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Hidden Messages
Hidden Messages
By noobman64
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 231 | 3.13 | 20 | |
| Fun | 203 | 3.08 | 20 | |
| Innovation | 163 | 3.30 | 20 | |
| Theme | 33 | 4.25 | 20 | |
| Graphics | 264 | 2.66 | 20 | |
| Audio | 63 | 3.69 | 20 | |
| Humor | 39 | 3.61 | 20 | |
| Mood | 160 | 3.41 | 20 | |
Comments
Ok first off, I listened to every second of every station and I gotta appreciate your creativity here, it also made me laugh a few times. To be clear I didn't understand two of the stations but really enjoyed listening through them! This is a really creative compo entry and honestly there aren't enough puzzle games in jams like this IMO. I was a bit confused about what to do at first because i was looking up top for the button and eventually realized it was at the bottom but marked ^^^, hah. Also, the resolution was suuuuper small no matter what I did, but I squinted my way through it, and I'm glad I did! I'll be on the lookout for future more complex puzzles from you like this, because this has a lot of potential and I think it's a great format for a puzzle game! Awesome work.
pres2300
2026-04-20 18:14
Absolutely love this concept and it fits the theme so well! Definitely understand how things can get left out in the time constraints of a jam, but you ended up with is still fun and interesting! Great work!
helagos
2026-04-20 18:32
The concept is really great ! It's a puzzle game but just finding and listening audios is enough to make it nice to test.
@kristinamay Thank you so much for the kind words! I was hoping the "^^^" would signify that when you press it something will pop up, but in retrospect, I can see that it is very unclear. :sweat_smile:
I don't know if these count as "spoilers" but here is more info on the stations. Two stations have talking but not in English. One is a nursery rhyme in Farsi, the other is a stressed out German junior officer letting his commander know he is retreating from something :smiling_imp: I remember as a kid playing with my dad's pocket radio and listening to all kinds of foreign languages I didn't understand. I wanted to recreate a feeling like that. I generally went with "vibes" over substance with the channels :sweat_smile:
@pres2300 I'm so happy you found it fun. I was worried that just moving a slider would get boring for people :heart:
@helagos Thank you for listening! My mechanics are really simple so I tried to give it some flavor with the audio :smiley:
Okay... this was weird ... I really need to find the german junior office.... I would understand what he is ranting about :rofl: Great job - hope you will swing by with a vote aswell :smile:
Great ... I found him :rofl:
@purpledartfrog Thanks for playing! Was the German even understandable? I don't actually speak German and my exposure to the language is mostly just from old music. I had to do so many takes to get "zurückziehen" in one breath :sweat_smile: I'm So glad you decided to go back and give it another listen for the officer. I'll have you know he made it out unharmed, and is currently being interrog... debriefed at headquarters :)
I went thru all the channels and loved the chaotic vibe of them all! But, to get thru the game, there was no punishment for wrong guesses so i just clicked all the buttons because the clues were confusing lol. Very interesting concept and wonderfully executed other than the lack of punishment for wrong answers! Great work, I loved it.
@richjbaron Thanks for the kind words! I totally agree on the lack of punishment. Originally I had a fail-state in mind where if you messed up more than a couple of times, the end-slide would show the monster destroying the world with a message implying that it's your fault. Unfortunately that ended being cut due to lack of time. I must have been an EA executive in a past life or something because I tend to go with a minimum viable game when the alternative is being late :sweat_smile:
There was a lot more audio content than I was expecting! The puzzles were interesting, but I agree with others that a lack of a fail state does lower the stakes with just clicking to proceed without figuring out the puzzles. I think it could be made more required if it was a code that was changing over time, and you had to enter in the digits instead of multiple choice for example, that way there wouldn't need to be a fail state, but blindly guessing also wouldn't advance players. All in all a very charming entry! I enjoyed the ending!
catanus
2026-04-23 12:11
A small game with its own charm. Even though there wasn’t much time to develop it, the most important thing is that it feels complete, unlike many jam projects. You did a great job, and I hope you get more time to focus on what you love.
@noobman64 LOL EA executive in a past life is great :laughing: That would've been super fun. And yeah the time constraint is brutal for any "nice to haves" like that. Great work considering the limitations!
@ursagames Thanks for playing! I 100% agree with your suggestion. I think I got tunnel vision since I have buttons in all my games and I am not as familiar with text input fields. Having the answer be a player text input would resolve the problem without requiring me to work on multiple endings. Efficiency! :nerd:
@catanus Thanks for the kind feedback! I've read somewhere that the human mind tends to put relatively more value in how experiences start and end (specially end). Having some kind of ending is pretty high on my priority list. I don't have the skill for anything impressive but at least I can give the players a place to land and contextualize their experience. End slides are relatively quick and easy so even I can't mess them up ... most of the time :sweat_smile:
This was a really refreshing change from the way you interact with most games. I really enjoyed perusing the radio stations and seeing what was there. The interview with Dr. Rumenthol was particularly enjoyable (and frustrating!). Great work on a strange entry that makes Ludum Dare so fun to participate in.
@bentglasstube Thanks for putting up with my sense of humor :sweat_smile: I was going for the really absurd kinds of conversations you would hear on Monty Python, or certain stations on GTA radio. I had a few ideas on how to cause unexpected "complications" for the player. That was my most mischievous one so I put it in the game :smiling_imp:
asieke
2026-04-26 03:52
Interesting concept. Feels like the UX/UI design could use some polish, I was a bit confused.
fnelix
2026-04-26 10:39
Nice little game! I enjoyed the often funny "noise" channels. I understood the UI ok, but I guess the gameplay itself could use some more inital guidance: Cool that audio is required!
@fnelix @asieke Thanks for your constructive feedback! Maybe having a screenshot which points out the intractable element could have helped. I'll try that on my next game and compare the feedback :thinking:
Nice take on the theme and really well executed. Really impressed by the amount of content for a compo game.
As others have mentioned, the lack of win-states trivialize some of the stations, BUT for a gamejam I think it works to your advantage. Giving people a chance to experience all the content with less frustration shows your game in a better light in this context. Great work all around.
mizaless
2026-04-27 18:08
A pleasant quest to play through. I liked that the tasks vary in difficulty.
@atmospherium Thanks for the kind words! I'm happy that you liked the content. If you break it down, the "mechanics" are just a few buttons, and some volume controls with two sliders, and the game engine (Godot) handled most that too. This bought me extra time which I used to experiment in Audacity to give the game a little bit of character with the extra content. :nerd:
I agree with you on player frustration. Ideally a hint system would have been nice, but I was not going to get it done in time. IMO having the game be too easy to finish is always better than too hard, unless the difficulty is the "selling" point for you.
@mizaless Thank you, thank you! I had to spend some time and think about some ways to make the tasks more difficult without just making the numbers bigger. I'm glad you found it pleasant :smiley_cat: