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Tic Tac Noo's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #1 | 4.250 | 4.250 |
| Aesthetics | #2 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Theme | #2 | 3.917 | 3.917 |
| Overall | #3 | 3.813 | 3.813 |
| Usage of DOTS | #11 | 3.083 | 3.083 |
Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Usage of DOTS/ECS in this project
This project was an exercise in strict ECS, so all gameplay scripting is in systems and all data is in components and blobs. Where possible and appropriate, I parallelized jobs, and I tried to use vanilla best practices for maintaining reactive state using existence-based processing, etc. All systems except those that need to access UIToolkit are Bursted.
There were a couple of features that I couldn't utilize as planned, as always with game jams. I discovered I would need to profile some job dependencies between my code and Unity Physics if I wanted to scale up entity count as much as I had intended, and I found myself stuck (no pun intended) trying to load multiple EntityPrefabReferences in a way that felt elegant. Nonetheless, I think it was a successful experiment. The code and project structure feels clean and flat, as Unity intended, and I had time to design some good puzzles, thanks to the weeklong sprint.
Shortly after submission, I realized that a bad setting on Level 4 makes it unsolvable. I'm too proud of levels 5-11 and their mechanics to give them up, so I've linked fixed builds on the main game page description. Judge whichever you like, the source code is the same.
http://www.hwstn.com/binaries/tic_tac_noo_win.zip
http://www.hwstn.com/binaries/tic_tac_noo_mac.zip
Source Code Repo
https://github.com/dcastalia-personal/TicTacNoo
Percentage of original art created for this project
99% original art - I used a bursted spline algorithm that I had lying around from another project and a free font, but that's it!
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Comments
I did not read the description before playing and got stubborn on the fourth level. I was literally stuck in the simulation. Really like the concept and how it was put together !
Phew. That last sentence could have gone either way. ; ) Thanks so much for the comment and for playing!
What a unique idea! And great execution. I would totally play this as a mobile app on my free time!
Your link to the repo is not working. Would be nice if you could fix that ;)
Updated with a github link in addition to the source attached to the submission. I used Plastic for version control on this one, which doesn't have a public interface. Mea culpa!
Well executed puzzle, really fun playing it. I toglle settings to turn off the background changes tough. Can’t stand playing too long because of that.
Cool puzzle game. Looks nice and polished. Great job!
It's a neat puzzle game and is executed very well. I appreciate that the puzzles look deceptively simple but can get pretty challenging. One quality of life change that I would suggest is to assign rotation input to mouse right click instead of the left. On the 3x3x3 sometimes I would misclick trying to rotate the cube, putting the input on a separate button would help a lot. The aesthetics are top notch and I really like the animations and transitions between levels. Amazing Job!
Good game! got stuck on the 3x3x3, gotta try again after I get some proper sleep.
Thanks, and same to you! The first level of a game jam submission being unplayable is a PTSD moment for me – been there! This time, it's level 4 that's unsolvable, so the other 7 levels are only playable in the Unity Project. Tic Tac Noooo!
I've guiltily added fixed links to the main game page on itch and here. Judge whichever you like. These versions have no other changes besides letting you progress further.
http://www.hwstn.com/binaries/tic_tac_noo_win.zip
http://www.hwstn.com/binaries/tic_tac_noo_mac.zip