Skin Deep by Martin Vilcans

[raw]
made by Martin Vilcans for LD29 (COMPO)
The very latest in cosmetic laser surgery is here!

Bring out the true beauty of your patients with the PeelRay(tm) LD29, designed to grow together with you in your medical profession. Once you have mastered short incisions, the PeelRay(tm) LD29 increases its powerful laser to make even longer uninterrupted cuts possible. In fact, with the PeelRay(tm) LD29, there is no other way than uninterrupted cutting!

NOTE: There is a bug which makes the game freeze when you make certain cuts, and the behaviour when completing the game is confusing. I'm working on this.

Update Tuesday Apr 29: I modified how the skin is removed and got rid of the requirement of the browser to support WebGL. Now it should work on most handhelds and graphics should update properly.

Ratings

Coolness 44% 1633
Overall 3.13 614
Audio 2.90 465
Fun 2.72 826
Graphics 3.29 467
Humor 2.19 734
Innovation 3.97 76
Mood 3.48 208
Theme 4.00 43

Feedback

Armanky
28. Apr 2014 · 02:21 UTC
Very trippy, unique implementation of the theme. My main complaint is that after a few minutes it becomes very monotonous, but the pressure to completely remove the face is definitely there.
local minimum
28. Apr 2014 · 14:06 UTC
Nice little puzzle. I guess the controls were made for touch even though they worked with mouse, the whichever was selected was a bit subtle. Once I also looped an area about half-ways through by making a P-shape. Which seems to be allowed, and there were ways out of the cut but game stopped without saying I lost.
As the final cut I cut a big part of the face and it said game over and something else at the same time. It felt like I had removed all pieces but maybe I missed one.

Anyhow that was the tech-part. The style was nice. To increase the cutting-feel you could try having the user stay close ahead of the red dot to keep cutting and not burn a hole in the head and not move too fast so the cut becomes dashed, not skid too much to the sides of the target line. And so on.
ripatti
28. Apr 2014 · 15:59 UTC
Really enjoyed playing it. A face without skin and creepy music set mood very well! Unfortunately there are some bugs and glitches (sometimes some pieces of skin don't disappear and one time the game become frozen when I cut off piece of skin connected to whole skin by only one point). Anyway I really like the idea. Well done!
daredevildave
29. Apr 2014 · 21:34 UTC
Interesting. Took me a while to figure out what was going on. But nice basic gameplay.
x1212
30. Apr 2014 · 06:49 UTC
Realy nice and challenging puzzle.
ovenchips
30. Apr 2014 · 19:35 UTC
Interesting concept. Reminds me of playing Painter when I was a kid on my BBC Micro. :) All I'd suggest is that the cutter could be sliiiightly faster, but other than that a really well executed puzzle game.
mrbungle
01. May 2014 · 21:14 UTC
Extremely cool interpretation of the theme.
TeamPurpleDolphins
01. May 2014 · 21:22 UTC
Creative idea. I would be nice if there was a larger version of the window to play on a computer though
hbocao
01. May 2014 · 21:46 UTC
I don't think I really get it. Mind to explain so I can go back to it later?
🎤 Martin Vilcans
01. May 2014 · 22:02 UTC
Thank you so much all of you for trying out the game! I appreciate all feedback.

Some answers:

@local minimum: Congratulations for completing the game! Unfortunately the congratulatory message was obscured by the game over message. I've fixed that bug now. The freeze bug is still roaming free, but it should be fixed any moment now... Also thanks for the ideas for improving the gameplay.

@ripatti: The graphics bug is fixed, but the freeze bug is still there unfortunately.

@bhocao: Control the laser cutter by pointing in the direction you want it to go. Enclose an area of the skin to cut it away.
hbocao
01. May 2014 · 22:14 UTC
I was playing right, but I misunderstood the game over condition. Shame on me haha. English is not my first language so probably I was lost in translation. Awesome entry! I was feeling very creepy while cutting, so I loved the mood. Very original puzzle (at least for me). Great job.
Salamander3
01. May 2014 · 23:19 UTC
I quite liked this, quite dark but fitting with the theme. Interesting puzzle that made you think about where you were going and how to stop putting yourself in a tight spot. Nice job!
hypp
02. May 2014 · 13:39 UTC
Nicely done. Great interpretation of the theme!
ramoncb
02. May 2014 · 20:23 UTC
An addictive puzzle game, perfect for mobile!

And an unique approach about the theme too! A little creepy! xD
Teesquared
03. May 2014 · 05:39 UTC
Great use of theme and a very morbid mood. Fun but high difficulty. You can create an "unfinishable" surgery pretty easily and it let's you keep playing.
SethR
08. May 2014 · 06:56 UTC
Suitably creepy. I didn't have the patience to get through the whole face, maybe if there were some other mechanics/sub goals at play also...
JokerDen
08. May 2014 · 09:27 UTC
Cool idea! Interesting and easy for understanding. I like your interpritation of the main theme of the contest.
Martin_Monosys
08. May 2014 · 19:13 UTC
Cool game, a bit creepy, but also very stylish. Music was great, too! :)
vilya
12. May 2014 · 20:54 UTC
Amazing (and kind of gruesome!) use of the theme here. Love the music! Took a while before I figured out how to play it, but once I did it was pretty engrossing. Good stuff!

P.S.: Hi, how's things? :-)
Moosefly
13. May 2014 · 12:32 UTC
Gave it a few goes, but couldn't peel the face completely. Could've used something more than just the increasing cut length to keep it fresh. Also froze once: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gm546s5rgnhj90q/freeze1.png.

Nice visuals and a cool idea though.

Anssi@MooseflyGames
🎤 Martin Vilcans
15. May 2014 · 20:46 UTC
@SethR, @Moosefly: Yeah, I wanted to add some kind of powerups or dangers moving along the edges.

@vilya: Yeah, hi there! All is good here. Started as an independent contractor recently. Downloading your game right now.
edibletoaster
16. May 2014 · 09:16 UTC
Pretty cool. Nice take on the theme and a pretty interesting puzzle mechanic.
caranha
16. May 2014 · 13:53 UTC
Wow, someone inspired by Qix, just as myself :-) I liked the general idea, the controls and the music! One thing that I missed was an indicator of how many segments long your cut was -- without it, it was a bit hard to plan ahead where to turn to avoid getting stuck on inner edges.