need to achieve without having to look at the description, which is great. The idea is fitting to the Theme and well-implemented, congratulation!
My only complains would be more tower types to spice things up (which might be hard to do with limited jam time) and maybe more indicator to know if you are in a local maximum or the global one.
So, first off, amazing presentation. The pixel art is both great-looking and readable, the music is perfect for this kind of game, and the sound design on the waveforms is excellent! (Every channel actually changed what it said audibly! Not 100% about phase though, that's hard to hear unless paired with another waveform.) The levels seem to be randomly generated too, which is very impressive (esp. in terms of the landmasses), although it's possible you pre-made a number of them and just randomly choose, which would also be a lot of work by you. Nice work getting an effective tutorial in during the jam too, that often falls by the wayside!
I didn't find the gameplay super engaging, though. It's just moving sliders until a number gets high. The actual graphics and theme of the game are largely irrelevant. There can be some challenge trying to do them all in the time limit, but it's just a measure of how fast you can move a slider. When I saw the waveform visualisers and audio I thought I'd actually need to look at that and try to solve puzzles with the different parametres, but that never really came into play. The idea of stabilising the signals is great, but I think that process could be more interesting. (Maybe some added gameplay with choosing the directions of signals could be neat too? Maybe you need to redirect signals to different towers throughout the game. Just an idea.)
Nice work! This was a fun puzzly experience with some super clean presentation.
Lovely looking game, with cool signal effects. The sound effects and music are great match too. Very much in keeping with the Signal theme.
Perhaps there are one too many parameters to adjust, and to be honest I didn't get a sense there was a knack to it; I felt like I was just tweaking the sliders to make the signal stregth go up without much of a pattern or system. Plus there seems to be local maxima you could fall in with no clear indication that you need to change the other sliders. That said it's all very nicely done and worked very smoothly. With the high number of nodes to fix it actually makes the timer pretty difficult.
Did you use AI to help build this game? It's not a problem with me if you did, I used a coding agent with my entry too, but the seemingly randomly generated map and the nice signal wavefront is the just sort of thing I've found the AI incredibly good at implementing quickly. The polish levels are very high (in a good way!)
@skiddings Thanks, I’m really happy you enjoyed it!
And yeah, that’s very fair feedback. The system can feel a bit like trial and error at first, especially with multiple parameters interacting and those local maxima you mentioned. It’s something I’d definitely like to make clearer and more readable.
About the maps: they’re not procedurally generated, there are actually 3 handcrafted maps that get selected randomly. With the jam time constraints, doing proper procedural generation felt a bit out of scope.
As for AI, I mainly used GitHub Copilot for small code suggestions and speeding things up here and there, but the design and implementation were done manually.
Really appreciate you taking the time to write such detailed feedback!
@sam-gorman Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback, really appreciate you taking the time!
Glad to hear the presentation, audio, and tutorial worked well for you, that means a lot 🙂
Just to clarify on the maps: they’re not procedurally generated, I built a few handcrafted ones and they’re selected randomly each run.
And yeah, your gameplay feedback is totally fair. The system right now can feel a bit like just pushing values up rather than really engaging with the signal itself. I originally wanted the waveforms and parameters to play a more “readable” role in solving things, but I didn’t fully get there within the jam time.
I really like your idea about redirecting signals or adding more decision-making to the process, that kind of layer would definitely make it more interesting beyond just tuning values.
Thanks again for the thoughtful comments, it’s super helpful!!
@furano Thanks a lot, really happy to hear the tutorial worked well for you! That was something I wanted to get right, especially during a jam :smile:
And yeah, both points are totally fair. Adding more tower types would definitely help bring more variety and depth, but as you said, time was a big constraint there. The local vs global maximum is also a really good observation, right now it’s not very well communicated, and I can see how that can be confusing. Some kind of clearer feedback or hinting system would definitely improve that. Appreciate the feedback a lot!!
I wish the bar filling up was easier to see.
Time limit is cruel - certainly, this is the Dark Souls of signal transmission games.
Jokes aside, this is a good game! I lost, but it was fun. Artwork is nice and the tutorial was helpful.
@tailchaser Hahaha, thank you so much!! I think that might be one of the best comments I could have received 😄 Really happy to hear you had fun with it, even if the time limit was a bit brutal. Glad the tutorial helped too!!