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negative's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #13 | 4.071 | 4.071 |
| Visuals | #61 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
| Overall | #62 | 3.271 | 3.271 |
| Audio | #69 | 3.071 | 3.071 |
| Gameplay | #91 | 2.857 | 2.857 |
| Technical | #98 | 2.786 | 2.786 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Rule
Rule A
Only used the colors black (#000000) and white (#FFFFFF)
Theme
Yes
This game follows the theme "You only realize the value of something when it's gone."
Original Art
Yes
Created own art
Original Audio
Yes
Created own audio
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Comments
I loved the stunning visuals and the beautiful, relaxed audio...
My points:
1. The acceleration based movement just isn't working, like that other guys said, it takes a long time to align the laser to hit that 2nd target.
2. Most of the time I had no clear indication that where and what I'm supposed to b doing. Like, it was painful going through that growing white ball and not knowing what my goal is.
3. Rest all, I think, is just perfect enough for a first jam.
Wonderful Job :)
I guess my inspiration for the game were mysterious/obtuse games like Myst or The Witness where it really takes awhile to even figure out what the puzzle is about and that basically cool, strange things seem to happen and you just sorta have to go along with it :p But clearly I missed the mark a bit on giving the player *just enough* info to get going and the movement just doesn't make exploration fun enough to keep the player curious. Thanks for the feedback and thanks for playing :)
Overall a fun and moody puzzle game. I thought the laser mechanic was really interesting and allowed for some cool puzzles.
If you wanted to improve, I suggest some sort of sound effect for when something is triggered, it would help the game feel more responsive. You could even layer another instrument on top of the piano to get the effect of slowly building up to something. Also, the player character felt really slow, that may have just been my PC as it is older.
Overall, cool game!
Thanks for playing :) yeah i realized afterwards that the movement speed is frame-dependent (woops) so any frame rate drops will cause the already-slow game to be painfully slow 😬 i appreciate the feedback, especially your notes about the audio! Incorporating more sound feedback is definitely on my list, but i hadn't thought to blend it more seamlessly with the music :o
To say the least I was a bit disapointed from this game..
Please do not take anything i say personaly, Im trying to give true feedback so you could learn and improve from it.
When i started the game I understood the lazer mechanic pretty fast, but after a while moving i found the first flaw, the Movement has acceleration and deceleration, which makes it really difficult to hit the orbs that open doors, On the second one i had to try for about 3 minuets just to aline it.
but after a while i found out the second problem, Theres no consistency, becuase the game was in only two colors, having consistency is really important, it gives the player a way to know how to react to an object and interact with it, but since almost everything in the game is made out of lines, i had no idea which part does what, and add to that some invisable walls and i had no idea if im even still in the course of the game.
but please, Dont be discoraged, For a first game jam this submition is great! (my first game jam's submition was much worse xD) and if you keep on trying, you will be improving! And i hope you will continue doing what you like.
Good job anyways!
The invisible walls are a puzzle to solve with the laser and are completely on purpose (you can see the "disco balls" trace the boundaries of the room). I wanted the laser to interact differently with different materials, but couldn't figure out a way to differentiate them visually before the deadline -_- So that might've made things a bit unclear, though I feel I've played more confusing puzzle games in my time haha
And honestly I'm not discouraged at all; pretty proud of what i came up with under the time constraints. And for what it's worth, I tweaked the movement a bit if you wanna try it out again :p I wanted to keep the acceleration/deceleration in... Do you think it's unworkable as a movement script?
I think for a puzzle game thats about precise lazer redirection, it makes it really hard to aim and hit anything.
Nice game with a cool concept; I had a relaxing and fun time :)
I think a slower rotation speed and a faster movement might improve it; it’d probably lessen the disco strobe effect.
Thanks for playing :) curious how far you got into the game. I'm trying to see if people were able to make it through the invisible wall section...
Well- when I wrote that comment I’d not got to the end. Although I thought I did when I got to the room with black walls and celebratory spinning rays…
Prompted by what you said I went back and found the invisible way out, and made my way to the end (back to the start screen :D)
So I guess my answer is I didn’t- I think it’s maybe a bit too subtle (the side effect of a 1 bit palette) Perhaps something that would have helped me is some screenshots beyond that section to prompt me that I didn’t quite get far enough.
Ah, thanks for giving it another shot :p I appreciate it. And yeah I'm seeing now that it's too subtle. I probably should have had one more puzzle at least with invisible walls so that players are a bit familiar with that mechanic... But until then, I will add a later screenshot :p
I liked the bouncing light ray concept but felt like it was under utilized. Unless I missed something. I got to the room with the two blocks and couldn’t figure out what else to do. The slow movement speed meant I really didn’t want to take the time to explore any further.
The music was alright and definitely had an ambient, relaxing quality to it, but the high pitched synth string notes were quite jarring. Like, they cut into me whenever they played.
Overall, it was pleasant experience, just felt like it was over before it really got going.
there's a way out of the room with the two cubes! the rays of the stars sort of "sketch" the exit and then there's some a section where you have to use the light ray to explore in the dark :) if you're at all interested, I can dm you a build of the game with improved movement speed as that's been a common complaint. I also 100% agree that the mechanic is a bit underutilized, but the puzzle in the dark is my favorite one so I think that'd change your opinion a bit if you played through it and also you'd be a bit more satisfied in general if you made it to the end :p
Thanks for playing and for the feedback; it's super helpful :)
good stuff, very conceptual
Nice game. Personally the music was a bit jarring for me. I liked the bouncing of the light ray around the place. The reflections were nice to play around with.
For the music, would you mind giving a little more feedback? I'm used to making pretty experimental stuff so unsure where to strike the balance when writing for a game soundtrack and would be interested to hear where I "lost" ya with the track. Thanks for playing :)
Oh I don't think I'm the right person to give feedback for music since I'm not really good at it. Hopefully this is of some use.
To me it sounds almost like you are playing some type of scary game. It sounds very suspenseful while the game play is supper chill. I was expecting something to happen while playing around. But nothing really did. Listened to it again it had me feeling a bit uneasy if that makes any sense.
No, that's really helpful! I was a bit worried I was adding too much dissonance which might've been causing that sense of uneasiness so I def appreciate your thoughts on it. Thanks for your feedback :)
Nice game. Personally the music was a bit jarring for me. I liked the bouncing of the light ray around the place. The reflections were nice to play around with.
Thanks for playing :)
Interesting and cool game :) I felt that the ray could have been limited in lenght to avoid the "discotheque" effect when inside a circle, which for me breaks a little bit the relaxing mood.
I was trying to find a way to not make it bounce around so energetically, but I actually quite like the discotheque vibe in the circles :p I'll experiment more with the ray length, though. I think there's a happy medium! Thanks for playing :D
I like how the camera moved in and out as needed. It would be a relaxing game for me to play only I felt the movement was too slow. I wanted to move faster. I also would have like to see a button, like space, stop my rotation. It was sometimes a bit going back and forth to line up my line on a button. So using something like Space to almost instantly slow me down to a stop. Watching the lines bounce off the walls was stratifying as well and figuring out how something opened. Nice job.
I wanted the game to feel a bit "swimmy", but I guess that sorta clashes with the precision needed for the laser locks. The Space idea is an interesting suggestion, though!
I guess I wanted the player to *want* to move slowly, but definitely towards the end, there's a lot of ground to cover so I can see why the movement felt too slow
Thanks for playing :)
This game offers exactly what it advertises: a meditative little puzzler. The visuals and audio feed into that very well, and having the game be in black and white really serves this sort of comfortable simple concept. I think it blends very well together.
There are a couple of negatives that do break from the immersion a bit. First, there's a slippery effect when you turn the player. In a relaxing game where precision is necessary, having to constantly shift around because your line keeps sliding off of your target is a tad on the annoying side. Second, and this one's a bit more subtle, the music could just go through a tiny bit of mixing to really bring it over the edge into amazing. It doesn't happen often, but there are a few choice high notes that are louder than the rest, and that too breaks from the immersion.
If you plan to continue working on this game after the jam is over, I really think it could turn something amazing. It's just fun and zen, which isn't a trait you see in many video games nowadays.
Thanks for the nice (and super helpful!) comment :) I wish I had had some more time to get the movement just right. I totally know what you mean with both of your critiques and would definitely wanna fix 'em up if I continue with the game. Thanks for playing!