Flicker by roaderful

WW1 has ended. Super heroes exist. Super villains don’t. Until now.
Flicker, or The Flickering Man in a Trench Coat is a game made by 6 people who came together to participate in LDJAM. It’s a puzzle game that has you follow our unnamed protagonist, who also happens to be the first super villain in this world in his quest to drain a city of its electrical power. Not much more to say, feel free to play and leave us feedback and/or criticism.
Puzzle mechanics are explained in the itch.io page!
Update: HTML5 version available! Game ends when hero flies down! Downloaded versions would have the application quit, but this doesn't happen for HTML5/we can't add in a new ending.
Changelog: Audio bug fixes as well as a voltmeter display fix! More significant digits were not being reset upon a lower voltage. (8/1/2017)
| Windows | https://johnzli1995.itch.io/ld39 |
| macOS | https://johnzli1995.itch.io/ld39 |
| HTML5 (web) | https://johnzli1995.itch.io/ld39 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/flicker |
Ratings
| Overall | 334th | 3.488⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 649th | 2.791⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 196th | 3.476⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 458th | 3.442⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 224th | 4.023⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 64th | 3.977⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 551th | 2⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 70th | 4⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 56🗳️ | 26🗨️ |
Thanks for playing it! I recently just added a game mechanics guide on the itch.io page so that the puzzles are a bit easier to understand! Hope it helps!
Glad you liked it! To exit out of a puzzle, hit escape. That will reset the puzzle and you can re-attempt it
I'll play/rate this tomorrow when I get back to my Windows computer.
Hmm that's interesting. I noticed the mac app was working for others.
I'm releasing HTML5 build soon so hopefully broken downloads will be less of an issue.
Just adding a visual indicator as to what the current shortest path(s) are, i.e. where the current will flow once the switches are flicked (or even up to the first un-flicked switch), would have made the puzzle-solving element of this much clearer and (therefore) engaging. Also, the display of the voltmeter is difficult to read in black & white, maybe remove the background digital lines (semi-transparent ones) to make it easier.
Maybe this is a bug in the HTML5 version but when I finished all 5 puzzles, a dude floated down from the sky and then just hovered there, no text or interaction. You might want to change the 'escape puzzle' key for the HTML5 version too as it takes you out of full-screen when you press it.
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I think the addition of tutorial puzzles would definitely allow for much more intuitive gameplay. If we ever decide to continue this production, we will definitely introduce mechanics slower and in a more user-friendly way! Happy you stuck with it for all 5 puzzles!
And yes, the ending is supposed to be a super hero falling. HTML5 doesn't respond to Application.Quit(), in downloaded games the application would just end.
Hope you guys enjoyed it!
Seemed like an interesting start of a game though, I was eager to find out what the hero/villain aspect would be.
You've got solid puzzles, solid audio, and solid visuals. The only nitpick I've got is that it might help to highlight powered wires, but...That's a tiny little detail.
I can confirm that the ending is a little broken in HTML5, but...that's okay. This is still amazing. Great work. :thumbsup:
Yeah, the rules we gave were not real-world physics, simply because we didn't want to be bound by the electromagnetic rules of physics. I think the best thing we should have done was to introduce the puzzles in a much more friendlier manner; having a giant guide isn't as useful as a slow-development into the puzzles.
We also didn't implement wire removal in this iteration, though that should definitely happen in the future!
Well done, I liked it!
- \+ Holy shit, are you feel that atmosphere ?
- \+ Nice simple graphics
- \+ Ambient sounds which are very well handle
- \+ Simple but good soundtrack
- \- I switch 5 lamps and after that city ends, and walk 1 minut to the right but nothink else happend.
Fun little puzzles. Most annoying part was that I didn't figure out how to remove the wires I had placed wrong, or even how to restart the game (short of refreshing). There was no indication that the game had ended, be it through running out of wires or reaching the end, which was a bit confusing.
Otherwise, audio-visually this game is really enjoyable. And the puzzle mechanics were very interesting as well. Could easily expand on that, I'd think. All in all, well done.
If you manage to make a good tutorial (or if could do even better, and explain it with no tutorial but just with a few introductive puzzles), then I will definitely be interested in seeing your concept developed into a full game.
Also, before writing this gigantic tutorial, you could have at least written the input buttons. Because I spend a few minutes searching for the button to restart a puzzle before finding it