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Cubism with a side of Thorns's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #208 | 4.382 | 4.382 |
| Overall | #346 | 3.970 | 3.970 |
| Creativity | #424 | 4.018 | 4.018 |
| Enjoyment | #890 | 3.509 | 3.509 |
Ranked from 55 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?
The player continuously reverses roles - the player alternates between designing challenging puzzles and then beating them themselves.
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
Yes
We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?
No
We used pre-existing audio
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Comments
Hmm, I might echo what others have said that a bit of tutorial might help, but not so much the gameplay and more what the colours mean, like if it matters if you change the black and white tiles and if it's good or bad when the screen is red on a level complete or green on a level failure. But it's a neat little idea that in concept you kinda 'make your own difficulty' with the place and play parts. Good job ~
Totally fair about the tutorial! You do have a different viewpoint on it with the colors though, which is very useful. You do help me realize that the significance of the colors is a biiiit confusing.
The color of the background, level completion screen and tiles are purely for aesthetic purposes, but the color of the enemies does signify some things about their behaviour (at least, for the enemies there are - 4 isn't a whole lot, heh). The colors the background and enemies use are the exact same though, so I can understand that that creates some confusion. Especially with the tiles, you can hover and de-hover over them to randomly make them black or white, but this is also just for game feel - which, understandably, also creates some confusion!
It might be cool to add 'modifiers' to levels based on the background color. Could be as simple as increasing the chance for enemies of said color, or something with generation that benefits that color of enemy more, or both, or something completely different!
In any case, more stuff to think about for me. Thank you for your perspective!
(Also, adorable pfp)
Cool idea and a good presentation. I thin it needs some tutorial.
Thank you!
And yeah - from what I've gathered, a bit more of an explanation could definitely help!
Love the idea, had fun trying to see how many enemies I could max out before dying. I did have some issue understanding the scoring system to start though, but understood later!
Thank you!
Yeah, causing chaos with a bunch of enemies is very fun.
Glad you did manage to figure out the scoring! I am curious, actually - since a lot of feedback does say that they want more of a tutorial, do you think explaining the scoring system a bit more in-depth would help, too?
Hmmm I think an inclusion of how the scoring works would improve any tutorial you add to the game.
Very cool idea, good job!
Thank you!
I found it interesting to observe where the enemies go and try to calculate the best route to activate the buttons, I go at the pace I want, but I can stop and think anyway.
That's perfect! I do think that's what I want from this - that, after a while, you get the patterns of the enemies so that you can figure out the best route, without having the pressure of time.
Great game, and fantastic presentation! The isometric controls doomed me a few times though. I'm sure I'd get used to it given enough time, but perhaps an option to move by clicking the blue dots would be a good addition?
I'm curious as to how you made sure the rounds were beatable, given the levels are randomly generated?
Thank you very much!
I'm not sure if you were using WASD or the mouse in this case - in either case, it is true that the blue dots can't be clicked (only the tiles can be clicked on, and, well - since the dots don't block it, that could result in misclicks), and it's very understandable that that's misleading and something that I need to fix haha. Thank you for pointing it out!
As for keeping the rounds beatable, this was mainly via playtests and tweaking plenty of variables, and a bit of coincidence, too. The target score grows exponentially to make it more and more challenging, but I do think that thanks to the way the levels are generated and how scoring works, it's theoretically always beatable.
The way levels generate is decently simple - a value representing the number of tiles is given, and the code will then repeatedly select a random tile and place a tile next to it at a random available direction. Every level the amount of tiles is increased by... I think 2, not 100% sure, but in any case, it keeps on expanding over time. Depending on how many tiles there are, it'll spawn in an amount of buttons, to increase the amount of distance the player needs to traverse to beat a level. Main takeaway, levels are randomly generated, but the amount of tiles a level will have isn't.
...in any case, since the level keeps expanding, and since the score per enemy placed also increases, I think it's technically possible to keep going forever. Also, you get more levels per round beat as you beat more rounds, so that also helps. It does mean that levels will also become more and more challenging due to the large amount of enemies required.
...bit of a ramble, but I hope that helps explain the design behind the scoring, haha
Oh man, I didn't even realise I could click the tiles to move!
Thanks for the detailed explanation, I hadn't noticed that the score per enemy increases as the game goes on. So is it theoretically possible for the level generator to make a straight line (which I presume would be impossible to win) or are there some sort of minimum parameters to make sure that doesn't happen?
Whoops! Yeah, the game does lack a bit of a tutorial so I don't blame you.
And also a bit of a mistake in my explanation - for every level, every enemy you place gets more score (first 1 point, second 2 points, third 3 points, etc). The amount of enemies is limited by the available tiles, so this means that there are more points to score in a level with 100 tiles than in a level with 2 tiles. The score per enemy throughout the game does stay the same.
As for the generator making a straight line - yes! that is possible. Although, to make it truly impossible, that would also mean that the player has to spawn on one end, and at least one button at the complete other end. if there's space outside the 'line' between the player and the farthest button, an enemy could be placed there, but that would also likely have to be a green enemy.
I'm sure there are some calculations that could be done to calculate the chances of that happening but in any case, it is possible!
Alright, ramble done, haha
I like the risk-reward thing going on, the more enemies there are the more you get !
I think that you should get more points depending of what kind of enemy there are.
Thank you!
And that's definitely something that I was thinking about - the non-confused eyes yellow enemy is far less dangerous than a red enemy. I do personally like the 'predictability' of how many points you'll get. Still, maybe something that manipulates what enemy you get could help, like getting a difficult enemy after many easy enemies and vice versa. In any case, food for thought!
Thank you for the feedback!
The game was really fun ^^ One thing that would really improve the game would be some kind of tutorial and also an explanation how different enemies work. It would also benefit from some music, but overall- extremely good job! The visuals and sound effects are good and the main mechanic makes the game really enjoyable ^^
Thank you very much!
Yeah, as someone cleverly pointed out in another comment, there isn't really an opportunity for the player to learn how the game works, so some way to let the player learn would be a great addition.
Music was also something I would've liked to add, yeah! I'm blaming the lack of it on the jam deadline, heh
Also, Yveltal is probably one of my favorite Pokémon!
That was a challenging puzzle game, and I enjoy a good challenge! The implementation of the UI elements was beautifully done, and the message system was non-intrusive.
It's a very polished game, good job😀
Thank you so much!
Glad you like the UI elements, cause that's definitely something I was uncertain about.
Thank you for playing!
Loved the look of the game! The pastel colors really made the whole thing work together! The sound effects are also really great. Nice job!
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed the visuals!
Surprisingly challenging core mechanic (considering you're setting up the challenge you face)... in a good way :) Took a round or two for it to click, but definitely hooked me. Hits that "easy-to-learn, hard-to-master" sweet spot. Love the minimalist aesthetic as well. Great job!
Thank you so much!
It was quite a challenge to get the core mechanic right, so I'm glad you like it!
pretty good take on the theme! took me awhile to realize what's happening(might be a problem on my end). i think you could add in some tutorial!
Thank you!
And totally fair! That's not on you. As someone explained to me below, the player doesn't really get to experiment with enemies and stuff, so a tutorial would help!
Very clean gameplay and aesthetics! I kept losing because I was too greedy with my enemy placements haha.
Thank you so much!
And same haha. Overconfidence is a slow and painful killer!
Interesting concept. I get too greedy and die very fast. :)
Thank you!
And yep, that's what tends to happen to me as well, haha
I feel like this game has so much potential, and everything looks so well polished, but it's held back by trying to be too many things at once. Some games are designed around learning the rules, but a lot of the design decisions in this game seem to go against that.
With the way that the game is currently set up, I get punished for taking the time to experiment with a certain kind of enemy. If I want to figure out what the green enemy's AI is, the best way to do that is to spawn only one green enemy and see what it does. However, the game does not provide a way to do that without detriment to the rest of your run.
Your game is trying to be two things:
A) a puzzle game where the puzzle is learning the rules
B) a puzzle/strategy game where you need to cleverly apply known rules to win.
Either one of those would be fine on their own, but currently the two goals go against each other.
Ideally, you'd either make the game specifically about learning the rules (maybe by removing the whole score system and implementing a progression-based system instead, where the player physically cannot progress until they learn the rule), or provide the rules to the player, and have the puzzle be figuring out how to best apply the rules rather than having the puzzle just be learning the rules.
Thank you for the feedback!
I think you're making a good point that I didn't realize myself! From the playtests I did it seemed that players slightly preferred learning how the enemies themselves worked - but I didn't take into account that the player doesn't really get the opportunity to experiment with how enemies work. Letting the player learn how the enemies work should feel rewarding, and although I'd like to assume it does at the moment, you are definitely right that the player shouldn't have to put themselves in a worse position to lose something - or, at least, lose something significant. In later rounds, just trying 1 enemy on a level can already be very dangerous. And, well, that's assuming that the player figures out how the enemy works in one level.
I did consider making tooltips at first, but if I were to iterate I do think I would like to still give the satisfaction of learning how an enemy works. Maybe by putting them in a situation where losing isn't as significant - maybe some alternate mode with pre-made levels and a pre-made list of enemies, where the objective is just to complete the level, and failing only resets the current level. That would be a completely different mode, though. This is good food for thought though, to say the least!
Again, thank you for the extensive feedback. This was definitely a blind spot I missed so I'm happy you could point it out for me!
Took me a few rounds to get the gist, but it's really quite a clever little game. Using space to wait really made it take off for me. Well done.
Thank you!
I will agree that the player could use some extra help with how the game works, but I'm glad you figured it out!
And yeah, waiting is definitely a frustration saver haha
Very clever approach to the theme with cute style! Took a little bit of experimentation to fully grasp, but this contributed to the challenge.
Good job!
Thank you!
I'm glad you did enjoy the challenge of the experimentation - it's definitely been a 50/50 so far between people that would like a bit more help figuring out the patterns of the enemies and those that want to do it on their own, so I'm glad you're on the 50/50 side that this game is tailored to!
As a person who likes to spend time with themselves, I had a lot of fun playing this! Great job!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
this is so cool... clean aesthetic, easy to grasp but fun to play with rules and infinite replayability. i feel like the core idea is easily scalable with more objects, different enemy types etc, its really really good. sick idea, great execution and a really really good entry!
my only gripe with the version you have up currently is that the randomly generated levels can sometimes really put you in a pickle even though technically you're free to choose your own difficulty. like sometimes the combination of the generated playspace + your position + button positions makes it kind of impossible to beat a level?? i understand that perfectly tweaking the level gen code in the span of two days is way too much to ask for, just saying this as general feedback :)
Thank you very much!
And yea - random generation can definitely screw you over! Something that counteracts that a little bit is that you do get to place the enemies but there are definitely moments where rng just screws up, like when you get a red enemy right next to you and there's a button which you can only enter from one way. It's definitely something I want to spend more time on
if I do spend more time on it whiiiiich honestly knowing me is likely noThank you for the feedback!
valid tbh, i don't expect most people to want to come back and significantly expand on their jam entries. in your case the game is already very good as is anyways :)
Wow this is an orginal idea for sure. I loved it, well done
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed!
That's a good one - both in idea and realization parts. Style. effects are neat. The only thing I didn't like - disability to remove enemies
Thanks!
Glad the execution of the idea is to your liking.
With removing enemies, are you referring to removing them during the enemy placing phase or when you're trying to complete the level?
For the enemy placing phase, maybe adding an 'enemy' that instead deletes an enemy would be a neat addition, actually - sometimes you get screwed over by RNG, and it'd be an interesting risk-reward situation to try to get that enemy-deleter - by getting through placing more enemies!
As for the level-completing phase, I had a playtester mention that they feel like it'd be fun if there was an enemy that would just delete enemies it moved over. I think that would be a cool addition, too!
Thank you for the feedback!
Well, your idea is interesting there, but I meant different thing) I'd like to have an option to remove an enemy after placing it - if I did it incorrectly