Nice idea and great execution!

I got stuck twice at the same place because I pressed a wrong button/direction. Undo button would be nice. ;)

This would make a great mobile game - I think the controls would be easier on touchscreen. Are you planning to develop it further?

@m-1: cheers, thanks for the feedback. Out of curiosity, do you mean an undo action would be nice in addition to the restart-the-level action (R key)? (If you didn't discover R, then my bad, I'd need to make that action more discoverable.)

> I think the controls would be easier on touchscreen. Are you planning to develop it further?

I agree! Touch controls are something I've never explored, but that'd be high on the list of things to try if I work on this game some more. It seems trivial to cross-compile for mobile with Unity.

I will mosey over to your game and leave some feedback momentarily

@m-1: cheers, thanks for the feedback. Out of curiosity, do you mean an undo action would be nice in addition to the restart-the-level action (R key)? (If you didn't discover R, then my bad, I'd need to make that action more discoverable.)

> I think the controls would be easier on touchscreen. Are you planning to develop it further?
I agree! Touch controls are something I've never explored, but that'd be high on the list of things to try if I work on this game some more. It seems trivial to cross-compile for mobile with Unity.

Re: @lennart-jansson: *Do you mean an undo action would be nice in addition to the restart-the-level action (R key)?*

Yes, being able to undo just one step would be better than resetting the whole level and having to repeat all "good" steps I did before I got stuck.

Beautiful idea. I enjoyed my trip through the Giants Causeway. This is neatly executed and easy and fun to play. Just missing Coltrane background music;) Amazing job!

@m-1: gotcha, that's completely fair. Thanks for your comment

@tommyflower: glad you enjoyed it! (Aww, I think it would be kind of sacrilege to misappropriate Coltrane for a tiny game like this :) )

Nice & func game. A little bit of music would've helped the atmosphere. I was a little suprised that the controls changed when i changed the camera angle but that helped the game, ice idea.

Nice little game. Well done! I tracked down your entry after being very impressed with the thoughtfulness of your feedback on Puchi Pooches. I like the graphical style of your game with the blocks and the little character. Music would be nice (although as someone who is not a musician at all and generally doesn't add it to my entries I completely understand not putting it in). A few simple sound effects on actions (move, pick up, drop, end of level) would go a long way. Personally I found the controls a little complex given the simplicity of the game play. The little prompts for what key needs to be pressed to move in each direction were a nice touch though and certainly helped. I could see the game being extended with other puzzle elements, but as a tribute to a beloved game of your childhood and as a Ludum Dare entry the scope of the game is perfect. Great work on your entry and thanks for making the effort and taking the time to provide well considered feedback to others.

> A few simple sound effects on actions (move, pick up, drop, end of level) would go a long way.

@flipsy: Funny story: I actually made some sound effects with bfxr on Sunday night of the jam (for all the actions you suggest) but I wasn't completely satisfied with them, and worried that players would find them annoying I decided to leave them out. Ugh, darn! I'm kicking myself now for not spending a few more minutes to tweak them and get them in before the deadline. Oh well. This was my first LD and a lesson has been learned

After a couple of levels I get used to the controls and I really like the concept of the game! Well done!

Got stuck a couple of times but overall I think this can become something fun, with more mechanics in play. ;)

I like that puzzle game. The graphics are so good, and the little protagonist is so cute. Maybe more mechanics in the future will be great!

Your game is just awesome. Nicely polished, neat, playable and the puzzles are great! Just awesome! :)

Nice! The graphics were pretty simple, but sharp and polished. Perhaps as a suggestion, make it so you can also use the mouse to click on where to go? I found myself pressing the wrong directional buttons at times, forcing me to stop and look at what letter went to the tile I wanted to go to. Probably my only complaint, and it's a minor one... Might be a good option to be able to reverse the controls, where WASD rotates the camera and the mouse selects the tile to go to. It might make it more intuitive for some people.

If you like puzzles, you might like my puzzle platformer called The Z Axis:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/the-z-axis

I like the simple graphics and idea, but the controls seemed a bit weird. I do like that they changed with the camera though, nice touch.

Very pretty and overall well made. I think it's also a smart and relatively unique puzzle game concept. However, I had a really hard time with the controls – I think using the mouse would have been a better choice.

Lovely art, and the concept is great too! The controls felt a bit weird, but aside from that the game is nice!

Some music would've been lovely :D

Keep up the hard work! :)

5 levels in I still couldn't get used to the controls, mentally mapping the keyboard buttons to six directions was pretty challenging. I think clicking would've suited it better, since moving quickly isn't very important

that said I enjoyed the puzzles and it was relaxing with some background music added. good work

Great concept and very well executed. Great job :slight_smile:

Kudos for the button mapping when you move on the hexes. Really hits the "simple concept, complex execution" mark of a good puzzle game. Nice work!

(I suppose I've already played your game, but might as well leave some comments here now that judging has actually started. :P)

I think the puzzles are brilliantly designed, hands-down. You do a great job at introducing the mechanics one by one, like basic movement, picking up hexes, stacking hexes, etc., and pretty much every level has a reason for being in the game, either because it introduces a new concept or because it communicates a really neat idea. This is not something you can say for many puzzle games! (even some of my favorites, like The Talos Principle)

I want to give a specific shout out to level 11. I was making my way through the game fairly quickly, but then I got completely stuck on that one, making no progress for at least 15 minutes. After finally figuring out what I had to do, my mind was completely blown and I could only stare speechless at the genius of it all. Levels 15 and 16 also stood out to me as levels that really stretched your mind.

In terms of user experience, I have a few suggestions:
- The controls were somewhat difficult to manage; I would keep pressing wrong directions unless I took it really slowly. Though to be honest, I can't think of a better key mapping since 6 directions will always be difficult to manage (some people suggested using the mouse, which might work though it would certainly be slower). Perhaps touch controls on mobile are the best option.
- Like many others have said, I think an undo button is absolutely necessary for games like this, where one wrong move can get you stuck and force you to redo all of your work. This was exacerbated by the difficult controls, especially on level 16 where there are tons of places you can screw up. On one level I made it to the very end, only to mess up the final placement, which was especially irritating.
- Some way to indicate the relative heights of columns would have been nice. It was a little annoying taking the time to build an N stack, only to realize that I needed an N+1 stack since I misjudged the height.
- This has also been mentioned already, but I would have liked some audio feedback when moving around and stacking things. I feel like even mediocre sound effects are better than none, and you could always give players a mute option if you think they might dislike them.

Some of these points, especially the lack of undo button, did make playing the game more frustrating, but none of this takes away from the great level design. You really pushed the basic mechanics to their limits, which I feel is an important part of all great puzzles (this contrasts heavily with our LD game, where we threw in a bunch of mechanics without exploring them much). As someone who loves puzzle games, the level design alone basically forces me to give this 5 stars.

Insta favorite of mine. I got some Q-Bert vibes from your game. Really love how the controls get updated by rotating the world. Audio brings an extra layer to a game, but you opted out of that category and it didn't bother me at all that there was none. Very well done, hats off to you!

Realy cool puzzle game! Controlls are a bit confusing though. Maybe controlling via mouse-clicks would feel a bit easier. The rising difficulty fits nice. I had fun playing it.

Great game, nice graphics and interesting puzzles. And as others have mentioned, maybe mouse controls would be easier/smoother. Very well done regardless.

Good game, the controls are weird tho, would be nice to have a mouseclick option since I got myself stuck on a number of occasions when rotating the camera since the controls change then, overall fun game!

Very nice game. Clean, simple graphic, and engaging gameplay.
Add some ambient music and sounds, and you can release this game on mobile platforms :)

This is a great game. Love the puzzles and love the way it all fits together. Graphics are very good (I love low poly) and the controls are simple and with no need for any explanation. It looks like a very polished game ... no bugs or game breaking mechanics .... everything works well. great job!

Neat game with a nice clean style. You found an interesting way of making hex navigation quick and intuitive. After a few levels I didn't notice the letters. Its amusing that almost everything in the game is made from the same asset. Sometimes I wish there was a resourcefulness rating so that this type of cleverness could be recognized.

It's a puzzle alright. I found the levels to be quite easy to solve logically, but not otherwise. That is to say I too will moan about the controls.

Basically all of this has already been said, but it bears repeating. Every puzzle ever should have an infinite undo function. We are not talking about games (inductive logic challenge) here, we are talking about puzzles (deductive logic challenge) so having an undo feature doesn't ruin anything (unlike, say, racing games with a reverse time mechanic **Shudders**)

Another issue, a bigger one I reckon, is the keyboard controls. Why keyboard to begin with? With mouse controls this would be a cinch: left mouse button to move, right to pick up and drop. A mouse control scheme would also translate to touch devices much easier. Puzzles are great on touch devices so choosing the control method is a very important development decision indeed.

The design and the graphics are fine. Some audio would have been nice, surely there must be loads of freeware jazz out there. Good work.

Wow, this ended up really good. I really hope to see if you continue developing this.

A few suggestions though: The controls were a bit odd. I really appreciated that you programmed the keys to change as the camera rotated around, however the controls just didn't click with me at all, and felt clumsy. I ended up simply using the 'w' key and rotating the camera the direction I wanted to move or drop an item. At the mention of items, there is one other thing that probably resulted from the time restraints of the jam: more than once I managed to trap myself while moving about the levels. One level I had to redo about 4 times, not because I didn't understand the goal, but due to a mispress (The clumsy controls mentioned earlier) I would completely mess up a run in my stage. I think if you keep developing this an undo button would be a lot better.

Overall though, I really enjoyed the graphical style, it was clean and unobtrusive, and I think a nice quiet somber piece of music would accompany this game perfectly. Great job!

If you'd like to give my game a look, I'd be very appreciative. You can find it on my profile.

Love this. One of my favorites for sure. Could definitely use some music, but otherwise absolutely solid. The tooltips for the controls are a genius touch. I was still stumbling on the controls for a while, but I'd probably get used to it eventually. Good work. :)

I am amazed by the control. Robust, different and still intuitive. Wonderful.