Power lines down! by thaaks

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

Ingame1-Power lines down!.png

Some mean hacker corrupted all power lines in our biggest cities.

It is your job to re-establish them!

Each city has a limited resource of energy which will only last a little while so you better hurry and reconnect all power plants to the city.

Beware: different power plants (windmills, solar panels, modern wind turbines) produce different amounts of energy - you should connect the biggest producers first...

This game was created for Ludum Dare 39 and finished in around 20 hours total.

I'm pretty happy with the result (except that I failed on the music again) and I hope that you have some fun playing my game!

Cheers,

Thomas

Links

  • Play the game! https://thaaks.itch.io/powerlinesdown
  • Source code (GameMaker Studio 2 project) https://thaaks.itch.io/powerlinesdown

Ingame3-Power lines down!.png LevelWon-Power lines down!.png Instructions-Power lines down!.png

Ratings

Overall 370th 3.25⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 305th 3.208⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 558th 2.5⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 283th 3.583⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 587th 2.333⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Audio 464th 2.217⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 481th 1.667⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 572th 2.227⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 24🗳️ 19🗨️

Feedback

belser
01. Aug 2017 · 03:50 UTC
Nice work, solid game, fun puzzles.
EGB
01. Aug 2017 · 17:24 UTC
Pretty good
Cynical Monkey
01. Aug 2017 · 20:26 UTC
any chance you watched the pipe trek stream ;) good game i liked it, relaxing to play, were the levels procgen or hand made? i never really felt any pressure though, i have a similar game and made rotating the powerline also cost energy
gilborn
01. Aug 2017 · 20:30 UTC
Great game, I always salute if someone is able to make a puzzler in the short time of the LD!
Excellent done!
🎤 thaaks
02. Aug 2017 · 10:25 UTC
@Cynical-monkey: No, I didn't watch any stream. I'm just an old fart who remembered some old game he played on his Palmpilot 20 years ago ;-)
The levels are procedurally generated. And I only wanted time be the critical factor, so time reduces the remaining energy every second. When you connect power plants, less energy is reduced per second. But with increasing levels the remaining time gets shorter and the required energy per second increases. And the later plants like solar cells and modern wind mills generate more energy so you should connect them first.
Oh, and I will give your game a run of course ;-)

@gilborn: Thanks, highly appreciated!
Jupiter_Hadley
02. Aug 2017 · 11:06 UTC
Simple, but well made! I included it in my Ludum Dare 39 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AUyAsiiWQQ
🎤 thaaks
02. Aug 2017 · 13:29 UTC
Hi Jupiter, thanks for playing my game!
Thirrash
03. Aug 2017 · 10:57 UTC
I managed to get to 8th level and then ran out of power. The game concept is very simple but it doesn't mean that it gives less fun. Graphics are cute and simple.

The only thing that I would personally change are cables on the power plants. They are not really visible and at first I didn't know why I'm running out of energy when all other cables were connected correctly. But it's a minor thing. Good job!
FunkyHippo
03. Aug 2017 · 11:11 UTC
All in all a solid game for the amount of time put into it! Nice and good use of the mechanics - simple to understand and play, and it fits the theme beautifully. Well done mate
TheFlyingKeyboard
03. Aug 2017 · 11:47 UTC
Really nice idea, fun to play, graphics look simple, but nice.
🎤 thaaks
03. Aug 2017 · 16:23 UTC
@thirrash: yes, you're right. I added rotating cables on the power plants pretty late and would have to change graphics once more... But I will certainly fix that in an update ;-)

At all: thanks for your positive feedback!
JnKrambrich
03. Aug 2017 · 18:03 UTC
I will start with the graphics. They are not 4k UHD (add more marketing bullshit), but they fit in the game, in the style and that is the important thing!
The game Mechanic is pretty simple, but it's a good puzzle game. It makes fun and i like to play it. But sometimes the rotate sound is annoying :/.
But the game is still good, and i would play it again :)
loveapplegames
04. Aug 2017 · 21:53 UTC
Simple, but well executed. I like the procedural levels. I lost because I figured out that I had to rotate the cables on the power plants just a bit too late. What I don't like is that you start over again at the easiest level after you lost.
Linver
08. Aug 2017 · 15:13 UTC
It's fully working puzzle with some polished features (like highlighting of connected wires). I like to make puzzles at Ludum too, so take my respect.
Mathiouza
08. Aug 2017 · 17:57 UTC
Cool game, but a little too easy compared to puzzle game of this king submitted for the ludum dare too. I think it lacks music, and you could work on stressness to make the game better or something like that. Good graphics. Overall good game.
ElGregos
08. Aug 2017 · 20:26 UTC
I like this kind of puzzle games, with simple but effective mechanics. I played 4 or 5 levels until, alas, a bug (I think) prevented me going any further. It happened on the level where you first get modern wind turbines. I thought they'd bring more energy, but in fact the prod. energy stayed at 0, even while connecting other energy sources and having many wires in green and going to the city.

Just to be sure I retried and again at level 6, whatever I connect, the prod. energy stays at 0. And this time I made it sure every connection was ok, from sources to the city. And yes, I understood that this level needed you to turn wire on sources too :)

Edit: I retried again and the level 6 really seems to have problems, esp. on wind turbines.

Quite addictive game though. Except that bug, maybe you should add a cursor or something to highlight the wire over which is the mouse. Sometimes, esp. with straight lines, I turn the wrong one.

Fun and addictive game, though! I also liked the generated levels.
🎤 thaaks
09. Aug 2017 · 10:58 UTC
Thanks for the feedback so far!

@jnkrambrich and @mathiouza: Yup, sound effects are not the best ones and music could add a lot to the game. Those are on top of my list for improvements.

@elgregos: sorry for the bug - never ran into it but will look if I find something. The highlighting idea is good, will also add this to the list!
Baby Dino Herd
10. Aug 2017 · 14:28 UTC
Simple to understand, quick to pick up, fun to play! Graphics and audio were a little simple, but also very clear and helped the gameplay. Really nice complete product.
HuvaaKoodia
10. Aug 2017 · 17:32 UTC
An addictive (in a good way) timed puzzle.

I lamented in a prior entry that speedrunning a timed puzzle becomes trivial once you know the solution inside out. Roll in procedural level generation and :boom: problem solved! The generator is rock solid too, which is nice to see.

Got to level 10 and could have gone on for a long time. The challenge doesn't seem to ramp up at all, or at least not by a lot. I would have liked to see the level generator add in some unnecessary powerlines to make it less clear which lines you need to rotate and use.

Also, how does a hacker scramble the physical powerlines themselves? Eh, I'm thinking too much into this. Good job!
arctic_allosaurus
11. Aug 2017 · 08:50 UTC
Very fun game, I enjoyed a lot! I found the graphics cute (especially the forest tile), maybe a little polish on audio and some graphic elements (shadows for 'depth illusion' etc) would have been nice. Overall simple, yet engaging game!
🎤 thaaks
11. Aug 2017 · 19:35 UTC
Once more thanks for the valuable feedback - I'm planning to create an enhanced version.
@huvaakoodia: Yeah, also my son voted for additional powerlines to confuse the player ;-)
For ramping up the challenge I thought about adding tornadoes or earth quakes to scramble up some more powerlines during the game. Any ideas for additional hazards? Maybe powerdowns of some plants? But then the player should have a way to repair them?
Again: thanks for all your feedback!
MarkWolf
12. Aug 2017 · 16:44 UTC
A simple but very effective idea of gameplay. The fun is immediate. Indeed some music to give the game some pace and ambiance. A music whom the tempo is going faster when the player is about to loose, to give him a shot of adrenaline. But surely all the polishing stuff could be done on a post-jam version. Nice work!
spacewarp
20. Aug 2017 · 15:52 UTC
Cute pipe puzzle game. Simple graphics but sufficient, my only gripe is that it's somewhat hard to tell where the producers connect.