LudumData

The Call of Cthulhu - Puzzle Edition by bombjack

[raw]
made by bombjack for LD 41 (JAM)

A mix between a puzzle game and story-telling.

Move the tokens on the board to reveal the story. The goal is to remove all the tokens from the board.

Move the tokens on each other to either combine them or execute some action.

Action tokens (dark background) can only move horizontally. Object tokens (white background) can only move on the diagonnals. Object with a yellow background contains other tokens.

The hand represent any manual action: use, open, ... The eye represent inspection, analysis or reading of documents.

If there are no more available moves, you failed and should restart the game. I didn't had the time to write an undo stack. Sorry for that.

HTML5 (web) https://bombjackm.itch.io/cthulhuld
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/the-call-of-cthulhu-puzzle-edition

Ratings

Overall 751th 3.31⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1001th 2.793⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 270th 3.707⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 570th 3.621⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 409th 3.759⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Humor 856th 2.409⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 378th 3.5⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 31🗨️

Feedback

Temmy
23. Apr 2018 · 11:50 UTC
You just need to add a game link so we can play!
🎤 bombjack
23. Apr 2018 · 12:46 UTC
I'll finish it today :) I've created it empty to be able to vote beforehand.
Hanra
23. Apr 2018 · 12:51 UTC
Good luck :smile:, look forward to seeing what you do with the theme
dalbinblue
23. Apr 2018 · 17:46 UTC
This is a really cool idea! The game feels incomplete though. For a while I was stuck, then I realized that there was a different set of moves. While an undo was probably too difficult to build in the time frame, restarting a "chapter" when the board is reset probably could have been easier to do. Just something to keep in mind if you continue this.
sophiakene
23. Apr 2018 · 17:46 UTC
I really like the concept behind your game and one gets a hang of how it works quite easily. The only detail I would change is the font because I found the longer paragraphs rather hard to read and some audio would be nice!
literallyjosh
23. Apr 2018 · 17:47 UTC
Really neat idea. I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing and had to restart a couple of times though.

I like it.
Swen
23. Apr 2018 · 17:48 UTC
It was really short, but I really liked the tile-based puzzle/ story telling combination. And what I could play looked polished!
Yanek
23. Apr 2018 · 17:50 UTC
I just finished the game, and I'm so sad it's that short, because as a fan of H.P. Lovecraft and Cthulhu related things, I can tell you it is amazing and rather full of great ideas! If you continue the development post-jam, I will definitely play a full version of this game.
creepyounguy
23. Apr 2018 · 17:54 UTC
Theme and graphics are on point however the gameplay is trial and error and running out of moves is annoying. I think you should just have a move counter so I can understand how well I'm doing. I might just be bad, but I couldn't get past the part with the eye and the three documents, maybe I ran out of moves. I think if you put directional arrows on the icons it would help a lot.
🎤 bombjack
23. Apr 2018 · 18:23 UTC
Thanks for your comments
ARuculaDoMal
24. Apr 2018 · 02:10 UTC
You could give more directions to the user and an easy reset, maybe something warning he ran out of moves, I felt very lost in the first time. That being said, Loved the concept and the idea, a innovative mix and a good taste, the graphics are neat too, good job man!
phaze0
24. Apr 2018 · 02:52 UTC
Rather interesting mechanic and it's clever, even took a few tries to figure out the last bit with the garbage papers. Shame it's so short though.
GeroX
24. Apr 2018 · 04:53 UTC
Geat Game, I like the Graphics.
Strato
24. Apr 2018 · 04:57 UTC
Resetting kind of hampered the experience a bit, but the story was nice and the puzzle mechanics were neat. The game ended before I could really see things unfold unfortunately. All it needs is an undo button and more content, I'd enjoy seeing this developed and expanded further beyond the scope of a jam game.
slunkey
24. Apr 2018 · 06:26 UTC
This is a super neat idea and fits in greatly with the theme. You could totally take this and make some kind of iPad learning / reading app for children, making reading interactive and easier for kids to get into. Superb idea. Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!
Skyc
24. Apr 2018 · 06:28 UTC
One of the problem is that you cannot know the consequence of an action before you do the action. That just make the game more towards trial and error gameplay. The text is too long between levels. if you can break down and put the story within the action log, the story will be more readable.
🎤 bombjack
24. Apr 2018 · 07:36 UTC
@aruculadomal, @creepyounguy, @skyc: At the beginning, I planned to show how element unfold when you are on top of them but a stupid issue with OnMouseMove ate half of a day. That why, the controls are not obvious and why there is not much content. Thanks for the new comments :)
Lucas Carvalhaes
24. Apr 2018 · 13:46 UTC
Incredible entry man! Really! I found the art quite nice! I enjoyed it. My tip is for you to cut a bit on the text. Usually I hate reading in games. Add smaller snippets of text more often. For the larger text portions that appear on the screen and not on the note thingy, add a typing effect on them (jumpable). The typing effect helps forcing players to read because the focus on the animation and read along. :)
jhandsy
24. Apr 2018 · 16:14 UTC
Very smart idea! The combination of puzzle and story is really cool, and using cthulu mythos is a good way to like, make people really consider whether they SHOULD look at or manipulate things, since any of it could drive an investigator mad.

If you expand upon this idea, maybe some procedural storytelling would be an interesting addition. The blocks of text added nice flavor, but breaking them up into small story segments based on each action might make the flow nicer. Good entry!
Rs11s21n
25. Apr 2018 · 20:26 UTC
really interesting but need restart button... do you really plan continue this? =)
aeveis
26. Apr 2018 · 04:16 UTC
Very interesting idea! The font could be a bit easier to read, and no undo or restart makes it pretty hard to play without refreshing a whole bunch, but would like to see the idea in a more polished state. good work!
LandoSystems
28. Apr 2018 · 02:30 UTC
Pretty cool puzzle mechanic mixed with the story elements. Failed the first time but got it the second time around. Great work!
iLKke
14. May 2018 · 23:38 UTC
What an intersting entry! A truly unusual idea pulled off suprprisingly well. Loving the graphics and the theme as well