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Break to Scale's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #223 | 4.069 | 4.069 |
| Enjoyment | #307 | 3.908 | 3.908 |
| Style | #357 | 4.253 | 4.253 |
| Creativity | #436 | 4.046 | 4.046 |
Ranked from 87 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 theme of Scale courses through the veins of this game. The main mechanic is breaking down large boxes to make smaller ones, you're exploring a massive factory as a tiny robot, blocks get bigger the further you go, and the dialogue implies a grander narrative than you can see in game.
Development Time
96 hours
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
Key art by Rand0man
Music from Chris Logsdon
SFX from Chris Logsdon and David Stearns
Shaders from c64cosmin and GNamimates
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Comments
What a lovely little game. The character design and animations are so cute, and I absolutely love the little puff particles when they move. Such a cute detail.
Thank you! I added the movement particles on a whim, glad to see people like em
Amazing work! The game is really polished. You can really tell it was made by a talented game dev. Good job!
Thank you!!
The controls are smoother than I would have expected! fun concept, well done!
Thanks!
That was a lot of fun! Well crafted puzzles, fun mechanics, solid overall aesthetics. Overall a nice and fun submission :)
Thanks!
This is fun little game that is polished to the perfection, really liked it and would probably want to see it release on steam with more content. Great work!
Thank you! And maybe one day lol
Simple and fun puzzle game with tone of polish. I recommend to play windows version instead the web, Great work and congrats!
Yeah I recommend that too lol. Thank you!
Played the Windows version as I saw the comments about issues with the web build and happy to report it ran glassy smooth and bug free for me :)
Really fun puzzler, which turned out to be a lot more difficult than I expected! Stages feel well put together and do a great job making the player explore different ways of configuring boxes.
Particular praise here to how polished and juicy this all feels, from details like lighting or movement particles, the feel of breaking the boxes and even just the attention to detail with different sfx for different UI interactions. It all comes together to make this a pleasure to play.
Thank you!! I put a lot of time into polish and trying to make it feel like a game that wasn't made in four days lol, I'm glad you enjoyed all the details!
Great ideas, amazing polish, good level design... this game has everything. Well done, I'd love to see an expanded version, keep it up!
Thank you! And maybe one day!
Good Game, hope that you can fix your web build as i couldn't pass the third level ! All of the work is really well polished and they are some really nice vibes !
I would fix it now if I could, afaik it only gets unplayable if you fullscreen it though!
Oh i see i will try to replay it in windowed then ! :)
Alright best game of the jam I've played so far, perfect ratings from me. It makes me so absolutely sad that the WebGL build is broken since I know so many people won't bother downloading the working version... cause this game is honestly amazing. Long review incoming:
What I loved:
- The gameplay loop is so satisfying and well done. It's a super smart way to implement the theme into a puzzle platformer, and it's executed so so so well. The use of non-grid based system in a grid-based looking world actually creates so many great interactions and sneaky ways to solve rooms that are a bit unconventional. It's great and I'd play a full release without hesitation.
- The game is so clean and polished. Like so so clean. I have no idea how you did this in four days, because man does it feel like a full complete game. There's a bit of jank here and there yeah, but it's nothing impactful.
- I wholeheartedly completely and totally disagree with some of the reviews I read here that the level design gets repetitive. I think it was a more than interesting variety for the length. For a full release, maybe some more mechanics would shine, but for its length, I think it struck a wonderful balance.
Because I loved the game so much, a bunch of feedback too:
- This game would benefit so much from hotkeys for resets and going back to the editor. I also didn't realize until halfway through there even was a "back to editor" button that didn't reset everything. I realized eventually though.
- I think a really good QoL for this game would to make the smallest blocks not have a hitbox when dragging them. I noticed for some of the later levels, not being able to drag bigger blocks through gaps (though they kinda looked like they could fit) seemed like intentional level design, but for the smaller blocks, it seems they were always meant to be able to go anywhere. It would make it so much smoother if I could drag those blocks without navigating whatever course I'd already made or walls or the sometimes janky hitboxes for tight squeezes. On the note above too, maybe for the gaps where it looks like a bigger block would fit perfectly through but they don't, making it more clear they won't fit would be nice too.
- Small blocks are OP. I know I praised the level design, but this point is a double-edged sword for me. Using smaller blocks to create tiny edges and stairs on each other was wonderful to me, and I feel the mechanic was introduced subtly well (I think it was the third level?). However, it did eventually get to the point where I was essentially just trying to figure out how I could make the most amount of these OP tiny blocks to clear levels. I think it didn't get repetitive because of the length of the game, but any more and I could see this OP solution making the puzzles fall flat.
Anyways, this was the best game I've played so far in the jam. Amazing job!
Thank you so much! For one, I will try and make the web version at least kinda better after ratings close, not sure how since most of the issues are exclusive to it, but maybe I can find a way around certain things.
- Thank you! I kinda felt that I didn't play with scale enough to be honest, but I'm glad to hear you felt it was well incorporated.
- To be honest, the fact I've made a (still mechanically very different) puzzle platformer before means I had some framework and experience to build off, still was quite the challenge to put everything together almost entirely by myself tho, my terrible sleep schedule certainly helped
- I'm glad, I added the biggest blocks fairly late but they were the plan from the start, since I feel they give you a lot more choices and make you think more carefully about your decisions. I still would've liked to implement more unique blocks that aren't just bigger, to be honest, but four days is four days.
- Yeah probably, wouldn't be too hard to add either, I just didn't think of it in time.
- That would be pretty doable, I was focusing most of my energy on trying to make small blocks collide with eachother while dragging I hadn't even thought of that lol. And I thought of indicating spaces where blocks couldn't fit, I just didn't have time to sprite a new thing for it. Maybe next patch!
- If I were to continue development (which I'm still not entirely sure of, outside of a few patches for extra polish), I'd probably restrict the usage of small blocks to around four blocks a room usually. There's some puzzles like the second to last level that absolutely require them, but I think it'd make for better level design where the environment is used more than the blocks.
Thank you very much for the feedback, I genuinely appreciate it a ton!
Very impressive! Love the simplicity and how well polished it is
Thanks! We love tiny robot games
cool mechanics!
Thank you!
Unique mechanic and difficult puzzles! great game!
Thank you!
Great puzzles and a nice idea. my only problem is sometimes i cant grab anything. i had to restart multiple times to let me grab something. but overall nice game
This is an issue with full screening the browser version I believe, not sure why
Great puzzler! The music really puts you in the mood too.
I got stuck on level 1 due to the lower half of the screen not responding, but refreshing the page solved that. Some fullscreen thing probably. After that I got through all of it!
I would love to see how it'd play out if you had to choose to split blocks either horizontally or vertically. That way you'd have a lot more decisions to make with limited hammers.
Yeah that's an issue with the browser export, no clue why it happens but there's quite a lot of jank with that version in general lol
(edit: I have found out that it doesn't happen if you select borderless or exclusive fullscreen in the game's settings, it just happens if you fullscreen it on itch, woops)
Your idea with the blocks is actually pretty great, and now I regret not having thought of that 48 hours ago
Loved it!
really enjoyable game with very nice visuals and music, the intro tutorial is very nice and a great introduction to the game. The boxes were a bit jank at times but overall it was a blast to go through and solve each level and its very well put together!
Thank u!!! one day i will learn how to fix box jank
This game oozes style, from the intro to the art and lighting. Really well put together game, enjoyed playing this!
Thank you! I'm really glad people enjoy the intro, it genuinely took hours to make cutscenes lol
Super enjoyable game with interesting concept, also I love the artstyle!
Thanks! I'll be honest, I did not think I was cooking with the style till I added a CRT filter lol, glad to hear people enjoy it!
A very, very satisfying experience! It looks more like a finished product than a game for a jam.
Narrative, atmosphere, intereting puzzles and cute robot. It's all there!
Thank you!