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Spread the Love's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Cleverness | #93 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Theme | #104 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Artistic Style | #469 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Playability | #487 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 1 rating. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- Good job on this! The mechanic is quite compelling. Could make a lot of other levels out of this!
Did you include your Game Design Document in your downloadable files?
Yes
Tell us about your game!
Choose a single tile to complete a chain reaction that activates the whole board.
Did you remember to include your Game Design Document?
Yes
Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes
Extra Notes
Thank you for the encouragement! I've been wanting to participate in a game jam for years. I'm excited to finally have completed an entry, even as basic as this one.
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Comments
This is a super solid start to a great puzzle game, and it's executed very cleanly here.
You say this is your first jam game, so you should be so proud of yourself for scoping responsibly, and btw huge props for actually coming up with a bespoke puzzle mechanic within the jam window (that's not easy)!
If this was ever to be extended with some new mechanics, I would absolutely play it. The jam version has issues with a simple dominant strategy* working for every puzzle, but that can be corrected with some meaningful new mechanics that complicate things.
Congratulations on the submission! I hope you keep making games :)
*No paths need to be evaluated by the player. They simply need to find the 1 tile no other tiles point at, and that tile is the correct first-click every time (this can be done surprisingly quickly). Because of this, the 4-way and "jump" tiles aren't meaningful mechanical additions because they in no way change the player's approach to solving the puzzles.
Some other players have noticed they can brute-force the puzzles by clicking randomly, observing which tiles weren't activated, and narrowing down from there, but this is actually enormously slow in comparison, so it's a lesser concern (and can be addressed easily later with some minor design tweaks.)
Thank you for taking the time to write such detailed and insightful feedback! I had decided not to participate in this jam due to lack of time that I could dedicate to it and my lack of experience, but I found the theme very evocative and spent some time coming up with ideas for it purely as a design exercise. One of the ideas I had was this tile puzzle and it was so simple I thought I could keep the scope to a level that I could complete in time. It required no animation and almost no art and only takes a single click from the player as input on each level.
My main goal with my first jam was really just to deliver a complete experience that fit the theme. I've mostly only done little prototypes and haven't done the end-to-end building of a full game and publishing it. I thought this would mainly be a learning experience for me and I was frankly surprised to hear that people enjoyed it given how simple it is. I think part of that is just the inherent satisfaction that one gets from watching the chain reaction with its little pops :)
I don't really intend to build on this further, at least any time soon, but if I hadn't kept the scope so limited, I would have added in tiles that the player would need to rotate and/or empty spaces that the player would need to select tiles to fill, in order to make a viable solution. I think that would have added the missing complexity you're talking about.
Thanks again for the feedback and encouragement! This jam and comments like yours have given me new confidence and I'll definitely keep making games :)
Those sound like they would've been perfect additions! Great thinking.
Looking forward to your future experiments. Good luck!
Simple, elegant, fun! I really enjoyed this. Great job!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
Love it, we want more! Really fun simple addictive game. Beautiful.
Spread the love.......
Played this a couple of times! Really fun puzzle game for me and the kids to enjoy. Would really love to see more levels because we're addicted!
Really happy to hear your kids enjoyed it too! Once the judging is done I'll update the game with some bonus levels.
Satisfying to watch the board fill up :)
I love this concept, Its so simple yet very fun!!
Thank you!
Good mechanics!!
Thank you!
I love this mechanic. Ready for more levels, please!
I'm glad you liked it! I thought about adding more levels, but ten seemed like such a nice round number and jam games are supposed to leave you wanting more, right? Maybe I should have added some optional bonus levels.
True that! Better to polish than over extend. I tend to accidentally do the latter. Lol
Great game, really like how simple and clear everything is.
Thanks! Glad you liked it!