Upstream by Viza
In "Upstream", you control a little diver and have to retrieve lost treasure chests from the bottom of the sea (I guess there will be a lot of diver games this LD :) )
The trick is that you can't lift the chests - you can only push them horizontally. To reach the boats on the surface, you have to use the upstreams in the sea (the little up arrows). When there is no upstream go high enough, you can fill the gaps with air bubbles - they lift the chest one tile and disappear, so you have to think strategically using them.
Ten levels, the ones after 4th-5th are getting quite hard - be prepared. :)
Made in like six hours - unfortunately I had other programs for this weekend, but I think this turned out quite nicely. :)
Please try it, and vote! :)
The trick is that you can't lift the chests - you can only push them horizontally. To reach the boats on the surface, you have to use the upstreams in the sea (the little up arrows). When there is no upstream go high enough, you can fill the gaps with air bubbles - they lift the chest one tile and disappear, so you have to think strategically using them.
Ten levels, the ones after 4th-5th are getting quite hard - be prepared. :)
Made in like six hours - unfortunately I had other programs for this weekend, but I think this turned out quite nicely. :)
Please try it, and vote! :)
| Web | http://www.ccatgames.com/games/upstream/ |
| Source | http://www.puzzlescript.net/editor.html?hack=11326822 |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=36967 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall | 3.58 | 203 |
| Audio | 1.75 | 978 |
| Fun | 3.70 | 104 |
| Graphics | 3.15 | 572 |
| Humor | 2.31 | 646 |
| Innovation | 3.48 | 272 |
| Mood | 2.95 | 588 |
| Theme | 3.53 | 324 |
Levels not quite as compact as I generally like in my puzzle games (too much pushing things all the way across the whole level) but that works to make it feel more like a sea than an artificial puzzle.
Sound isn't working? It's in the source-code version but not the actual game.
A couple of you asked about the level design process of the game: it is simple *and* hard at the same time :)
I just start with a basic concept - what I want the level to be about? Maybe to showcase/teach a gameplay mechanic (for example the use of bubbles) or just "let's do a wide and shallow level, because I don't have one yet" :)
Then I think about what would be the best way to show that concept. In what situation the player *have* to use bubbles? What challenges a wide and shallow level could offer?
Then I create a basic level around that idea, and tweak, tweak, tweak until it plays good...
Can I take away one more bubble? Won't be too annoying for the player to move so much around? Is it challenging enough or should I throw in a couple more obstacles?
And that's the hard part. :) It took the better part of the six hours of dev time here... like I don't know four hours to design that ten levels... :)
I was stunned by how many levels you managed to put together in the short time. And they all are fantastic, require solid planning to finish. Also love the Undo-mechanic, saves a ton of trouble and works perfectly with the kind of turn based timeline of the game.
Really really good puzzler, that has superb level design for a LD-game.
I liked it, well done!
I happened to double-step a few times, but I guess that's up to puzzle-script and not so much you can do about.
Fun experience. Might have tried it all way through if not for that mishap.
It get's pretty hard early on, but I like that :)
Great job on gradually adding more mechanics level per level!
Also, is it just by accident or did you deliberately hide a lot of penile designs in the levels? (e.g. the lower right corner of the second small screenshot, and some other levels featured things like this :P)
"a lot of" is a slight exaggeration though - maybe one more besides the one in the screenshot. :)
Can you elaborate on that? :)
Penis everywhere, cannot unsee
I think I played all puzzlescript games on LD29 - at least all which turns up for a search for "puzzlescript" :)
- When i was first introduced to the bubbles, it took me a moment to realize I could push them from any direction. I'd assumed they worked like the chests
- the buoy level was pretty tricky! That might be a good one to break down into 2: a very simple puzzle to introduce the concept, then go to the more advanced one (also, i only used one buoy in that puzzle, was the other one a red herring?)
- The level right after that one is great in how it is both simple but advanced, but since there was no buoy involved, it might make for better pacing to do it just before the buoy level instead of after, since it's good to do a couple buoys in a row
I didn't get to finish because I had a time constraint, but I want to come back and finish! Nice work!
(That puts "Upstream" in the top 3.5% of the most rated games in this LD according to itch.io - I never thought that it could achieve this.)
Thank you for everybody taking time to try my little game, and for the kind comments! :)
- Bubbles - Yeah, I wanted to keep the texts short (almost nobody reads them anyway :) ), but that definitely something I should make more clear - maybe even with a full level dedicated to introduce the concept.
- Bouys - I got more comments on them people find them generally confusing at first. They are actually not *that* complex things :) so the error is on my side - I should introduce them more thoroughly as you suggest.
- Level pacing: I know what level you talking about, I feel that it is somewhat out of place now, the thinking was behind the placement, that I wanted to break up the big levels with something smaller, but hopefully still advanced. But you are right again - it was not that successful :)
I kinda hated the Sokoban-type games for a long type - since PuzzleScript that changed for the better, and I even actually enjoyed making Upstream. :)