Wowie Jam 3.0

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A jam submission

Quantum LoopView game page

Time-defying action/puzzle game!

Submitted by cakeu (@cakeudev), meeeow — 14 hours, 12 minutes before the deadline

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Quantum Loop's itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
Creativity	#106	3.889	3.889
Fun	#160	3.611	3.611
WOWIE!	#215	3.389	3.389
Topic	#233	3.611	3.611
Simplicity	#279	3.778	3.778
Sound	#369	3.056	3.056
Visuals	#473	3.000	3.000

Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Music Source
From a very talented musician, his discord is meeow#8008 :D

Credits
cakeu, cakeu#5043 on discord, and meeow, meeow#8008 on discord

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Comments

BoboNator3 years ago(+1)

Your game has a really cool core mechanic that's fun to play with! My biggest complaint is that I wanted to play more levels, and the included ones weren't very hard. The game's icon led me to believe I would have to use 4 copies of myself to complete puzzles, but the most I had to use was 2.

I love the visual design of the character, especially the different colors that appear for each time loop. The way he holds his gun seems a bit weird though.

The sound effects and music are well done!

Some other reviewers have mentioned the polish they want to see, but here are some features I found myself wanting while playing:

A button to kill myself so I don't have to wait for the timer to end.
An in-game menu or level select screen. When searching for a kill button, I pressed escape expecting to see a menu but exited to the main menu. I had to play through the first 4 levels again to get back where I was
A clearer UI. I understand the red bar was health, but I wasn't sure what the second row was supposed to represent. Sometimes it had two icons, and sometimes three. Was the the maximum number of loops for the level? I also noticed that when you went through a time loop the new characters' colors appear underneath you, but I don't think this is necessary.

Overall, there's a great foundation for a game here! I enjoy puzzle games, so I'd love to play more of this if you add polish and levels!

cakeuDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks for the review! Yeah one of the features i wanted to add in was a "reset loop" button to instantly go to the next loop, and it is in the game, but it's disabled; it causes so many bugs, like activating buttons before the clone gets to open it and such, which would've opened room to exploitation.

To answer your UI question:

the red bar is indeed the healthbar
the white bar is the ammo count bar
the last bar is the "loops used" bar. unlit bars indicate that the loop of that color is not yet in use, lit bars indicate it is in use. so if all 3 bars are used up, it means you're in the 3rd loop where you have all 3 clones.

Also the UI automatically hides itself after a short while. If you get damage or shoot something it shows itself again.

But yeah, one of the problems i've faced during this jam is time management. I've spent like 75% of my jam time on the loop mechanic, UI and different level mechanics, which left me little time for level design and polish!

I'm currently planning on working on a complete version with 15+ levels using all the amazing feedback i've gotten from the community!

Also i'm surprised to see you liked the art style, alot of people said it's too basic, we spent little time on it too but it's good to know we're heading in the right direction!

Flicker Fire DenSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Hey! I totally think you got something great here, I think with more time post jam dedicated on theming the levels to help avoid any sort of visual fatigue would be great. Overall awesome concept!

Submitted

Little Rock, MI

cakeuDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks for the nice comment! :D

I've been thinking on turning this into a finished product but i have to get alot of work done on the level design department especially! And i agree the visual artstyle needs some work, too.

Flicker Fire DenSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

I've gone ahead and followed you, can't wait to see what you do next!

UkuNanoSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

The game didn't fit to my screen. Because of that I wasn't able to complete all the levels. But as much as i was able to play it, a cool game!

Submitted

cakeuDeveloper3 years ago

Did you play on a different aspect ratio, like 4:3? It should work fine on bigger ratios like 16:10, 21:9 etc but i know Unity games dont scale well to 4:3 and i'm not sure there's much to do about that.

UkuNanoSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

My screen's aspect ratio is 4:3. A solution to this might be to make the levels smaller, so they fit on a screen with aspect ratio of 4:3.

cakeuDeveloper3 years ago

I'm not sure about sacrificing the game's level design just so people on 4:3 can play it though lol

benduxSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

This game is awesome! Have you played Quantum League before?

Submitted

Red Apple Factory

cakeuDeveloper3 years ago

I've got the chance to play the beta, but i never got around buying the full version. It definetly was an inspiration for Quantum loop though! :)

FunktionSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Really fun game with a nice concept. Good work! :)

Submitted

HeraldSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do on the second level, and judging by the other comments everyone else got it... What am i missing??

Submitted

meeeowDeveloper3 years ago(+2)

I'll give you a hint: After you run out of ammo, try dying. It helps.

cakeuDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

If you're still lost, you're supposed to shoot down as many enemies as possible. You'll quickly run out of ammo, and you'll have to die. When you die, a clone of you appears, that will repeat your past actions. You'll have more ammo and will be able to gun down the enemies left with it. When all enemies are dead, the red door opens and you're able to jump up to the exit door.

Saben StudiosSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Cool game with an interesting concept. Great job!

Submitted

AfelySubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Pretty cool.

I liked the mechanic, but I think the puzzles didn't really use it to it's full advantage. Just in general this game is kind of same-y. Every level looks the same, and you do pretty much the same thing: Run around, shoot robots, shoot buttons, die, repeat. Not a very interesting gameplay loop imo. And the puzzles were really easy too. None of them ever made me have to stop and think. Making good puzzles is really hard, though. I know that from experience. Also unclear what the story/lore is, but that could be intentional.

The visuals are alright. Could be better, sure, but they're alright. Sounds are the bare minimum imo.

Submitted

cakeuDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks for the constructive review!

I agree the level design is preety bad. I should've definetly spent more time on it but alot of the dev cycle was spent on the loop mechanic.

One of the biggest issues with the game design is the difficulty. As you've told me the puzzles are very easy, mostly because of how linear they are but also the time limit being very generous. But from other reviews i've gotten, and some playtesting i've did, some players struggled with the time limit. It's a balancing act and well i haven't balanced it well enough!

AfelySubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Designing difficulty is pretty challenging. You have to know who you want to play your games, and how to make levels they wouldn't find too easy, but also wouldn't get too frustrated on. Personally, I tend to make games that are way too hard, which as I understand it is a lot more common. But a game that's too easy is better than a game that's too hard, so you're on the right track I suppose. Just take this from someone who doesn't play very many puzzle games: These levels are stupid simple.

some players struggled with the time limit

Time limits are kind of artificial difficulty imo. It's like putting an invisible spike at the end of the level. Does it make the level harder? Sure. Does it make the level better? No. Time limits aren't all bad, I just don't think you should rely on them as the only challenge.

cakeuDeveloper3 years ago

Well i didn't mean to say that's the purpose of the time limit. There's only two conditions to create a loop: die, or run out of time.

You don't often die, so the game is designed around having limited resources: time, ammo, etc. As to create a need to use the loop mechanic.

It might just be my incompetence but i find it especially hard to design around this mechanic. Not a good start for my 1st ever puzzle game, and my 2nd game, well ever.

But i get what you mean - it's not worth it to design the game for multiple difficulties at once. It makes the game boring for players that actually care about the game.

SaturnTortillaSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

My god. This was amazing. It really reminded me of the video of corridor digitals. Really love this. How did you do that?

Submitted

cakeuDeveloper3 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks for the comment! Indeed i got the inspiration from Corridor Digital's video.

It's really simple, you just gotta wrap your head around the mechanic. Preety much you have a script on the player that "Lists" (kind of like arrays but endless) stuff like the player's position, and when he shoots.

I store all of that data in a "loop" container, and when the game is "reset" i.e when you run out of time, i spawn "puppets" that use the lists in their corresponding loop to mimick the player's actions.

SaturnTortillaSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Isnt that like really memory heavy?

cakeuDeveloper3 years ago

Frankly it doesn't seem like it. It's on a FixedUpdate() so it only updates 60 times a second. At worst a loop can last 30s so a list can be 3600 entries tops. Might seem like alot but it's like 3600 Vector3s or bools or floats, it's maybe slightly RAM intensive but i doubt it has a significant impact on performance.

SantumSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Really fun game! The looping mechanic fits in really well with both this type of game and the jam's theme. There was some weird lag whenever the level title showed up (the red text at the beginning of each level) but that's just a minor thing.

Great job!!

Submitted

Shadowvac3 years ago(+1)

This game is super fun and really enjoyable.

ThibsworkshopSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Really cool game! I like its simplicity, it gets the job done!

Submitted

Jump, Die, Repeat

AffaxSubmitted3 years ago(+2)

I liked the game and it fit the jam well.

Due to it being a jam the visuals are a bit simple and the sounds are repetitive, but I also have done this too.

Also, couldn't get through the puzzle but that's probably my own fault. But after all, a really well executed game!

Submitted

cakeuDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks for the good rating! Out of curiosity, what puzzle were you stuck at? And for what reason?

steliosg007Submitted3 years ago(+1)

it is amazing very nice work music etc.

Submitted

The way to die.

meeeowDeveloper3 years ago(+2)

This is a masterpiece of a game with incredible music and perfect art. The mechanics are flawless and it controls very well. I'm a little biased though...