Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD60 → Hold the Line
By lazyapegames and bertus
| Percentile | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | LD60 | Ever | |
| Overall | 16 | |||||
| Fun | 16 | |||||
| Innovation | 15 | |||||
| Theme | 16 | |||||
| Graphics | 16 | |||||
| Audio | 16 | |||||
| Humor | 14 | |||||
| Mood | 15 | |||||
nice idea, especially the core toy from phone operation.
main menu cable or plug could be easier to grab, maybe thicker. It was hard to grab. Gameplay could use some progress. Feels kinda static when the complexity of the action is considered.
Excited to see if will have some post jam updates.
Super neat game!
The idea is amazing! It fits the theme, the feeling of the cable is really great!
THIS IS SO FIRE literally one of the best games i've played here. level of solid demo. I see huge inspiration from papers please, and even funament for politics of this fictional nations. Music is what makes this mood, creates anxiety(in a good way). At the 4 day it was so chaotic, so many calls and so many information to look at. I didnt complete it:( but the challenge is here, and I so respect it. 10/10
I love your entry, but I am biased here. This is exactly the original idea I was aiming for, but I got stuck during various stages. There's infinitely more functionality here, I had to drop mine to (almost) zero. Congrats, great entry.
Papers please is a great memory for me, was a trip on the memory lane. Was impressed by the cables physics as well.
This is both impressive and anxiety inducing. I imagine if it was real life I would have tangled all the wires in the first five minutes and nobody would have gotten their calls Very good entry, I would have definitely played the full-scope version of this
The Papers Please of the Jam, nice one.
This better win! Very challenging too
Wonderful game, such a simple premise too - "switchboard operator papers please". I don't think I have any complaints, it was great.
@marudziik I almost hearted your comment here as it made me LOL 😂(and is relatable 😝 ) I have to slap my wrist now to prevent doing that this jam. 🤣 About to play yours next! 🙌
As a HUGE fan of Papers Please... this was such a nice nod to that vibe and flow. ❤️ But also... not let it diminish everything you've accomplished here. 😮 Holy crap. Interacting with the wires is so satisfying. (I love the rats nest drawer of wires too 😆 ) I really like the sense of discovery... and the music is incredible. 👌 It got a little stressful later.. Like the music was stressing me out too. LOL.
My brain is too slow to get very far in this game. 😬 At some point, I just couldn't connect calls fast enough. I wish there was a bit more time to look up info. Overall this was a killer entry!
The wire physics are addictive, you can just throw wires around, I liked it.
The atmosphere of the communications office is immediately gripping, perfectly capturing the claustrophobic tension of the setting. The pressure of manually routing all those calls really brings the concept of a switchboard operator to life. Great work on this detailed entry!
Obviously the wire physics are the star of the show, but everything else is also insanely polished and advanced. I cant believe this was done in less than 3 days, with physics, workday-mechanic with increasing difficulty, main menu, settings and everything. Very complex game - much more than I wouldve expected! Quite impressive. Only thing I would criticize is that I spend most of my time reading the name book and immediatly being overwhelmed by it and the incoming calls and then also struggling to find the right jack because they are numbered with both number and letters but not as I would expect it e.g. with letters left side and numbers on top.
Overall though definitely one of the better switchboard-likes :D Maybe the best "realistic" one
Great take on the theme! The variations on the base mechanics are really nice, and as others have mentioned the cable physics are on point. Very polished entry, great job!
@bokanik Thank you for the feedback. Yes we would like to continue in development of the game. We will see based on the reception of the game here. If everything goes well maybe one day publish at steam hopefully.
@soup-eater Thank you!
@peternowel Thank you, I am glad to hear that.
@lastyw Thank you for your review, yes we were heavily inspired by Papers Please in some parts of the game. Yes that is exactly the reason we made the music work as it does.
@marudziik Nice, there were a lot of plugboard style games so apparently it wasn't really a as original idea as we thought xdd. Sorry to hear that though, I am sure next time it will go better. Thank you for playing our game.
@emeraldrat I am glad to hear that, at one point we were coming too close to Papers please so we had to change it up a bit so its not the same. Thank you for the review and for playing our game!
@capreola Probably most of us would end up like that in real life. AS i answered to previous comment, based on how good was the reception of our game we want to continue the development and maybe one day publish to steam. Thank you for the review.
@mugule Yes, indeed, there some aspects that a inspired by Papers Please. Thank you for playing our game.
@koala585 We hope as well, but we sadly still have not enough reviews for that. I hope it will get better but the rate of reviews is really low now. Thank you for playing our game and for rooting for us!
@adam-gould That was exactly the idea we come up to at 3 AM when we had a call after the theme of the jam was introduced. Thank you for playing the game.
@scrapmetal Thank you for the fantastic review. Yes that was exactly the point of the gradual ramp up of the music. As we didn't get enough time for testing and balancing the end might be a bit more difficult than it needs to be. Thank you.
@eugenik Thank you for the review, I am glad the atmosphere felt realistic as it would be real as it was our plan as well.
@retrific Thank you for that detailed review. We cannot believe it too, we both worked every day for 14+ hours. Yes thank you for pointing this out about the book, we are aware of that and we will try to make that better somehow. Thank you, we hope that we will win at least in our imaginary category of 'switchboard games'
@ghettobastler Thank you for leaving a review. We wanted to implement one more mechanic as it can be seen on the board (the taped over segment), but we didn't have enough time in the end
@peternowel, @emeraldrat @qmdev @retrific @ghettobastler I can remember me telling my teammate not to spend so much time on the wire physics and stuff. I am glad he did in the end as it has so much positive feedback!
Also, as you can see we are still in the danger zone so we would appreciate if you could spread the word about our game to you friends and other jammers.
I used to use an old audio software called Propellerhead Reason, and the back of the audio rack console had a bunch of physics wires you could grab and plug. Always loved it, and this certainly reminds me of that. The core concept of the game, grabbing wires and connecting them, is definitely cool. The graphics and aesthetic are nice and you definitely nailed the theme. I wonder if communication with the player could be improved a bit, perhaps as far as which calls are about to expire, how many warnings you have, etc. Maybe the console could hold more information that helps give the player feedback than it currently does. Love the concept, great entry!!
@yowdie Thank you for the feedback. Yeah the game would benefit from few polishing touches, but we did not have time for that, as we were submitting on the last minute. About the expiring calls, we tried to signal that with the increasing speed of the light blinking. Also we haven't come up with any more information the console can give to player as there already is: how many warnings you have left, completed ticket count, fines and current day. If you have any more ideas please don't hesitate to share them!
are there obvious penalties? I got some warnings even though I thought it was the right slot, then was just plugging random cables in, and nothing bad was happening? I ran out of warnings, but then nothing happened after, and I couldnt see a 'salary' counter or anything reducing...
EDIT: also a lot of games lack a reset. With a 'cerebral' game like this that's *essential*, since I want a 'practice round'. If I refresh page, I have to sit through the tutorial text again...
@nnnnneeeedddd There are, I don't know how did you manage not to get fines when connecting random ports (Unless you were connecting with Operator or Hold) IF you still somehow manager to not get the fine, please tell us how you did it so we can try to replicate it and fix it, because I just tried it to be sure and it seems to work as intended. First three fails results in you getting only a warning ticket and then you start getting fines. There is a recap after you finish each day which tells you how did that day. Yes, the restart day and skip tutorials button would be handy, that's true.
It's a great package. I like the art style and thought the synthetic voices were a great idea. Felt quite immersive. Cables were a little hard to grab sometimes (like I had to click very close to the connector's tip), but maybe that's because I recently bought a new mouse and am not fully accustomed yet.
I didn't get to the end of the day, so the 'fine notices' felt a bit meaningless. There's no salary counter going down, and there's no negative audio when I get a fine.
It seems odd that you have to wait for a day before you can see how you're doing...
There's a lot that's good here, but I find games like this annoying at the best of times 😅, so some of it is a me issue. I'll bump my stars a bit. (I still gave 4/5s across the board, great work for a Jam)
@nnnnneeeedddd Yeah that would be also an option to put the salary directly on the panel somewhere, but for me it doesn't really fit in there as in normal job you don't know how are you doing until you get the pay stub. But it is true that some sound would really help that. Yeah I can see how that this game might be annoying for you, I get that. It is kid of a niche game. But thank you for the bump!
Great entry!
The visuals and mood of the game were spot on, I love the feel of the game and I think you nailed it. I've never worked as a switchboard operator before, but now it kinda feels like I have!
While I appreciate that the tedium is part of the charm, one thing that would've improved this entry for me is a little bit more forgiveness when trying to grab the swinging cables. That surprised me how much I struggled with that alone, which made me run out of time to actually do the lookup / switching piece.