Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(1 edit)

Aha! I always thought parametric curves had a great future in entertainment. There is also a usage for live projections during concerts (HeavyM-style). This one is closed to Zelda: Skyward Sword’s key rotation shadow matching puzzle. Except you also got to match the line’s thickness (which I guess is the cyclic time parameter?)

There was one puzzle where I almost got it right but unfortunately I was stuck at the edge of the parameter range. Going to the other side didn’t seem to cycle the parameter and therefore didn’t allow me to go slightly beyond the limit. I tried to get the symmetrical shape just in case, but it didn’t work either. I solved it surprisingly while move from the symmetrical shape to the original shape I had, so I’m unsure on which position I actually solved the problem (maybe highlighting the last position for a moment would help players moving the cursor a bit too fast).

Alternatively you could require the player to hold the position for a moment, maybe highlighting the shape when correct for more than 0.5s. That would also potentially fix the cheat of sweeping the parameter range with the cursor until you find the solution (mentioned in another comment); or at least make it much slower.

And of course there’s the boosted challenge of 3D parameter search, which makes sweeping very long! … Good thing PANORAMICAL doesn’t require you to find an exact solution, with its 9 parameters you would get crazy!

The parameter space is cyclic, but I limited the target values to stay away from the edges, as to not frustrate the player close to the edge. Originally I had a 1 second cooldown on highlighting the correct position, but I found it to be rather frustrating as you kept going in and out of the target area over and over.

The curve in this case is a simple sine wave around x,y,z with a magnitude and phase shifting over time, z ending up being depth (ie, line width) after rotation.

Thank you for the very detailed feedback! It would be fun to make some kind of shadow puzzle game. hmm.

Hm I see, so I should be able to get the solution before the edge…

Just a sine wave with clever use of parameters! Interesting.

There’s no end by the way? I like it when there’s either a counter or it’s made clear that the levels are infinite.