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A Pearl in Abyss's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #1036 | 3.558 | 3.558 |
| Overall | #2006 | 3.016 | 3.016 |
| Presentation | #2216 | 2.907 | 2.907 |
| Fun | #2636 | 2.581 | 2.581 |
Ranked from 43 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
A pearl in Abyss is an RTS tower defense game similar to Plants vs Zombies, but unlike PvZ, here you can join items on adjacent platforms in order to boost your attributes such as defense. You can join the items similar to jigsaw puzzle. However, joining many platforms together may not be the best strategy since it makes all the items in the joined cluster very vulnerable. Hence, the gameplay involves choosing the right move at the right point.
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
We used pre-existing art
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?
We used pre-existing audio
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Comments
This was such a chill little puzzle game that I can see myself playing on my phone on my commute. I liked the drag-and-drop easy controls, the nature of the puzzle pieces to connect to one another instead of just dropping them in wherever, and the super cute fish art. I only wish there was music or sound effects (or maybe there were, and I just couldn't hear them in the browser version).
By the way, we played your game on our stream tonight!
OMG, Thank you so much! It's always lovely to see your game being played by people full of energy and excitement.
I do agree about the sounds, I wanted to add many SFX and ambient music into the game, but couldn't.
I was originally not certain if the game was worthy for PlayStore since there are already so many similar games in this genre, but you reassured me. I'll consider developing it further *but after my current game's release. (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
that's really nice idea of combining jigsaw puzzle and using it for protection! very lovely game, i enjoyed it!
(maybe add a comment that it should be played full screen - because on the small screen i saw only the field for puzzles and thought that it is all and couldn't understand what to do)
I had mentioned that in the install instructions section. I will add that detail in info section as well.
Thank you!
Pretty cool! I filled up the grid with pieces and got a number so large i could not read how big it was. Feels very good to have it click and just work out. Nice job!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
nice game.
Thanks :)
Such a strange little game, I found it difficult to wrap my head around at first, but overtime my neurons fired in synchronicity to the madness this game creates by merging jigsaw / tower defense.
As far as I can tell though, this is purely defensive? It feels like I'm making a jigsaw barricade, more than I am building towers that provide any kind of strategic offense. Nothing wrong with that, could be cool to just simply call it a defense game, haven't heard of many games that focus on defense really.
It was a bold move to try this, so I am giving you max originality. It was decently fun, and the aesthetics are solid af, really love the menu screen especially, that waving effect wasn't lost on me, also idk why but the menu buttons felt so nice & snappy. The game wasn't hard to wrap my head around even with minimal instructions so that says a lot for anything relatively complex.
Great job!
Would appreciate if you could check our game out, if/when you have a moment as well! :)
Hey, thanks a lot for that beautiful breakdown. Originally my plan was to include offensive strats like some jellyfishes (jigsaw pieces) can fire back electric shocks and laser-type shenanigans. But then realized I had only a couple of hours before submission and made it a defense main game XD.
But as you pointed out I'm quite happy making it a defense main game and will probably proceed in that route.
That's a clever puzzle/tower defense concept! Well done!
(Quite adictive, too!)
hey, thanks a lot! Glad someone finds it addictive. \(๑╹◡╹๑)ﾉ♬
I like it! I thought the idea of combining jigsaw and tower defense was really cool and I liked how the pieces shared health when I was able to connect them all the way across the board. Really cool idea and well executed, good job!
Thanks a lot! Glad you liked the concept.
I have a soft spot for tower defense games and this was the first one I played in this jam, haha.
Interesting game -- I liked the puzzle placing idea. Nice work!
Thank you for trying it out!
Very innovative concept in which jigsaw pieces serve as a defense for attacking enemies.
Unfortunately it happened very often that i placed pieces and enemies swam along where i did not place any pieces. It's very frustrating when you have built entirely wrong and can no longer place any parts in a gap. You just wait for your slow death at this point. Therefore i would liked it if the pieces can be repositioned again and rotated. That would provide a greater depth of strategic gameplay.
Overall i think this is a pretty decent submission. I always like some strategy games in jams. Good job.
Yes, Rotating the pieces as you mentioned would definitely enhance the gameplay. When the pieces get spawned, I do rotate the pieces randomly, but for some reason didn't cross my head to allow the player to manually do it.
Thanks a lot for your feedback!
Wish there was more strategic depth to placing the pieces. What if combining pieces gave you more than the sum of 2 pieces? Anyway still a solid, well made game.
Yeah, I had kept that initially when 2 platforms connect, the cluster will be the sum of their defense value + half of the total. But then while playtesting I noticed I could get a defense value of up to 3000 when high order platforms connect. But you're right, I need to make the connection feel more rewarding.
Thanks for checking it out!
A nice game, clever mechanics! would have liked to have had a timer so I could see when jigsaw pieces would appear for me to use! Got so close to beating the last level but lost at the last second. Had fun playing so great job for a 48 hour jam!
Good job on you for getting close to beating 3rd level. Even I find that difficult at times XD
You're right about the timer, I wanted to make a radial progress bar at the bottom to represent what kind of piece will spawn when, but at that point, I had a few hours left for submission and entire enemies logic pending.
Thanks for checking it out!
Nice game, I like the combination of jigsaw puzzle and tower defence. I agree that it feels like it has potential for more strategic depth - as it got faster I found I was often just hurriedly plugging gaps with individual pieces rather than paying attention to joining them up. Perhaps more opportunity to plan in advance would improve that, and (as you've said in other comments) some abilities that could be a reward for joining pieces in certain ways. But it's a cool and fun idea, well implemented in the short time window.
Thanks for checking it out and providing your insights. Being a strategy game I do think it needs to undergo a lot of balancing.
@StrivenStudio very nice and unique game, I think adding some sounds will make a bit more interesting though you have done a great job :)
Yup, you're right! Thanks for checking it out.
A very unique spin on the tower defense genre, but still enjoyed the gameplay a lot! The UI was a bit weird and the concept was a bit confusing at first, but once I understood and got the hang of it, I had fun. Good job!
Thanks for checking the game! Glad you enjoyed it.
This is a really interesting concept, sort of like Tetris meets PvZ! I think this could have potential to really be fleshed out into something larger, nice job!
Thanks, this means a lot! Originally the idea was set in space where our goal was to align clouds (hence you see cloud overlay sprite), and clouds had the ability to fire back. But the 48hrs and asset limitation resulted in this :P
I feel that, lol
I feel like the game didn't really use its gimmick as well as it could've done. I think that if you could see all of the fish coming in each wave far in advance, sort of all falling slowly at once like tetris pieces, then maybe you could be more strategic about setting up your jigsaw pieces in the most efficient way.
Hmm.. you're right. It does prevent the player from using a strategy in advance. Each fish has a different speed and I found that slowing down the speed of animating fishes too much looked ugly. I'll need to think of some other solution for this.
Thanks a lot for pointing it out!
Really cool idea, kinda like Tetris and PvZ combined. There were some points where my pieces miraculously fit together forming a wall, and that felt pretty good. Because I didn't know what pieces were coming next I started wishing there was some way for me to plan ahead to create better strategies.
While playing level 3, I scrambled to create a huge wall and ended up with 3-4 tiles unused. I wanted to use the other pieces that kept appearing, but they didn't fit. So, a couple waves passed without me doing anything. I hoped my wall was good enough but at that point, it was a waiting game until the wall was destroyed. Unfortunately, I couldn't bounce back from that. I wish there was I way I could.
Very cool idea though, great job!
Thanks a lot for checking my game out with such detail!
I understand that if you make a cluster large enough, you will end up with a structure that prevents you from using all the tiles. I'd like to say that's a design choice because if I were to allow players to fill the entire grid that easily, then the player will end up with a literally invincible defense line and make the level extremely easy to clear. So the strategy is to combine tiles into clusters only where necessary and keep some tiles as a sacrifice.
But if it ain't fun, there's no point. So I appreciate the suggestion!
Fair enough! I can see why you made that decision
The game was really interesting but I was a little bothered by the fact that they weren't any reward for connecting the pieces (As am I aware of).
Overall the game was fun and original. Great job !
Hey thanks mate! The reward is the added defence value. Although I wanted to add more stuff like firing back at enemies when connected, I couldn't due to time constraints.
This is a really cute art style, and a neat concept!
The only thing I don't like is how quickly the jellyfish tiles disappear if you don't place them, but that's just personal preference really
Thank you, you're absolutely right about that! I added that quick little feature some time before submission :D
Ahhh I always add things last minute that go a little wrong too! Last year I managed to mess up all of the hitboxes on everything in the game about 10 minutes before submission, which was especially bad given it was a game about trying to precisely park cars in tight parking spots :D
I enjoyed the combination of the puzzles with the tower defense genre, I have never seen anything like it! The art style is also very nice.
While viewing the game in my browser, some parts are not visible until fullscreen is selected. I have had this problem myself. In the unity engine, there is an option in project settings called resolution and presentation. There the default canvas height and width can be selected. Choosing the same dimensions as the ones being used in the editor and fullscreen mode, solved the problem in my case.
Overall a really fun game, well done!
Thanks Master! I actually did set proper resolution in player settings but for some reason it didn't reflect in the build. I might've missed fullscreen option or so.