Don't be (the) patient by TastyMascarpwne

[raw]
made by TastyMascarpwne for LD 39 (COMPO)

You are a doctor in the middle of a critical operation. Can you save the patient who is slowly running out of power?

This is a small arcade-ish puzzle game which is heavily inspired by a minigame from an old Gameboy Advance title. I decided to join Ludum Dare quite spontaneously so don't expect anything fancy.

screenshot.png

You'll need some sound!

Ratings

Overall 321th 3.333⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Fun 188th 3.444⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 272th 3.222⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Theme 548th 2.963⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 338th 3.222⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Audio 371th 2.667⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Humor 319th 2.304⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 395th 2.8⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 25🗳️ 26🗨️

Feedback

LJN
31. Jul 2017 · 15:43 UTC
That was really cool!
jahndis
31. Jul 2017 · 15:44 UTC
Nice work with this! I really enjoy puzzle games like this. The connection to the theme was a little bit of a stretch but meh, the game is fun :)
sgt3v
31. Jul 2017 · 15:44 UTC
High Score: 7 :D

Game becomes real difficult at some point. Really good idea and different that the regular find the match puzzle games. I really liked it.
Kimitama
31. Jul 2017 · 15:44 UTC
The game is pretty fun, but it becomes very difficult very quickly, for someone who doesnt play puzzle games :P
The audio is also really well implemented.
danielilett
31. Jul 2017 · 15:46 UTC
A pretty simple entry, but it works pretty well. I like the interpretation of the theme. I have a few bits of feedback that might help improve the game:

-I like the sound effects, but they're a little quiet and relying on only audio feedback isn't the most reliable way of telling the player how long they have left. You could put a visual heart monitor along the bottom to go with the sound effect, then I think it'd be perfect.

-The text on the instruction page is a tad hard to read because of the background. It might help to make the font a little bolder perhaps?

Apart from that, it's pretty good. Your sprites are very cute and I didn't encounter any bugs.
Aircraft Terrier
31. Jul 2017 · 15:52 UTC
This is a cool little game with some nice pixel art! I really wish there was a greater sense of progression, either breaking the number of icons-per-match into individual levels, or giving you less and less time as you went. There may also be a bug, as when I was finished playing, I left the game running and stopped matching the shapes, but did not get a game over after a couple of minutes. Thanks for participating!
Antti Haavikko
31. Jul 2017 · 15:56 UTC
Pretty cool! Works very well and is quite fun for some time. It does get pretty repetitive after several tries though. Difficulty ramps up pretty much and the timer isn't too forgiving. The difficulty is highly dependant on the RNG. Sometimes the sequence had a part that instantly spilled the beans on where to start looking and sometimes it felt like I couldn't even pinpoint the quadrant of the board where the correct answer was in allotted time. Is there always just one correct solution on the board or can there be more options?

My best score ended up being 8.

Very solid entry. Good job!
ProgrammingDimension
31. Jul 2017 · 16:16 UTC
Really liked this game.

The concept is simple as well as the implementation. That's what really stands out from this game, play for play.

I thought that you could maybe add some UI to explicitly display the patient life, without the need of the sound, think about a player using headphones, for example.

Anyway, the game was really good and I see it fitting nicely on a mobile scenario.

Good Work!
WhatFruit
31. Jul 2017 · 16:22 UTC
I like the twist on the match game genre. The beeping works really well to build pressure (I topped out and a high score of 6 :S). Great job!
pvtroswold
31. Jul 2017 · 18:17 UTC
So so cool, @Tasty! I had to say a kind word back at you.. Wow, the moment the game paused to show me the solution was like an 'aha' moment, seeing the so so cool sequence path like that. Really unique and also of course, fun to play! Good work!
Sivael
31. Jul 2017 · 19:05 UTC
Simple mechanics but very well done :)
TedKerr
31. Jul 2017 · 19:22 UTC
Clever use of the beeping to introduce some panic for the player lol.
Sheepolution
01. Aug 2017 · 14:57 UTC
Really fun game! Don't have much to say other than maybe a visual meter of how much time I have left? Though the sound alone works good as well. Great job!
PerduGames
01. Aug 2017 · 16:40 UTC
Interesting, I liked the art and also found it fun, but I missed a sound, it was a good job.
gilborn
02. Aug 2017 · 11:58 UTC
Cool little game with nice mechanic.
Seemed to be very complete and polished.
Estebe
06. Aug 2017 · 20:23 UTC
The audio is VERY lo.. just kiding! ;)

I've never played the game you based this one on, so it's new to me. Haven't seen this type of game before, so it was pretty fun. At the very least, you've made a good remake!

In the beginning I had difficulty with the game, but after 2 game overs, something clicked... and I got a highscore of 51.
During this I've found that the game doesn't punish you for clicking a wrong sequence. Perhaps you could use that to detract from the time you would've accumulated. Because after 51, I didn't see anything anymore and had to wait 5 min for the game to end.

I find the graphics to be nice and clean, and the sounds are effective.
But I'm especially impressed by how the game is always able to generate a solvable solution.

For a last minute change of heart you've made a cool little game!
🎤 TastyMascarpwne
07. Aug 2017 · 17:31 UTC
Thanks a lot for all the feedback!
Herman Chau
16. Aug 2017 · 03:06 UTC
I **really** enjoyed this game! I like puzzle games in general and the input + audio feedback for this made it really smooth and fun to solve each sequence. I ended up getting a high score of 25 before getting an impossible sequence:

![impossible.png](///raw/d9f/z/8e59.png)

And here's the "solution" the game revealed when time ran out:
![impossible_answer.png](///raw/d9f/z/8e5a.png)

I hope you make a post jam version and add a more difficult mode too!
KiiroHanabi
16. Aug 2017 · 11:39 UTC
Nice game! I wanted to play as soon as I saw the description. It is simple "but" fun and challenging. By the way I thought it would be easier at the beginning but the challenge was already there (with a little bit of luck of course).

I like the graphics, the audio cue is good but on an ergonomic level it would be nice to have to visual one too for people who don't hear well or just can't use audio, like these heartbeat waves that forms on the screen that have the same background than your game (don't know the exact name but I hope you know what I mean :D)

Good game overall!
🎤 TastyMascarpwne
21. Aug 2017 · 17:34 UTC
@herman-chau
Yeah it happens very, very rarely. I'm not sure what causes the error, tho.
I case I'm gonna work on it a little more I'm gonna look into fixing that!