block jammer by paulboon 2023-10-03T07:54:13Z
Cool short concept puzzle game
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Zazzar
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 59 | Signal | Pandemic Purifier | compo | 249 | 3.05 | 3.07 | 3.00 | 2.54 | 3.05 | 2.43 | 2.28 | ||
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | Back to Space | jam | 792 | 3.33 | 3.21 | 3.27 | 3.67 | 3.19 | 3.63 | 3.67 | 3.28 |
Cool short concept puzzle game
Nice simple game. The sound effects stand out as well implemented and thoughtfully done
Really cool game idea! I like the mashup of puzzle and tower defense. Having the option to start a level without solving all towers would be a cool trade-off choice (less power for less puzzle solving), especially when resetting makes you start over. Fun game!
Very fun game mechanics once you get the hang of them. Lots of replayability and different strategies to try and beat your high score. Fits the theme well imo.
Well done for 48 hrs! Nice simple game that gets the idea across well. Had a little trouble making the box move as I wanted, and an indicator for when you are being hit would be nice, but the game scales well for the elements used.
Very fun game. I could see it being addictive with the peaceful mood music and satisfying gameplay. Well paced between fulfilling orders and waiting for plants to grow.
Clear visuals on the characters, nice and simple and can tell where each character is going to move next. Bit confused by the look towards and move towards signals, but only had the one level to try to get the hang of it. With more levels and obstacles you could make some very nice puzzles.
Made it to the end (where it keeps repeating I think? EDIT actually I was missing the real goal. Got to the true end yay!) Nice tutorialisation at the start, I got the hang of the controls quickly. Unless I just got lucky and avoided the walls, but when you introduce the Hold to Scan instruction it would be reinforced even further if there was a need to use it straight away. The rebounding off the invisible walls was very intuitive and easy to follow, although a small indicator showing the difference between hitting a wall and the goal would go that extra step of clearing up what you are looking for as the player. Nice work, good concept!
A really challenging but engaging puzzle game with seemingly a lot of replayability if the puzzles are random. The visuals are really nice and fit the mood and theme really well. Some audio control would be nice, especially with the lazer/buzzing sounds being quite distracting when they are that loud, but that's not uncommon for game jams. My only real critique is I'm not a fan of the puzzle resetting as you solve it. The oxygen counter works well as an ominous timer to get through the quite hard levels, but losing the signal (is it because of too many moves? I couldn't tell why it would reset randomly) when you've been working at a puzzle for quite a while sucks, only to be given an entirely new one you have to start over again fresh. Losing the signal jump scared me a few times too I was that focused haha. Other than that feature, a really well put together replayable game.
I didn't read all the dev notes until after playing but went "Are we going for a backrooms feel here?" when level 2 loaded and then the entity jump scared me haha. Great atmosphere and use of audio as a game element. It works really well together. I hung around some of the pickups just to listen to the tracks cause they were good. More general things to do in the level alongside the main goal of the audio would work well but focus mode helped here and made the emptiness add to the atmosphere instead. Nice work!
Apart from the name, the signal theme doesn't come into it much. Despite that, for a very simple game its a very well designed game for the message its trying to put across. For such a small game it did far more than I expected. Nice.
@trav Thanks for playing! Admittedly I was trying to go for that bait and switch intentionally with the first two slimes being colour matching, and then everything afterwards is less obvious so you are encouraged to use the scanner more to work out what is the best answer to each type. Otherwise it seemed too easy to just ignore the scanner if you knew it was going to be colour coded the whole way.
@nathmate That's definitely how I've ended up playing around those guys after publishing. Its something I would likely re-balance so they stuck around for longer. Really happy you called them "chameleons" because that's exactly what I was going for there. I'm glad it came through. Thanks for playing!
@japes Using a spectrum for tuning the gun was the initial plan but was cut for time and something simpler. Its the type of mechanic I think would go well with audio clues which I unfortunately didn't get round to. You're right about the scroll wheel, definitely a good ease-of-use suggestion.
Curious about the bug or whether its just unclear game mechanics. The angry green (red gun) slimes are meant to disappear when they deal damage on touch, an extra animation would certainly help here. It might not be obvious either that the foam that lands is still active and can still kill enemies so that might explain why they looked like they disappeared randomly for no reason. If not one of those cases it could be a bug I've missed. Thanks for playing and the feedback!
Similar to others, made it past the first level but ooft the timer is brutal. Some rebalancing would go a long way. Otherwise its really well executed, mechanics work well (although you theoretically could get soft-locked if you get unlucky with the pieces?), visuals are crisp, and the audio creates a nice tense atmosphere. A good submission, just wish I could see more of it with the difficulty toned down.
Awesome graphics and great design. Very good art and theming. I was very confused on what I was meant to be doing for a while. I knew I could pick up the flags but I didn't know who I was fighting or what I was trying to avoid. I eventually noticed the rock/paper/scissors game and did manage to win at least once. The awesome graphics and mood with a bit more obvious tutorialisation would go well.
Even though there's not much to do, I played this for longer than I'd care to admit. Just the simple click and collecting was satisfying the way you had it set up with the signal timing. Combined with chill visuals its a good base for an idle game. Just needs the next mechanical step to go further.
Very well executed (just like my operator) game. Good humour to match this type of 'admin worker' game. Graphics and visuals were clear and it made sense how I had to interact with the lights. It did take a while for my left-side-of-the-road driving brain to turn off and realise the signals to look at were on the right (maybe a fun setting to add? :stuck_out_tongue:). I appreciated the pathfinding on the car, I was a little worried by the intro I would have to micro-manage the maps and route but the difficulty felt right for this. Same for the traffic and other drivers that were mentioned, not sure how that was calculated or if it was included. Overall very well done and I found it quite fun.
Very nice visuals and audio works well with it too to set a good mood. The wacky premise of saving train babies to help out a lonely traffic signal is reinforced by the goofy main character design so thats nice too. The scanning was a little finicky to use because its so high up on the character it doesn't always go where you expect, especially with the fast horizontal trains coming at you. The rhythm mechanic is neat but didn't quite work when you captured multiple trains in one beam and kept giving me two prompts to hit which lost me health. A little more light in the night level was likely needed, I stopped caring about saving the train babies :( cause I couldn't see where they were and they would just die out of nowhere. I would love to have seen what was at the end but I did get a crash when fighting the boss that happened after the first boss scan and all the rogue trains activate at once. Overall a good submission with nice visuals and audio, but some bugs and balancing to iron out.