Our Dream World by PapyPilgrim

[raw]
made by PapyPilgrim for LD30 (COMPO)
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What Kind of game is it?
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A match4 game (played with the mouse or on a touch screen)
You get a pair of symbols that you can only put on the board if it overlaps an existing symbol.



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Known problems
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Exclusively sound issues on some browser
- Huge Sound lag on IE. Seems to work fine with chrome and firefox
- Music tends to pause randomly on ipads
- Small sound lag when the symbol you have to place 'snaps' to another symbol on the board



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Theme
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I keep a notebook of game ideas and mechanics that I might try someday (don't know if they are fun or not), and I was a bit lucky with the theme since it matches one of those mechanic REALLY well:
- connect symbols together to score points
- you are given a set of 2 symbols that you have to place together on the board
- you must connect one of the 2 symbols with a symbol already present on the board
So I had my mechanic from the get go!
Now for the "world" part, I had to think a bit about that one... The mechanic screams "make a game where you build something and then harvest it", but I could not find a way to match that idea with "world" in a way that I liked.
I was several hours into development when I finally found the way I could do it, and I must say I am very happy about the way everything came together.





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Not-so-useful technical features
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- Random music in the background, following a basic chord progression
- Dynamic sound effects that rely on the chord played in the background
- Generation of persistent islands based on your score and matches



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Tools Used
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Construct 2
Inkscape
audacity - My KORG SP-280

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.44 324
Audio 3.85 40
Fun 3.16 451
Graphics 3.50 301
Humor 2.68 349
Innovation 3.27 468
Mood 3.34 264
Theme 2.92 771

Feedback

capsizedmoose
25. Aug 2014 · 16:46 UTC
This is great! :D
0x0961h
25. Aug 2014 · 16:59 UTC
Match game with an interesting tiles placement mechanic. Like it. :)
Tanner
25. Aug 2014 · 18:21 UTC
Vary catchy. Great game! I like the music.
joonamo
25. Aug 2014 · 19:25 UTC
Excellent over all. Nice music, nice graphics and something new in the match 4 genre. Very relaxing too.
lkr
26. Aug 2014 · 17:32 UTC
Loved the characters' "voices" in the intro, and the audio in general :)

Nice twist on the typical match 4. At first I was placing tiles at random and messing things up, but once I understood what I was doing, it went well.
barryrowe
27. Aug 2014 · 01:10 UTC
Nice to see a good puzzle game. Mood is great too!!
elkiwydev
27. Aug 2014 · 18:16 UTC
Looks very good, nice work.
5/5
wdebowicz
27. Aug 2014 · 18:24 UTC
Nice game. Cool to connect idea with matching and constructing own island.
Mase
27. Aug 2014 · 18:29 UTC
As usual I skimmed over the instructions and didn't quite grasp the gameplay until I had filled half the board with useless tiles.

My top score is a humble 490.

Its fun & the setting & sound effects are very pleasant.

It might be nice if there was some feedback at the end on what sort of island I'd created (like... if I'd created an island with lots of volcanos or something. idk.). The intro is pretty long so I wish that there was some story at the end in order to tie things together.
Rocketship
27. Aug 2014 · 18:30 UTC
Wow super addicting. Calming music just tops the whole thing! I would've wished for a little bit more responsive controls on the HTML5 version. Very solid puzzle game still.
Reyn
27. Aug 2014 · 19:13 UTC
Nice touch with the slight moving of things. Makes it feel more alive.
RobotFriend
27. Aug 2014 · 19:14 UTC
Clever concept! Great music.
Hempuli
27. Aug 2014 · 19:28 UTC
Very very fun to play, pretty addicting as well! It took me some time to understand what to do and at times it took a couple tries to get the next tile to be placed, but overall I liked this a lot! The audio & art is great and the intro made me laugh, haha. Nice!
BadgerPriest
27. Aug 2014 · 20:09 UTC
Fun to play - as others said, once I figured it out. I think that the different images for tile types before vs after being placed doesn't really help with that. Also was unclear why sometimes tiles would be greyed out and I couldn't place tiles on them. And the end of the game (round?) happened all of a sudden. Like I didn't know when the game would end and then it did and I got a score screen that didn't fully make sense and when I tried clicking on it I got sent into a new game, which was a bit frustrating. Those UX things aside, great concept and game mechanic, fun to play.
MechanicMoon
28. Aug 2014 · 15:47 UTC
He has not liked it, although I have not understood too
udo
28. Aug 2014 · 15:49 UTC
Nicely done, especially considering it's a compo entry! I prefer my islands without a volcano, too.
Ryan Melmoth
28. Aug 2014 · 19:53 UTC
Gameplay is new enough to me. Surprisingly I picked up on the rules pretty fast even though I went in blind, so I guess it must be pretty intuitive. Feels to me the player is a bit too much at the mercy of which tiles they get, though.
Rob Glen
28. Aug 2014 · 20:31 UTC
Atmospheric and very peaceful, really nice! Took a little while for me to understand anything that was happening gameplay-wise though.
xrm0
29. Aug 2014 · 10:49 UTC
Very nice game. The intro could be a bit shorter.
Capitals
29. Aug 2014 · 17:06 UTC
Small game with a simple idea, this is let down in the slightest is the mouse handling is a bit dodgy.
commodoreKid
30. Aug 2014 · 11:06 UTC
Really nice idea for a puzzle game. I would publish this on mobile if I were you.
andrewkennedy
31. Aug 2014 · 02:13 UTC
I failed massively the first time, and did MUCH better the second time around! Relaxing atmosphere, good music, and charming graphics :)
NicePenguins
31. Aug 2014 · 12:16 UTC
Nice idea and story :)
Lokiman
01. Sep 2014 · 17:28 UTC
A little bit difficult on the first try (I didn't get the rules) but when I found out I was much better :)

I like the music and sound effects. Also the intro was great! Really a solid game.
DustyStylus
03. Sep 2014 · 13:02 UTC
Nice game. Thought I'd figured it out but got 0 marks. :d Really lovely atmosphere and mood. Well done.
dook
06. Sep 2014 · 16:02 UTC
Very nice! Took me a moment to figure out what the point was and it was rather challenging too! Well done. Might be better if there was either some logic to the tiles you got or if it would just tell you what came after the current one :)
Linus Lindberg
06. Sep 2014 · 16:44 UTC
Great game, love the graphics! :)
Colapsydo
06. Sep 2014 · 19:43 UTC
Relaxing and challenging.
I like a lot the dominoes'like mechanic, and the symbols sorting works fine.
I didn't find the randomness in the music, and the sfx are quite enjoyable.
jukimv1986
08. Sep 2014 · 04:14 UTC
The music was so relaxing! The plays were quite short, it would have been good to have a larger board. I liked the intro story and how do you have to plan in advance your moves. Great job!
Franklins Ghost
08. Sep 2014 · 13:39 UTC
Music worked really nicely with the gameplay. Liked the puzzle aspect but did take me a second to realise what I was meant to do. Think the tiles and two options should be further emphasised as being linked.
SecondDimension
08. Sep 2014 · 19:29 UTC
I played this on my iPad and it worked really well, the gameplay was fairly deep for a simple game and the overall mood was great. Nice work!
Sunflower
11. Sep 2014 · 16:50 UTC
Very solid, somewhat addicting entry with good audiovisuals. The intro was a bit lengthy and I didn't quite know what to do at the beginning (that habit of mine, checking the game first and its description later... ^^"), but once I got the hang of it, it got quite pleasant.
Also, I'm not sure, but are the dreamt things (i.e. 4-matched groups) appearing in the background? If so, then it's quite a nice touch; I like that sort of gameplay and story integration.

Also, apparently I got a bug after losing due to filling the board. I clicked to proceed, then the board restarted, then the losing screen appeared, and it became unplayable, or so it seemed. ^^"
brookman
13. Sep 2014 · 16:15 UTC
Wow, I really enjoyed that!
Rage Paint
13. Sep 2014 · 22:09 UTC
Nice little puzzle game. The cut scene was pretty nice too.