Polygonal Expansion by GogglesKitty

[raw]
made by GogglesKitty for LD34 (JAM)
In the first phase, you must avoid the waves of dots flying your way.

In the following three phases (line, triangle, and square respectively), you must turn yourself to face the incoming bars of matching color.

Pick your Beats Per Minute (60 to 240), and the length of your song (0:59 to 10:00), for if you feel like taking it slow or giving yourself Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

The game defaults to 120 Beats Per Minute and four minutes and forty-eight seconds to match the royalty free music used as default. THIS IS THE WAY THE GAME IS MEANT TO BE PLAYED AND IS BALANCED AS SUCH! Changing either the length or BPM will automatically mute the music (for obvious reasons) and affect the difficulty in hopefully clear ways.

Use Z and X to do everything!

Screenshots don't do it justice, the experience comes from playing it yourself!

!!!POST JAM UPDATE!!!
​​I fixed a bunch of things, mostly suggestions from the comments you made.
Here're the patch notes:

+Sound cue for hitting and missing beats.
+Lowered percentages needed for ranks by 5%.
+Increased hit range of Square.
+Synced Square Waves.
+Synced Triangle Waves.
+Synced Line Waves.
+Synced the Instructions.
+Z and C rotate line, triangle, square, X flips square.
+C now cycles menu other way.
+Added my own music!
+Default Length is now 4:16

The remaining fixes I have to make involve meticulously changing one or two variables, so I haven't quite perfected a few things.

Known Issues:
-At lower tempos, Line and Square Waves desynchronize.
-Several Waves don't line up perfectly with the beats.

Thank you all for the suggestions! (Remember to rate the Jam version, no the Post Jam one!)

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall(Jam) 3.14 682
Fun(Jam) 3.15 522
Graphics(Jam) 3.23 627
Humor(Jam) 2.10 777
Innovation(Jam) 3.34 363
Mood(Jam) 3.19 535
Theme(Jam) 3.53 659

Feedback

ZONC
15. Dec 2015 · 03:26 UTC
Nice ideas, liked it a lot ;)
SovietBear
15. Dec 2015 · 03:30 UTC
There is no audio based way of telling you hit the key at the right time like most rhythm games (IE: Guitar hero strums, a beat/note hitting at the right time), to be fair you did only have three days. Although the controls could've been done with 1 button and wouldn't really have affected the game play.
LavWa
15. Dec 2015 · 03:30 UTC
Nice idea ! The use of the 2 buttons only is perfect here. Even the interface/menu, well done ! :)
gkxd
15. Dec 2015 · 04:00 UTC
This is an interesting concept, but I don't think it was executed very well.

I think it would've been better to have the gameplay use 2 buttons only, while making the UI more intuitive to use. The UI right now is annoying to use.

In addition, I think there is a bug with the mute button in game, where the mute button triggers when you increase the tempo. I was unaware of this, so during my first time playing, I was confused about why there was no music in game.

In the actual game, I couldn't figure out the beat of the music fast enough to actually play the game as a rhythm game. I would've liked music that had a stronger rhythm to it.
🎤 GogglesKitty
15. Dec 2015 · 04:21 UTC
As far as the Auto-Muting audio, that's intentional; the royalty free music I found matches the time and tempo the game is set to, so it wouldn't work if the tempo didn't match :P

I tried not to vary from the 2 button theme at all, thus the awkward menu.

Finally, the lack of an indicator of successfully hitting a beat is an oversight. Meant to add something and never got around to it.

Thanks for all the feedback!
Fanatrick
15. Dec 2015 · 04:29 UTC
Stylish pixel art :D
Ryusui
15. Dec 2015 · 04:30 UTC
THIS IS A BEAUTIFUL THING YOU HAVE HERE.

My only gripe is the "single-color" thing it starts with isn't all that appealing at all...I wasn't sure if I was supposed to hit the blue squares or dodge them. The color-matching stuff was brilliant, though.
LordKawaii
15. Dec 2015 · 04:36 UTC
Awesome game, I'm terrible at it and it melts my brain, but awesome job!
fergarram
15. Dec 2015 · 04:46 UTC
The music could be better but it's a cool idea.
tweedle
15. Dec 2015 · 05:21 UTC
Rank F+ 52% and my eyes hurt a little bit... WORTH IT -T
OberynMartell
15. Dec 2015 · 05:39 UTC
Nice game! I did 52% accuracy! lol
I almost had an epilepsy attack in the last level!

The game is really cool! Congrats.
Ghen
15. Dec 2015 · 06:20 UTC
agreed with some comment, i like the idea, but its really hard to tell either we doing good or not, a little feedback sound or visual will be nice
🎤 GogglesKitty
15. Dec 2015 · 06:24 UTC
Based on what most people are saying, I feel like a "Fixed up" version after this is over would be nice. Unfortunately, the changes are a bit much to just add to the game in the jam :P
Again, Thank you all so much! <3
Terrabalt
15. Dec 2015 · 07:09 UTC
I could see this idea expanded upon. The jumping phase is kinda too sensitive, though
shadow64
15. Dec 2015 · 07:47 UTC
Great work in keeping with the theme. There are some issues. The simplest to solve would be placing the cursor on the main menu over "Play" to begin instead of the BPM (since you shouldn't alter BPM anyway).

It's a really interesting style and I loved how beautiful it was to watch (made it hard to concentrate at times - ha!). I didn't do very well, but I can tell it's the kind of game that takes practice. Thanks for sharing and congrats on submitting!
SuperDisk
16. Dec 2015 · 00:14 UTC
Wow, grade F! I suck. Reminded me a bit of Super Hexagon. Pretty cool game, but could have been better if it were a little more analog... e.g holding left and right would rotate the shape by a few degrees.

Cool nonetheless.
gogo199432
16. Dec 2015 · 17:50 UTC
Interesting idea, but a bit hard :D
Krafty
16. Dec 2015 · 17:57 UTC
74%, this game was really hard! I liked it a lot but I think there should be some kind of sound indication that you hit the colors correctly. Really fun! :)
Weeping Rupee
16. Dec 2015 · 18:10 UTC
Nice concept, very difficult though for some of the reasons often mentioned in other comments: namely that there are no audio cues for missing/hitting your mark with the color matching. The score being kept in percentages was also a bit difficult to grok. I have a desire to press the keys to the beat for sure but rotating clockwise or counterclockwise combined with that might be too much for my brain to manage. Nice change of pace from most of the games I've seen though.
liquidmedia
16. Dec 2015 · 18:11 UTC
Nice game good use of the 2 button system
KriBoNiTa
16. Dec 2015 · 18:19 UTC
had fun playing this game, the second button seems to be here to fit the theme :p.
The music is appropriated to the game.
Some explaination for the first part would have been nice \o/
rjhelms
16. Dec 2015 · 20:06 UTC
This game is beautiful - absolutely outstanding visual style. It's a good deal of fun, too. Great job!
SSJMetroid
18. Dec 2015 · 02:59 UTC
The game was really hard lol. Cool concept though!
PeachTreeOath
18. Dec 2015 · 05:17 UTC
Fantastic, the level design must've taken a long time just to have all the bg elements work.
Cliff Lee(CL)
18. Dec 2015 · 07:10 UTC
Like the concept and gameplay! but it would be better with sound hint that you make right action.
Yvanor
18. Dec 2015 · 17:45 UTC
Good little game, with an great atmosphere ^^ Even if I'm bad at rythm games, I liked this one ^^ Good job ^^
bwatanabe
19. Dec 2015 · 03:17 UTC
Really nice, reminds me of the antique Atari Video Music console.
Hot Box Games
20. Dec 2015 · 19:28 UTC
Neat idea, but there was no music?
I restarted the game to make sure i didn't change the bpm/length settings but there was still no music :(
It was quite fun to play nonetheless.
camlang
20. Dec 2015 · 19:46 UTC
Nice game! From my point of view, you need to add more feedback for player, but it's still cool concept.
🎤 GogglesKitty
20. Dec 2015 · 22:08 UTC
Hot Box Games, strange! I have no idea why that would happen.
I'm nearly done with the post jam version, so hopefully that isn't a persistent issue.
DinnerInTheDark
21. Dec 2015 · 20:57 UTC
Cool ideas, original graphics, sad that the polish didn't get done in the jam version. Good job!
RARoadkill
04. Jan 2016 · 15:28 UTC
Great work, really good use of the theme