gevernus 2026-10-19 13:06 ♥ 0
a semaphore telegraph as the main mechanic, read the codebook, set the arms, pull the send lever, clear loop. the hand-drawn codebook is a nice touch. went through the tutorial only
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD60 → Semaphore
By helagos
| Percentile | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | LD60 | Ever | |
| Overall | 23 | |||||
| Fun | 22 | |||||
| Innovation | 23 | |||||
| Theme | 23 | |||||
| Graphics | 23 | |||||
| Audio | 22 | |||||
| Humor | 22 | |||||
| Mood | 22 | |||||
a semaphore telegraph as the main mechanic, read the codebook, set the arms, pull the send lever, clear loop. the hand-drawn codebook is a nice touch. went through the tutorial only
I feel like a town shouldn't need a semaphore warning about a giant monster *after* that monster has already reached the town :P
The game is pretty solid, and I managed a score of 26. The difficulty doesn't appear to reset properly when you restart from a loss so I had to refresh the page each time.
Really enjoyable when bats and fireballs come in a row, cause then I don't need to change the orientation a lot. Cute drawing! Might be my luck issue or interest as dnd lover, but seems like I'm getting a lot of fireballs. Considering the logic, it is slightly puzzling to warn the villagers about a fireball when it is already at the village gates. Other than that, the semaphore fits the old tech theme really well and good job with the tutorial! I like operating with the signals and it is fun to twist twist then wuush, signal sent
Took me a moment to realize what was going on, but once I did, it was pretty fun! Wish I could use the keyboard for adjusting the signal.
Never thought such a simple mechanic could be that captivating. If you add some post-jam polish, I would definitely play it again. It would also be cool to introduce new features over time to ramp up the difficulty - for example, new segments or extra enemy lanes so you have to split your attention.
Hi, pretty neat take on tower defence, theme-wise it fits. Nice Work!
I really liked the concept ! (My best score is 20 monsters) It was quick to understand what to do and it's an innovative way of fighting waves of monsters :).
(Note, there is a small bug, if you replay a new game, it don't reset the spawn rate of ennemies so it's very hard)
Nice entry, congratulations !
Would've been great for the 'Signal' theme a couple LDs ago too! 🤣
Really interesting mechanic! I knew what a semaphore was, just never knew it was called that :) Such a cool idea and concept, nice work!
Had fun playing yours, I'm not really good at it though haha
The levers on the far left and right didn't look like levers to me. The middle ones did, so I was confused all the time. I like the little thumbs up, like you're saying "this signal is the right one!"
I too was not originally onboard with the theme, but ended up digging into old communication tech. Cool idea, really like the feel of winching the signal works with the chains.
Agree that it took a second to realize the pull ropes were also "levers", but managed to figure it out (also saw the issue with the swarm speed not resetting). And "strength" is misspelled/typoed.
I made it to 26 my first and second try, the difficulty seemed to spike there and a swarm of monsters were suddenly at the gates. Early on, there's just a lot of waiting, you have the queuing system, so it'd be nice to just have the preview of the next monster before they appear on screen so I can practice the next signal. Then just tone down a bit of the sudden increase in monsters appearing. (I don't think I ever saw a butterfly/fairy.)
I also think keyboard controls would help a ton too. As much as I enjoyed the tactile bits with the mouse of controlling the signal it was just too tedious to be moving the cursor back and forth when the speed picked up. Like just left/right keys for rotating the beam, space to flip the end, and enter to send could still have a bit of that movement/process but just give you a bit more precision.
haha, as one of the previous comment suggested that would be great entry for last LD "Signal" :)
but yee, I like that game! Unfortunately I have got some bugs that after few second of playing I have 20 monsters in queue :P
A great game with a medieval theme! It’s pretty engaging, but definitely challenging. Nice work!
Cool idea! Even once I understood what to do, I still found it pretty challenging. Fun visuals too. Thanks for a unique experience :)
Very interesting gameplay loop. It was super engaging and I suppose it fits the theme too (and as others pointed out, it would fit the last theme as well lol). Good work!
This was great! Everything worked and felt smooth, difficulty went up a bit fast, but thats a minor problem.
I would have loved keyboard inputs, i feel like that would've made it a bit faster to react.
Also a bit more road for the monsters would've been great! So one can actually utilize the 'stack commands' feature, because for me at least, it was near impossible to even see more than 2 monsters at once, except for way into lategame when they are already over stacking and im to slow to keep up - other than identical monsters in a row there wasn't much use for the command stacking.
None the less really nice game, i especially love what you made out of the theme, really unique!
some little bug as the game failed to register certain moves, even though it accepted some them after I clicked several times without me having changed anything. i had the idea to use a semaphore for the Ludum with the theme "signal"but I didn't end up doing it. Glad to see someone using this device here!
Nice entry! I think this gameplay could lend itself to some "plate spinning" variation (things like sending several signals at the same time, keeping a torch lit, etc). Screenshot 2026-10-28 at 15-32-33 LD60 Semaphore by helagos.png
Clever use of the theme and really unique game mechanics. I enjoyed it even though I'm pretty uncoordinated and didn't do very well, haha. The tutorial is a nice touch, I figured out what to do pretty easily. Nice game!
