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MADTronics's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Game Design | #33 | 3.706 | 3.706 |
| Overall | #38 | 3.765 | 3.765 |
| Theme | #43 | 3.882 | 3.882 |
| Mood | #61 | 3.529 | 3.529 |
| Audio | #68 | 3.294 | 3.294 |
| Graphics | #77 | 3.471 | 3.471 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
seems like it could be a cool game. Couldn’t figure out what to do… as soon as I turn on the machine (left switch) it says shutdown in 3…
I like the core idea that in order to execute a command you have to flip some switches, turn a few knobs - it gives you a feeling of being a commander in headquarters giving order to a robot on a mission. Sadly, I haven't been able to beat the first level as I don't know how to jump diagonally. The game gets a bit repetitive since there aren't that many actions to do it'd be cool if there were more buttons or switches or maybe even simple puzzles. I found the UI not easily readable, especially the instructions on the monitor were hard to read at first.
Overall, the idea is very cool but the game right now is a bit rough around the edges. With more polish, I think it can be great!
I kind of came in worried about what the game experience might be given some comments here, but after a bit of a learning curve, I was able to understand how the system worked. This game gets pretty fun once you know what's going on, as it's not too hard to perform the commands quickly for the most part (other than the knobs, which have a disclaimer anyway). That said, the game assumes a decent understanding of binary (even if it only ever asks players for values up to 15), so I can see those switches being pains for a lot of people...
Later levels with the rolling enemy things provide a good challenge, requiring one or more actions be performed in a short period of time, but are somewhat unforgiving for a player encountering the level for the first time -- I feel like it'd make sense to start the level's action after the player turns on the console for the first time, just so they can scope the obstacles and plan their actions in advance. But I did like how there was time pressure both from the robot's environment and from the temperature level, especially in the last level, which was just the right intensity.
Overall, I'm glad I came across your game! Very fun to play all the way through. It would be interesting to see it expanded, especially with stages that utilize the "EXPERT MOVE" option, which I never had to use in any of the jam stages. I think there's a lot of potential here, and the jam version has a great amount of content for players willing to figure it out!
The game is super cool at a first glance, the sounds are super nice, it really looks like you'll be piloting. The game is hard to understand at the beginning, it took me multiple deaths to get a clearer picture of what I had to do. After completing the first two levels, some things still werent perfectly clear, I didnt exactly get how the switches were calculated or how the aligner worked. The third level was straight up impossible for me. Also, there is a bit of unecessary down time when the machine cools down.
Note that this comment is long because I see a lot of potential in it. It looks and feels super cool, but the difficulty is a bit too steep, while the game tells you that its supposed to be easy haha. With a bit of rework, this could be really really great.
Thank you so much for your feedback! Also, I'm glad that someone finally managed to pass the first level, ahahah.
The aligner is quite confusing on purpose, even if you understand how it works it's just too counterintuive to use, but that's exactly what I wanted to achieve. Still, I can understand that things are not really polished on the difficulty side, since it was my first actual game and since I haven't had anyone to use as a Guinea pig to play the game while I was doing it, sadly.
I'll seriously start considering to work more on this, thank you again!
You can hit me up on twitter if you want me to playtest at some point
My reaction was: OMG a robot game, I have to try it.
I tried several time to end first level but never succeeded to end first level. I love this!
Nice work.
Pro:
It's damn hard
Cons
Thank you very much! I enjoyed desining the whole command board a lot, both for the style and for the kind of inputs themselves.
The instructions are not exactly clear on purpose, same as with the aligner being difficult to set: I wanted to make the player feel like she/he had to deal with some old and mysterious faulty machine. Despite this, I agree with you on the knobs, I didn't want to make them like this (fun fact: initially I planned to add a different sensitivity setting to each of them, to make things worse, but I ended up avoiding it).
Wow, just wow, I'm stunned. This is honestly amazing and I'm not just saying that because I like over-complicated games. A 9/10 on Game Design to be sure, with that one point missing due to how easy it is to trigger an overheat and have to start all over.
On the contrary to previous comments, yes make this a full game. But again, make sure to rework that overheating thing. I also love how the instructions were always randomized, which forces the player to learn what the instructions mean instead of relying on muscle memory to solve all of their problems. That's really something missing in games nowadays so I would be all for supporting this kind of a design choice.
Just maybe consider having a tutorial in a full release instead of a super-long level 1 and introducing different mechanics as the game goes on, but given jam constraints I don't think the game has any serious issues. It could use some audio work, but the visuals get the job done.
All in all great job, hope you pursue it further in the future. Nice job !
Thank you so much for your words, I didn't expect that someone could appreciate the game this much.
The point on the random instruction was exactly what I wanted to achieve, I just didn't want people to develop muscle memory and also I didn't want to make the players perform the same exact actions in general.
If I ever get to be foolish enough to turn this into a full release of course I would add a tutorial and much more content in general.
I hear you on the overheat thing. Sadly I had nobody to playtest this and since I've been dealing with this from the start I could pass all the levels with ease, so I couldn't really have any real feedback to regulate it. The audio too needed more elements, like sounds for the display and things like that, I agree.
Thank you so much again!
I liked this one a lot, it's very different and I actually like stumbling through things to figure them out and not having everything spilled out for me. Really impressive that it's all your own art and sounds too! Really well done!
Fantastic! I'm getting strong Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes vibes from this and I love it. It's pretty hard though, I never finished the first level.
Just nitpicks:
* The switches immediately flip back sometimes. Seems to be inconsistent and a bug though.
* Some instructions are way harder than others. Like setting the switch number is basically the same as activating certain switches but way more difficult.
Other than that, as I said, I love it.
Thank you! That's exactly the game I had in mind while creating this. As far as I know most people didn't manage to pass the first level, even though I didn't imagine it to be this hard.
Anyway, the flip back of the switches is not a bug, it's an actual feature, ahahah. I wanted to make it like the hardware was faulty sometimes.
For the switches number there's an intuition behind them that makes it easier (I guess, or maybe it's still difficult even when you know it).
This game proves that a game doesn't have to be fun to be good. This is one of the most tedious boring and downright frusterating games I've ever played but I loved it cause thats the entire point. This is just a hilarious idea and I love it so much. 5/5 best game I've played yet. but please whatever you do, never make this a full release XD
Thank you so much for you feedback, that's exactly the reaction that I was hoping for!
And if you say so, now I really have to make into a full release, eheh.