PiP: A multi-layered puzzle game by Clickmation
-Guys, thank you for playing and commenting below. I never knew comments could make a person this happy. In fact I realized how little I commented while playing other's games, so I went back and tried to comment on the games I played and rated. The Last Stage AKA The Laser Stage doesn't function properly at the moment. We are going to fix the bug and post the update as soon as possible.
Trapped in a small small block in a small small block in a small small block... PiP is an interactive puzzle game that has a puzzle inside a puzzle(which is also inside a puzzle and so on...). Help PiP escape layers of puzzle worlds by solving laser puzzles, pressing buttons and MORE.
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- Screenshot
-PiP in action
-Last stage(doesn't work at the moment.)
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- How to play
-W,A,S,D to move
-C to enter a block
-R to restart stage
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- GIF
http://imgur.com/NBlS3E4
you can't push it yet...
http://imgur.com/lZytDbT
press C to go in and do things...
http://imgur.com/nugGUmD
Tadaa! Now the block moves!
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Things that didn't make it to the game(Due to lack of time and skills... for now)
-more kinds of blocks.(sound wave block, rotation block etc)
-~~block manipulation from inside of the block thus helping out solving the main puzzle.~~
-monsters.
-multilayered level designs.
-sound effects.
-more stages.(At the moment there's 4...)
-clean up sorting layers.
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PiP can be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_hixFs5EoPhVnhnamd1ZDBQdm8
Post UPDATE Here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_hixFs5EoPhMFJaam5xQmVUQ1U
What Changed?
-movement speed increased.
-transition time shortened.
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- Source codes are here: https://github.com/clickmation/PiP
(If anyone's trying to learn from these code I highly recommend only using these codes as 'how not to code'... it's a very rough frankenstein of a code. We will try to optimize it though.)
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- Tools used
-Unity
-FamiTracker
-Photoshop
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- A Word From the Team
It was really fun. And tiring... but FUN!
It's too bad that we couldn't finish everything we planned from the start but we are glad to be able to show you what's ready!(Which ain't much...)
We know the stages right now are simple and easy but we believe we could make extreme difficulties with the tools we have in this game. We will upload the source code but at the moment even we can't quite decrypt it well. We will try to smoothen it out so everybody can make their own puzzle with the code someday. Right and more blocks will be added. The game is VERY rugged right now but we'll try to make things better one by one.
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- Post Update Notice
As much as we'd like to fix the apparent problem everyone's talking about, the base system and code is just too messed up that when you try to fix one thing, another problem appears. We are going to remake the whole game from scratch(The coding part) but at the moment our hands are tied and we are not sure if we can fix the problems before the judging ends...
Ratings
| Overall | 340th | 3.441⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 255th | 3.4⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 24th | 4.147⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 266th | 3.657⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 405th | 3.457⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 304th | 3.143⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 508th | 2.259⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 466th | 3.067⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 52🗳️ | 53🗨️ |
Wished there were more levels, but as a showcase of idea this is cool too.
There's one more bug - when I've entered a laser tile the on switch wasn't glowing. And I've moved block away, then moved it back and moved it away once again and switch stopped turning off. Hope you've understand me.
Your game got great potential!
Also, I noticed if die, retry, and then try to move before the camera zooms out, it'll still try to follow the character :p
Edit: I now see that the description directly mentions that the laser level doesn't work yet.
Several cool ideas here! Some things I particularly liked:
- The sprite artwork is cute
- Your main game logo and title screen are also cute, and fit the rest of the aesthetic well.
- Confirmation on the restart screen. Conventionally this kind of screen is bound to the Escape key, but it’s nice to have extra confirmation around dangerous actions like this
I think it's slightly unfortunate you didn't get a chance to spend more time on level design, because even with the small number of distinct puzzle mechanics here it ought to be possible to develop a rather rich set of puzzles. That is to say, if you were to spend more time developing this game, the best place to focus would not be on additional mechanics (like rotating blocks or monsters), but rather a deeper exploration of mechanics that already exist. Some ideas that spring to mind that weren't already explored in your four levels:
- More complex puzzles involving basic block moving. You already have solid blocks, 4-way movable blocks and 2-way movable blocks in both orientations — that's more than enough for some pretty hard sokoban puzzles.
- More puzzles involving blocks and switches that control lasers, even without inception-style subpuzzles:
- Puzzles requiring you to shuffle blocks back and forth between various areas of the level
- Lasers that gate significant areas of the level
- Complex gating with lasers that cross each other, or pass through multiple rooms
- Lasers with movable sources
- And then, of course, exploration of the "block entering" subpuzzle mechanic:
- Puzzles that require you to re-enter a block multiple times to change some internal state
- Puzzles with more than one subpuzzle block
- Puzzles with deeply nested subpuzzles, two or more layers thick
- Subpuzzles, that when solved, change the directions in which the outer block can be moved, or change the direction a laser is fired
Of course, any level slightly larger than what you have already would be a pain to complete, due to one singular problem more serious with any other: the input controls feel sluggish as hell. Playing the game feels like wading through molasses. Here’s why:
- In order to move in any direction, it’s not sufficient to press the key — you must press and hold for a significant fraction of a second. Tapping the key makes you look in a direction, but not necessarily move in that direction. I see no reason why this should be.
- When you do start moving, your character’s movement speed is extremely slow — it takes a long time to reach the next grid square.
As well some more minor reasons, like:
- When you hit R to restart, the game replays the zoom animation from the end of the previous level, which takes several seconds to complete.
This alone (making the controls feel quick and responsive) would already make the game vastly more fun to play.
There were a few game-breaking bugs I encountered as well:
- The switch in the inner block in the fourth level was very buggy. Moving the block off the square in front of the switch then stepping away was not enough to release the switch. But stepping in front of the switch and moving away again did release it.
- I got killed by the laser once when I was inside the inner block on the fourth level, which clearly should not have happened
- Indicator lights and lighting on the level end square did not always correspond to the state of the switch controlling them — they sometimes drift out of sync with the switch that toggles them. I think I hit this in level 1.
- After completing level 4, I got dropped into a blue screen, at which point the game froze. Restarting the game showed your splash, but then went straight back to the blue screen again. Nothing I tried allowed me to replay the game 😞
I hope this is helpful. The game has promise and there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit for easy improvements and bug-fixes. Besides that, you have a solid foundation (your art is good), your puzzle mechanics are neat and there’s potential for a lot of richness with more levels using the existing features. Cheers
ps. It seems the second build is missing the music.
As for the game right now, it's pretty cool but can be a bit sluggish. You move fairly slow and transitions between layers could be smoother. The laser block also seems pretty glitchy - it took me numerous tries and retries to get it to turn on/off correctly. The graphics are very nice and the music is good too, but some more sound effects would we welcome.
From the design perspective, my first though (obviously) is sokoban. Then i saw that you added a little twist with the limitations of the blocks. I do wonder if this will actually make the game better (in the subsequent more complex levels), because the puzzles that you can make get very restricted too i imagine.
Overall, a very good LD entry, good job!
With more levels and a bit polish on the puzzles, this could become a really good puzzle game. Good job!
By the way: Thank you for reporting my broken game link. I've uploaded it to a different host now, and it might be more stable: [**Entry page**](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/dr-plumb)
Great entry!
Too bad the laser stage couldn't be finished.
I liked the graphics & music a lot, it really fits the gameplay.
I hope you plan to keep developing this one! (I can even see a boss to be beaten by entering his body and entering again his inner parts xD)
I love the potential of this project and It's a pity you didn't have the chance to iterate over it's core idea. It would be really cool to have some more rooms to explore the main mechanics of the game. It feels rushed and, unfortunately, it seems that you ran out of time before you even could get into the juicy part of any game like this: level design.
However, It would be really cool if you take this idea and polish it to make it shine as it deserves.
Great job!
you went to our game page and asked for a tutorial to be posted here, so here it is
Ascension is kinda confusing at first, even for the creators
The game is turn based. You get mana every turn, and when your mana ends you should skip a turn because there's not much to be done, since all of the actions use mana
At the left side of the screen you get action buttons. Click on them to change what clicking will do. The little bag is for collecting resources (it takes mana to do that). The other five icons at the top part are for imbuing (adding a kind of resource to the selected terrain). You should try them to find out what they do ;)
(continues. . .)
When you try to act on the map, a tooltip pops up. At the bottom part of the tooltip it shows how much of each resource you'll get (if you're collecting), or how many you'll have to use to imbue (or build) on that terrain.
There's also temples and villages. Temples protect villages and forest from harm. Villages increase your mana gain when skipping turn (when they are touching a temple), and also increase your VALUE gain when skipping turn (when they are touching a god statue). You'll only get the recipes for the statues after a few turns.
Eventually a mountain turns into a volcado. You must quickly deactivate it AND find a way to block the lava from expanding over your map (it expands each turn, even if the volcanoes are dead).
I think that's it. Tell us of your progress if you play it again!
while i loved that you could go into blocks, i think that there needs to be a bit more indication of which blocks you can go into. i had no problem finding them, but im just thinking of the player population as a whole. honestly, i enjoy when a game doesnt hold your hand and you have to explore and figure things out on your own, so idk maybe you dont need to make it more obvious after all, but its something to think about. i also would have loved more levels and more complex puzzles. obviously i understand the limitations of a game jam. i think you should continue working on this though, it has huge potential for expansion. you should make an itch.io page so that i can follow you and if you continue this game, ill be able to easily find it. if you host other works of yours there too, then i could find that as well. oh really nice job with the music too! it fit the whole mood and your art style well. great entry! i really liked this one. bravo.
I liked the game, but as other have said it had some problems with the keyboard input and the laser level. Other than that i thought it was fun and I enjoyed the music loop. It's a shame the game only has 4 levels, I wanted to see how the mechanics evolved.
Good job guys!