Switchboard Operator

david-fiattarone 2026-10-19 20:25 ♥ 1

This is hilarious, my cofounder and I were discussing doing a switchboard style game in retrospect from a humorous angle after our submission. My idea was that you would be a switchboard operator who fell asleep during orientation and awake to being assigned your first job. Originating connectors would have a request, and you'd essentially have to guess based on a pattern or hint to land the phone plug in the correct spot or be fired.

Thoughts aside, excellent gfx, you nailed the theme and the core game loop is spot on. Great job!

jambread 2026-10-20 06:41 ♥ 1

Oof at first it made sweat cuz my brain was actively trying to search for letters but then kinda got the idea it!

ioana 2026-10-20 14:32 ♥ 1

Nice game! It's a fun concept and well-implemented. Definitely not a mindless game to play, but it's not frustratingly difficult either. It was quite satisfying:)

I did have some difficulty precisely connecting cables to the correct ports though, it might have been me doing something wrong, but I couldn't figure out how to do it reliably the first try every time.

kanity 2026-10-20 17:06 ♥ 1

Thank you for the mention, it's very sweet ^v^ I am glad you finished your entry and now we can play it! :)

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Ok, I did spend quite a bit of time on it! :) At first I felt a bit confused and went into a huge debt, so I reset a few times to figure out the details. Then, as I realized I have to connect AND wait for a bit (oops), it went quite smoothly! I didn't rush at all, and managed to complete a lot of tickets still and not go into debt at all :)

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In the end, I had to stop myself from playing simply because I have to work and play other games as well; it ended up being quite addictive and actually meditative! So I was right - it is meditative after all! xD

I really like just the process of connecting and disconnecting these plugs. It does feel satisfying! I thought maybe a little sound while connecting would be nice, though I don't know if it will clutter the overall audio background as we also have sounds for the orders arriving, being complete or failed.

Also, it is a bit hard to tell some letters apart (especially B and E). I feel like quite a bit of my failed orders were failed for that reason ^^'

Overall, I think it turned out great! Actually feels polished and complete, in my opinion, and quite relaxing despite the timer! I am glad you published it after all :)

kedikat 2026-10-20 21:56 ♥ 0

Simple but addictive! Great job.

seyoke 2026-10-20 21:57 ♥ 0

I have more orders then kfc or burger king XD

scrapmetal 2026-10-21 00:46 ♥ 1

This is awesome!!! I love the art and feel!!

Good thing I'm not an operator though... No one would get a call through! 😬 😝 I suck at this. Makes my brain hurt. LOL.

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My only bit of feedback is I had a hard time telling the diff between B and E sometimes. My brain kept making it an E.. and I couldn't understand why I was failing so bad. The font is surprisingly readable for a pixel art font though!

It's so well done. Great entry!!

yorze 2026-10-21 09:41 ♥ 0

Really fun game! Feels like a mini electronic version of Overcooked

wouter52 2026-10-21 14:16 ♥ 1

Oh my this became chaotic very fast, I had a big smile on my face playing your entry. Glad you uploaded it! I knew about pico8 and tc80, but picotron is also a thing? Is that one new?

It was a bit hard to see which tickets were dealt with once they 'collapsed' to the right of the screen. Other than that I think this was designed very well

eugenik 2026-10-21 14:50 ♥ 0

The way you managed to translate the historical telephone switchboard concept into a digital game is fascinating. This whole entry is really well done!

marudziik 2026-10-21 22:19 ♥ 0

@wouter52 Picotron isn't exactly new, but it is pretty great (currently beta), also coming from Lexaloffle. A little bit different from Tic-80, too. Cheap, and worth every penny.

Btw the collapsed tickets will move left when hovered on.

t-c 2026-10-22 00:05 ♥ 0

Hey cool, interesting one! Very meditative. I liked the premise, the cords getting in the way of your vision, and the ups and downs of feeling completely overwhelemed one second, then having this nice 10 second wait where I don't have to do anything but let all 5 calls finish. I didn't know if there was an end, stopped at 50 calls succeeded Sprite-0002.png

There was a bug where even when unplugging a pin, the light would stay on. And I think sometimes it would stop you from being able to connect a call on that node, but when you unplugged the pin to put it back in, the request would fail. Or something like that. Tough to know exactly what was going on. Only other minor gripe I had was that the letters (I know it's tough with so few pixels) looked a bit too similar on occasion.

A fun one! Glad you submit it. 👍

tykki19 2026-10-22 05:02 ♥ 0

Not sure why this premise is so inviting but here I am. Some difficulties with dropping the cable to spot where want it to go but easy to pick and learn without tutorials. I'm not totally sure which I was so bad at it even when I felt I got them right... Overall nicely chosen lore for the theme!

kitmani 2026-10-22 09:44 ♥ 0

It's a great mechanic, elementary to learn, but on top of it, I've already figured out how to optimize my work.

I really liked that the interface was well thought out, several times I caught myself thinking "I wish I could X here" (such as an indicator of which wire is used, etc.) and suddenly realized "damn, so it is here." The only thing I lacked was the indicator on the card itself - it has a long opening, and without it, I did not find a way to quickly understand which ones I am already doing right now (especially considering that they are being rearranged, I am not sure if this is a good mechanic at all).

It also seems that things are not always good with colliders, a couple of times I grabbed the wrong thing when two connectors were lying next to each other. And there is a moment with the generator, I tried to keep 5 working calls constantly requery, but at some point I got this: [image] It was a little sad :D. photo_2026-10-22_12-33-44.jpg

And finally, I demand a leaderboard!

Otherwise, it's just great!photo_2026-10-22_12-33-48.jpg

crotonyl-alcohol 2026-10-22 15:24 ♥ 0

Great game! I like how the tickets show priorities in order, and how the lines turn dark as calls end. (I didn’t notice that at first, though.)

However, the font made B/E and C/G look alike, and it took me a while to figure that out — I kept thinking I’d misunderstood something. Also, I’d appreciate it if the plugs could fit into the holes when they match.

As others mentioned, the repeated callers could be a little frustrating. Apart from that, I had a great time playing, and I picked up the mechanics quickly enough.

BTW, I noticed some comments you made in other games concerning AI usage. We used AI assistance during development and would like to hear your thoughts.

dimini-inc 2026-10-22 16:51 ♥ 0

Cool game, even though it was hard for me to keep track of which tickets are in which state, and which connection lines are not needed anymore (partly because of the font) This almost looks like these old Windows issues where your app windows may leave a trail behind them :) lol.png

ethernal-tech 2026-10-22 23:58 ♥ 0

Really lovely pixel art style! The cable movement feels super satisfying, too. The game gave me a bit of a Papers, Please meets Overcooked vibe, which is a great combination!

I also felt like I was developing dyslexia while playing, because I kept connecting the cables backwards, putting AD where it should've been DA hahaha!

Really fun project, great job!

tosmaster 2026-10-23 16:23 ♥ 0

The style is really cool! And woah does it take a lot of focus to play. At first I was like "haha just connect the dots" but the true difficulty came after the first round of calls. Disconnecting dots! I didn't think it would be so hard, haha. Keeping in mind what calls are still active and what can be safely disloged is a task in itself!!

One thing I'd have to nag is the font, tbh. Sometimes I had to double check if the characters are correct. Took a lot of mental effort and maybe a more eye friendly font would help here?

pimeko 2026-10-25 18:59 ♥ 0

Nice design and cool rope simulation! Perhaps more sound effects and a background would have immersed me more, but it was nice :)

lazyapegames 2026-10-26 20:09 ♥ 0

All in all nice entry, had to try as we also did a switchboard operator type game. I like how simple the tickets are, only the reordering made a bit mess, it would be nice to know which are connected already. Good Job!