A fun and very good looking game. The construct mechanic added a nice challenge to the puzzle platformer
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Contradicting Constructs's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #285 | 4.300 | 4.300 |
| Overall | #494 | 3.867 | 3.867 |
| Enjoyment | #895 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Creativity | #903 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
Ranked from 50 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?
Constructs are given roles that are opposites of eachother
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
Comments
i am so sorry i couldnt clear lvl 2 :( but this seems very polished and seems like there is a potential! great job
Submitted
Don't Invade Our Space!Im not a big fan of switching roles but i love the presentation and the ideas. Good Job!
Submitted
Our Dearest PlayerI'm not sure if I really like switching roles. It implies that you have to plan from the beginning of the level, and basically figure out the solution to the puzzle. I'm more of someone who solves puzzle levels by playing and trying them out. So I would have preferred it if changing roles didn't reset the level. On the other hand, then it doesn't make sense to switch characters anymore. Maybe set the roles for each character without being able to switch roles? Anyways, i think the puzzle design is very clever, and the mechanics offer very unique possibilities. Good job!
Submitted
Soul Swap Inc.This is something that I definitely thought of a lot. I like having the player choose the roles and have to decide which one they need and what combination before the level, but it does absolutely make it hard to choose what you want before a level. (And makes you do one of my least favorite puzzle mechanics of playing the whole level out in your head.)
Very unique take on the fireboy-watergirl type of game! The art was very cute and added a great atmosphere to the levels. However, I have a couple notes on some things we discovered while playing:
- The door to level 3 from level 2 seems to be bugged. It takes us to what i think is a developer test level?
- In level 5, no matter how many times we dropped the box on the final button, the door only opened once, and it was when we didn't have our jumper on the top floor. After playing about 5-6 times we had to skip the level because that door did not want to open.
- We're pretty sure level 6 is impossible, as we can't find a way to move the box to the fans. There's no way to jump over it, as there is no jumper option, and even if we tried to use the fan to lift our light-brawn construct it was just too far.
- Level 7 was awesome! More of that please! Blocking the fans is a super cool mechanic that I wish was explored more.
I think with a little more polished you could have a serious contender here! Well done!
Submitted
Crimson Night ShiftThanks for the recorded feedback!
- The 2nd level goes to my preset layout I would use to make a level, I somehow forgot to connect it to the actual 3rd level. You can solve this by going to level 3 on the level select screen.
- I think buttons break when they get reset with sometime on top of them, and the only way to fix them is to completely reload the level.
- In level 6, you actually don't need the box. (I put it there to confuse mostly, so I may get rid of it then) Assuming that the buttons don't break on a reset, you can make one of them a Light-Brain, and other a Heavy-Brawn. Just use the heavy one to push the button, and have the brain open the door, then both can leave.
- I'm glad I took the time to add little things like that then! I'll try to maybe think of more ways to interact with the environment directly.
This is a very clean puzzle game with good design ideas. it fits perfectily in the theme and your art style is really cool
Submitted
a loading storyThis is a really fun puzzle game! The only issue I had with it was that it was really awkward to switch roles (which was made worse by the fact that Escape automatically exits fullscreen on the web build, which I was playing). The presentation is on point, and the puzzle are designed very well. Nice work!
I really like everything about this game, and the concept is great! I just wish you didn't have to pause and then go into a menu just to switch roles...
Submitted
The HuntedThis game is amazing, the puzzles are well thought out and the theme use is incredible. 2 days to make this is really impressive, great work
Submitted
Deep WatersThanks for submitting your game to the stream! If you wanted to look at the vod again in the future here it is timestamped to your game
Submitted
Abyss ArchitectInteresting puzzles, music and art are good.
Only problem is there are some bugs that lead to me being confused.
Submitted
Bullet ChamberLooks sick and is very interesting, too hard for my small brain though
Submitted
A date with Onion JackGreat art and puzzle concept. Could use a little more hints concerning the characters and the roles. I found it hard to remember which guy does what when playing. Could have been solved by making them look different with each role. So heavy and light could be fatter/thinner, brain/brawn could be head/sholder size etc.
I'd also suggest an indication of which one is active. Too often when I stopped to think a while did I come back having forgotten which was active, and imediately run into spikes or something.
A Braid-like time-rewind would be welcome too. I know that's a big ask for the strict time constraints of a games jam. I feel like the puzzle challenge should be figuring out how, not actually performing it with the semi-awkward controls.
I do like the unique interpretation of the theme. I think making the role assignments makes this a very unique game.
In summary, great stuff! Massive achievement in a super-limited time span.
Submitted
ReverseggleThanks for the detailed review!
I thought about having the role icons on the bottom of the screen be above their heads, but thought it would get too distracting / visually cluttered. I had also thought about the idea of making them wear different things / look different depending on their role but it seemed a bit out of scope due to the time restraints.
I'll have a look again to inform which is active, currently I just have one you swapped to do a little grow animation, but I know there are better options.
What puzzles did you find to be hard to preform? Obviously I can't really know which ones are hard to preform, since I got used to the movement by making it.
Any of the non-trivial puzzles were quite hard for me. Especially as any minor mistakes would usually lead to restarting the level. The puzzles are small enough that I don't mind losing the progress. I think my issue was more about the brain-load I had to carry due to the game not keeping me informed about who I was controlling and what their assigned roles were, while keeping the solution in mind too...
I've built games a bit like this in the past. One you may have heard of is Home Sheep Home, which became super popular. You'd be in control of three of Aardman's famous sheep characters, all with different sizes and characteristics/abilities. They were fixed though, and the puzzles were one screen with no scrolling. They could all do roughly the same things so the controls were common between them all. I set three ways to select which sheep you controlled at any time - you could press 1, 2, 3 to switch directly to individual characteristics, or you could press another key to cycle through them, or you could click on them with the mouse. There was a small arrow over the one that was selected, and they'd make a bhaaa noise and play a little "I'm alert" animation when they became active. All that stuff was aimed at reducing brain load, to free up players' mental resources to solve puzzles. It must have worked, because the stats I saw last said half a billion people had played it!
You make a really good point about knowing your game well because you were the one creating it. This is why playtesting with other people is so important (and really hard to do in a 48 hour jam). Watching other people play your game is a unique and often humbling experience! You find yourself thinking "why can't they see that obvious thing that you put in there to help them pass this specific point in the level?" etc. The answer is that things that are obvious to you the designer, aren't obvious to others who aren't as close to the project as you. When you release a game, you are the best player in the world at that game! You know intimately what everything is for, all the nuances of the levels, all the clever little touches you added etc. New players take time to build up that knowledge, and it's a steep hill to keep people interested in playing long enough to get there.
Wow! Thanks for the mountain of feedback!
I will definitely look into more of the visual aspects to help with managing the things the player needs to remember within a post-jam update. I'm thinking highlighting the construct you are currently using, and other things like that. I can also try to have a few more levels between the ones with longer / more complicated solutions (akin to the first 2 levels) so they can get more used to the mechanics.
Very cool, and sick art, having the ability to show the level before assigning roles would be a big help, if you are looking to expand the concept.
Submitted
Quest GiverI definitely agree! I was trying to get a good balance of screen transparency on the role selection screen so that you could see the level, but your attention was still on the role select. Since having it be too transparent would make it feel like you were playing the level. Someone suggested having a button to hide the role selection which I think could be the solution.
The puzzles are well-designed, and the pixel art is very clean and cohesive. The difficulty curve is also very good.
In level 5, if you push the box directly into the pit, it won't trigger the button, even though it seems to stay on it. I eventually figured out the intended solution. However, a visual aid showing why this wouldn't work would be helpful - perhaps the pit could be made wider, so it's clear that pushing the box down directly won't allow it to stay on the button.
Still, it's one of the most polished games I've played so far in this game jam.
Submitted
Escaping BeanYep, I found this out when watching a steamer play my game.
The button actually does work normally the first time, but the problem arises when you reset a level when something on top of the button. I guess I somehow forgot to make the button fully reset on a level restart. The work around for now would be to exit to the level screen and then reload it, which is annoying.
Bro, this is literally the direct meaning of the theme, but I like it very much! Interesting gameplay, arts and cool music! I just love this, dude! Great work!
Submitted
Not That Fast | For GMTK 2023
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