Shape Shift by staircase27

[raw]
made by staircase27 for LD35 (COMPO)
My first entry for Ludum Dare! Written in more like 12 hours of coding time.

Your challenge is to delete all the shapes by removing sides till they run out of sides using the "bullets" provided.

Bullets bounce off flat sides of shapes and are deflected by slopping sides but pass straight on if they hit a point.

If the bullet adds or removes sides is determined by the colours of the bullet and the shape. The rule is that shoot red with green, green with blue or blue with red to remove a side and the opposite to add a side. Bullets fired on shape of same color do nothing. (The symbol on the right is meant to be a reminder of this)

The colour of the shapes is also changed by bullets with rotational arrows on them by rotating the shapes color in the direction show based on the circle of colors shown on the right.

To play choose your bullet (from the three choices at the bottom) either by clicking on it or pressing the key for it, then select where to fire it from by either clicking at the edge of the row/column or pressing a direction key and typing in the row/column number and pressing enter.

Enjoy :)

Note: To run on linux/anything other than windows you will have to install love2d (https://love2d.org/). The downloading issues are now fixed.


EDIT: I have improved the description above in response to some of the comments. Due to lack of time I didn't manage to add a description in game. The symbol on the right of the screen is meant to be a help but wasn't clear and I didn't have time to improve it. It also was never meant to be full instructions. I have also added the web version

I have produced a version with more game modes, a few tutorial levels and a help message similar to above. It can be downloaded from http://www.darkfieldgames.com/blog/shape-shift-ludum-dare/

Ratings

Coolness 53% 3
Overall 2.64 849
Fun 2.00 921
Humor 1.88 574
Innovation 3.21 395
Mood 2.33 747
Theme 3.41 435

Feedback

Qrr
17. Apr 2016 · 18:01 UTC
Can't download the game on Win. Try uploading it to the dropbox or something like that.
Saymon
18. Apr 2016 · 10:50 UTC
Had no idea what i was doing, had potential though, maybe a small tutorial to get the mechanics would have been nice
Andre Odendaal
18. Apr 2016 · 11:51 UTC
I like the idea of the puzzle but I have no idea what's happening. Like @Saymon says, it needs a tutorial demonstrating the mechanics.
FloatingGhost
18. Apr 2016 · 12:11 UTC
Took me a bit to figure out everything, but it works as a little puzzle game :)
h2n0
18. Apr 2016 · 12:12 UTC
If there was a short explanation at the beginning of the game it would work far better than just throwing the player into the game. There may be something here though. I think it would work well as a mobile game.
BoltKey
18. Apr 2016 · 12:21 UTC
So, I guess the idea is that puzzle is figuring out how it works, right?

Here is what I found out so far. To reduce shapes, you need to shoot a color with the next color in RGB (so you need to shoot red with green, green with blue, blue with red). The other way around makes the shapes grow. If two same colors meet, it stays the same.

The arrows on ammo means that all the shapes it meets change color like red > green > blue > red.

I have no idea about the direction control though. Apparently if there is a triangle, it goes in the direction the triangle is pointing. If you approach a shape from a side where it has perpendicular side to your direction, it bounces you back and nothing happens to the shape. But this rule is not universal either.

So yeah. I don't get it. I guess I lost.
SmilingCat
18. Apr 2016 · 12:58 UTC
Good use of the theme, though like others I had a bit of trouble understanding the mechanics. Even still I managed to clear a good number of shapes. I felt like I almost had it but was missing one or two critical pieces of information.
qu2
18. Apr 2016 · 13:31 UTC
I think this game is desperately in need of a tutorial. Maybe you could flesh it out in your description?
🎤 staircase27
18. Apr 2016 · 16:06 UTC
@BoltKey: I have updated the description with a hopefully better description of the rules. If you have seen bullets not bounce of a flat side then please let me know.
Yarg
18. Apr 2016 · 17:51 UTC
Well, on my opinion is too complex. I got the rules but it's hard do keep in mid which colour adds edges and how colours are changed. Probably it can be simplified. Some graphics improvements and it can be good game.
varuns
19. Apr 2016 · 09:59 UTC
Needs a how to play :D
mutonizer
19. Apr 2016 · 12:26 UTC
Damn...One of the most obscure, complicated and fun puzzle game I've tried in this jam. Congratulation on the concept, pretty awesome, got my brain going.

I'd make the "grid" more visible, took me a while to figure out I could throw in bullets from sides and whatnot. Putting some graphics for rows and columns would help a lot.
Also, the "hint" on the right should be clearer at all times.

Otherwise, very nice!
wg_phancock
20. Apr 2016 · 19:41 UTC
This really needs a "follow my instructions to learn how to play" tutorial or levels with increasing difficulties that introduce new concepts one at a time. The red/green/blue relationships are really hard to figure out.
josefnpat
21. Apr 2016 · 07:25 UTC
Interesting mechanics, but again - not as many mentioned - not sure what I was doing. perhaps it was too complicated at the start?
DarkFieldGames
21. Apr 2016 · 11:25 UTC
Fun innovative puzzle game.
marmpa
23. Apr 2016 · 09:26 UTC
Nice game but i thing it is really difficult. It took my several tries to understand how it worked. Maybe a tutorial would help?That said i was really well made i liked that you basically had each color interact with the other 2 in different ways.Good job
🎤 staircase27
23. Apr 2016 · 09:30 UTC
I had always intended to have multiple levels of difficulty, a tutorial and instructions in game but ran out of time. There is now a new version that might explain it better linked in the description above. Also there is a summary of the rules in the description above
🎤 staircase27
23. Apr 2016 · 09:30 UTC
Also thanks everyone for trying it and the feedback :)
serp
24. Apr 2016 · 11:38 UTC
I like it but I don't really know what I'm doing. And then i got a square and It just wouldn't go away.
jonask
30. Apr 2016 · 11:35 UTC
You need a better tutorial. Took me a while to understand that you can send shapes from all angles. Interesting concept though.
CarlsonAndPeeters
09. May 2016 · 19:10 UTC
Nice work! The game was really hard to understand initially, but very clever and creative. A bit more tutorial levels/information and this could be super challenging and fun!