System F by Gareth Jenkins

[raw]
made by Gareth Jenkins for LD30 (COMPO)
Connect the abstract worlds of System F to advance through an infinite series of increasingly difficult levels.

- Click on a world to select it, click on another to pull them together (hold to pull more)
- Only worlds of the same color can join
- A world can only join with one other world at a time, but you can still interact with it

- Make a single large world to move to the next level
- The first 7 levels introduce new colors

- Press ESC to restart
- You can drag between worlds to pull them as well (watch for the highlighting)

Occasionally a world refuses merge, ignore them and they'll drift off out of the game.

Context was I started making a walking/drifting exploration thing, but in frustration and messing around with some shaders I did this thing with intersecting circles that gave me an idea... and thus was born System F... a funky zen puzzle playground.

Some notes on strategies & "rules":

- Worlds spawn more quickly when you hold to attract them for longer
- The target "large world" size reduces for the first 8-10 levels
- There's no penalty to pull opposing worlds (other than pulling more spawns more planets), so you can use this to manipulate the movement of the worlds more effectively
- Watch for the pattern of how pulling more creates more worlds... there's a point at which pulling is ignored until another planet is spawned
- The worlds are reduced in size in a level transition disproportionately from their volume (i.e. larger worlds lose more volume)... it's mathematically advantageous to hit the level transition with as many large worlds as possible, but not always easy to pull off tactically


About 16 hours work on the second day of the compo.

Tools: Unity engine, Sublime for code, Ableton Live & Reaper for music & FX

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.36 394
Audio 3.46 155
Fun 3.27 357
Graphics 3.25 441
Humor 2.26 595
Innovation 3.40 374
Mood 3.45 200
Theme 3.27 546

Feedback

Deamon
25. Aug 2014 路 04:57 UTC
Web links to a 403 forbidden page btw
馃帳 Gareth Jenkins
25. Aug 2014 路 10:09 UTC
Yea -- doing web build today, ta.
Geckoo1337
26. Aug 2014 路 07:00 UTC
The mechanic is great and I know this game is cool, but... I didn't expect what I should do. It's so confused. Well done ++
hexagore
26. Aug 2014 路 11:26 UTC
Love the graphics and it's quite innovative.. The web version was a broken for me though, couldn't see a mouse cursor for some reason!
cmayhem
26. Aug 2014 路 11:27 UTC
More complex than seems at first, I really like the concept. Simple but cool graphics. Well done!
martindilling
26. Aug 2014 路 11:36 UTC
great game ;)
megaelliott
26. Aug 2014 路 11:41 UTC
I love this, it's strangely addictive. The overall design is fantastic with the cool backing music and the minimalistic graphics of the game. The gameplay works exactly how it should and the I've had no issue with the colliders thus far. I'm very impressed. Well done with this project!
hundredhundred
26. Aug 2014 路 11:46 UTC
Cool game! There was definitely a slight zen feeling there while I stared at these colorful ringed dark circles. Interesting thing, up until level 5 I just recklessly fused circles together thinking there was no losing condition but I soon found myself trapped haha. Miraculously I managed to finish the level and I found myself approaching level 6 with a much more strategic approach (I tried to focus on one color and keep that color in the middle while leaving the rest at the sides). Unfortunately I lost at level 6 but the change of dynamics was a nice surprise.
carrier_signal
26. Aug 2014 路 11:49 UTC
I had a hard time trying to figure out what was going on, but the maths involved must have been amazing :)
mtrc
26. Aug 2014 路 14:53 UTC
Nice concept. I found it a little tricky to control - I wanted to keep control of the larger world after connecting two together. But I still think the idea is great and the art style is very lovely.
fallingBear
26. Aug 2014 路 14:54 UTC
This reminds me the game "Osmos".
akymos
26. Aug 2014 路 14:54 UTC
Really nice game. Well done.
Cliff Lee(CK)
26. Aug 2014 路 15:22 UTC
Great job!
I take a while to know what is going on, turn out it's so much fun!
pythong
27. Aug 2014 路 13:50 UTC
wow...nice job. feels a bit trippy :)
GFM
27. Aug 2014 路 21:47 UTC
A nice and calming game.
I really liked how sometimes planets keep circling each other before connecting.

Good job. :)
ViliX
28. Aug 2014 路 10:53 UTC
Moody and easy to play :)
Perjoka
28. Aug 2014 路 10:55 UTC
Can`t test it, your games crashes not only the unity plugin but my complete system every time i start it ;) (Macbook with Mavericks)
jawm
28. Aug 2014 路 10:58 UTC
good game, nice sound.
Mekuri
29. Aug 2014 路 02:56 UTC
Simple, yet very innovative. I could imagine this would be a decent sell on the Smartphone market? :-)
Good job!
Naytron
30. Aug 2014 路 13:39 UTC
Solid entry, nice and neat game play and really sharp visuals. Great job!
Almax27
30. Aug 2014 路 13:42 UTC
Reminds me of osmosis, fun to play and well executed, nice work! :D
jukimv1986
30. Aug 2014 路 13:44 UTC
So weird and cool at the same time! Minimalistic graphics and audio suit the game well. Great work!!
Drew Van Camp
30. Aug 2014 路 13:45 UTC
This is a fun toy to tinker with. I felt kind of like I was advancing, but I never really felt like there was a way to fail, so I'm not sure if it's a game. Does it really require me to play? Music is good, visuals are pleasant. I think you did a nicely polished job and I bet it would be great with touch controls. After a little while of mouse play I noticed that dragging did something. Up until that point I was just clicking back and forth which also worked just not very well. But I had fun for a little while with this, so I think it's pretty good.
bluesky
01. Sep 2014 路 19:44 UTC
I'm very impressed with the gameplay, well done.
chowee
04. Sep 2014 路 17:50 UTC
Very relaxing little game, the kind I could keep playing for hours without seeing time pass. Very ggod job !

The core mechanic is very simple to understand but complex to master and the overall game is well implemented and is a very pleasant experience. It gets kinda hard once you start going into the levels !
kirbytails7
11. Sep 2014 路 07:36 UTC
Pretty nice. I don't see why the larger planets don't merge more quickly, instead of having tiny hitboxes at their foci.
Also, I think your bug with planets refusing to merge occurs when two planets are close to merging (oscillating around each other) and then are separated. That's what seemed to happen, anyway.
Crosstales
13. Sep 2014 路 22:16 UTC
A great chill-out game - looks very polished and the sound is also very fittig!
Liked it alot - very good job!