Play game
Circling Different's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #52 | 3.933 | 3.933 |
| Originality | #106 | 4.067 | 4.067 |
| Overall | #114 | 3.889 | 3.889 |
| Presentation | #252 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
What do you like about your game?
The concept, sound effects and the effort. I really like the process of making music for my games and while I did not have that much time to make a whole OST I still had fun trying to do new things in FL Studio
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Nice game! I like really like the sound effects, and I appreciate the checkpoints between each section. The difficulty increases very sharply at the end of the game. Maybe more levels would smooth out the difficulty curve.
The visuals also looks pretty good for a game with just squares and circles. Well done!
Thank you so much for leaving a comment and playing! The third level is wayy to difficult, but I did not have any more time to do more levels to make that curve a bit smoother, but I wanted to show what can be done at this current stage. Definitely gotta fix this, glad you had fun!
what a lovely puzzle game, short but sweet! this game delivers such a nice auditory experience! the chill but slightly dissonant BGM evokes that tense but anxious feeling of trying to calmly fit in an unwelcoming environment pretty well (the death jingle also is very fun to listen to)! the sfx also are really well put together, from the grunts of the red squares, the ambience, and the static really illustrate the tone that you wanted to deliver, nice work!
the puzzles are also really fun and engaging! they aren't too long but are really nice bite-sized showcases of the main mechanic, which is really neat (i think the mechanice was explored pretty well)! the visuals are pretty simple but also nicely communicative, with no entity or graphic being unclear on what purpose they serve, which is pretty neat! nice vignette and fish-eye lens too! though one nitpick i have is that the vignette kind of blocks some of the shapeshifting meter, which can sometimes make it hard to tell when it would run out, but it wasn't that negatively impactful to the overall experience.
all in all, i enjoyed playing this a lot! nice messaging too! you portrayed it pretty well with the character shape-shifting into static! the general shape is the same as the rest, but is visually distorted and messy. the visual and auditory experience of the main character "pretending" is grating and uncomfortable, resonating perfectly with how they must feel to be someone they aren't, really nice stuff there, great work!
Thank you, don’t even what to tell you as you nailed every point. I know the pretend-ability-meter is in a bad position as I did not know where to put it really. Meaby directly under the player model? Anyway thanks for playing, glad you had fun!
yeah wasn't sure where i'd put it either which is why i didn't suggest anything xd. though placing under the player seems perfect since you'll be keeping an eye on them most of the time!
Real fun to play!
I wish there were more puzzles)
Thanks! I definitely need to make more puzzles with more subtle difficulty curve and add some new mechanics to not make it boring after a while. Glad to hear it was fun!
Nice game - got the end :) Really well presented and a unique style - it's great what atmosphere you've been able to create with just geometric shapes!
I did find the insta-death a bit too annoying at times. I wish there was a little bit of grace on that, instead of an instant death if you touch just one-pixel - but I was glad the auto-save goal points weren't too far apart.
Nice job though - I enjoyed playing it! Good luck in the Jam :)
Thanks! Yeah I will have to work on the “death” mechanics a bit after the jam. It’s a hard game at times and the death music is sooo annoying after a while too. Glad you had fun!
Hi, just finished playing your game! I really liked the lens distortion effect on the whole scene, and the enemy's sound effects. The music fits very well the game and gives a very dreamy vibe to it. I also liked a lot the idea of the glitch mechanic, very fun to play!
Very nice game and good luck with it, I really enjoyed playing <3333
I wanted the game to look like the player is using some old retro/arcade machine with CRT display to “detach” us from the gameplay, I think it gives the game this certain “vibe” that is creepy/dreamy. Thanks for trying it out!
<3
I thought it was fun I liked the sound effects and thought it a clever idea.
Thank you I appreciate it! I am proud of those sound effects they were fun to do!
Cool game! a bit too hard but had a good time
Thanks!
I like the sound effects. The gameplay was challenging and refreshing.
Thank you!
I really liked how you utilized all these different game mechanics and how they interacted with each other. That was really nice game design. I liked it!
Thanks! I was afraid that if I make a few mechanics dependent on one ability it would seem too boring/jam-packed, but I think it makes the game hard, which I am okay with. Perhaps it would be worse if the game was longer.
I think this is one of my favorite games from the jam, I love the the CRT affect and I really like your ability to tell a story with just a few simple shapes. Really killer job! (under rated)
I appreciate it! I did not have enough time to go for any more advanced graphics, but I am happy with how it turned out. I also had time for doing things I never did before like post-processing!
yeah! I think the minimalist style actually helps this game!
That form of style is often in some creepy games too, meaby after this jam I could expand on this a bit.
Though Circling Different doesn't stay for long, its short puzzles and fine timing when it comes to shifting are fairly engaging.
More importantly though I think is your messaging. I think it goes without saying that we all will put on masks throughout our lives, maybe multiple times per day. For some of us, like our circle, it's necessary to even survive.
It's cynical, but very real. A shame that the squares can never seem to find it within them to truly accept a circle, even when the latter can find it to fit within the other.
Thank you! I tried to capture the struggles some people have to come through to achive their goals while pretending to being someone they are not. I would like to expand on this concept a bit after the jam ends and add a bit real story to it.