Master Builder Daedalus by Ithildin

[raw]
made by Ithildin for Ludum Dare 45 (COMPO)

cover-00.png

Plot:

You're the renowned Daedalus, one of the most famous inventors and builders in ancient mythology.

Following a tavern brawl with a shepherd who turned out to be no other than the god Dyonisus in disguise, you find yourself standing by a deep chasm with nothing to help you cross to the other side.

Luckily you're one of Athena's favourites and she's left some magical maze building scrolls floating around. Use your skills as a master builder to reach them and pave your way through the chasm and into freedom.

PS: If you beat the final level, could you please share in the comments a screenshot of the path you built towards the goal before reaching for the stairs? I'm really curious to see how players approach it :smile:

Controls:

Game should work using keyboard or gamepad devices. For the gamepad button names I'm assuming an Xbox-like controller. It should work with the equivalent buttons in other controllers, but I haven't tested any other.

  • Arrow keys / WASD or Left Stick / D-pad: Move Daedalus in normal mode, and move blocks in placement mode.
  • Q/E keys or Left/Right pad shoulder buttons: In placement mode, rotate blocks left/right, respectively.
  • C key or A button: Confirm placement, and Accept option in most menus.
  • X key or B button: Cancel placement. Bear in mind that this will delete the block and could leave you stuck on a level. Use wisely! :wink:

Tools and due credit:

  • Unity v2019.3b4 with Visual Studio 2017.
  • Aseprite.
  • Fonts used are Apostrophic Labs' Diogenes and Codeman38's Press Start 2P (https://www.dafont.com/es/press-start-2p.font).

Changelog:

  • 07/10/2019: Added Mac/Linux builds.
  • 13/10/2019 (I): Added v0.0.2 for Windows / Web versions fixing input issues and a tile visibility bug.
  • 13/10/2019 (II): Added v0.0.3 for Windows / Web versions fixing input agan :facepalm:
  • 14/10/2019: Mac / Linux updated to v0.0.3 too.

Ratings

Overall 112th 3.729⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Fun 114th 3.6⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 51th 3.957⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Theme 126th 3.771⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 204th 3.443⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Humor 189th 2.779⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Mood 239th 3.182⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Given 33🗳️ 39🗨️

Feedback

Gabriele
07. Oct 2019 · 05:21 UTC
Lovely concept, well executed.

My only complaint is that in the last level, no matter where I place the second block (the big room) the game registers a game over and sets me back at the level start screen, so I can't complete it.
Jupiter_Hadley
07. Oct 2019 · 17:47 UTC
Really nice idea. I included it in my Ludum Dare 45 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/-U44UyPCEiM
Yeomsley
07. Oct 2019 · 22:06 UTC
That was a fun puzzle game! The last one was quite difficult. Part of solving it seemed to depend on memorizing what kind of blocks you will get from certain scrolls. I'm glad you included it however to show how tricky the game could be after warming us up with the introductory levels. Nice work! :smile:
unept
08. Oct 2019 · 15:21 UTC
This is very, very clever. I admit I played a couple levels without rotating the blocks, but still eventually passed them! But toward the end that was impossible. A lot of potential with this concept.
GeruGames
08. Oct 2019 · 20:56 UTC
Really nice game, only real complaint is that the movement feels a little slow when going from tile to tile.
blobo
08. Oct 2019 · 22:48 UTC
Woah cool! I love the take on the theme, wonderfully done!
Walkingtall85
08. Oct 2019 · 22:53 UTC
Overall it looks fairly nice, but I ran into an issue that our daedalus had a panick attack every move, shaking for a couple of seconds and sadly gave up before finishing the first room. Interesting concept though!
Deadlykarrot
08. Oct 2019 · 23:09 UTC
Really good game, except the hallway pieces are very harsh.
Cedric Matheus
09. Oct 2019 · 01:43 UTC
Nice puzzles!
velvetlobster
09. Oct 2019 · 02:05 UTC
really really good idea for a game, very original gameplay mechanics, with some enemies this could be like a new kind of dungeon crawler puzzle game, please make the battles turn based then =)
kuviman
09. Oct 2019 · 20:27 UTC
Nice mechanics, a bit too easy though for my liking :) more pieces with walls would make it better i think
redmountainman1
10. Oct 2019 · 01:26 UTC
Really fun. I had to stop and think on a few parts, but it was a good little puzzle game.
Webox
10. Oct 2019 · 01:54 UTC
Well that final level escalated quickly hahha. Great job, really loved the idea and the execution. Levels were a bit too easy but I understand the difficulty of building puzzle game levels with a time constraint. Great job! Loved it
Danilo Freire
10. Oct 2019 · 03:36 UTC
![Captura de Tela 2019-10-10 às 00.22.16.png](///raw/099/e1/z/2943d.png)

Heeey, love this one! Great mechanic and theme! <3
gamefive
10. Oct 2019 · 03:55 UTC
The level design and the puzzle were very interesting and fun. It's a game that I'm looking forward to. I will look forward to making you a more interesting game It's a great game.
Talia
11. Oct 2019 · 14:50 UTC
I like the ancient Greek look. I like the puzzle mechanic as well. Very small criticism: the character could move even further if you keep the key pressed. I really enjoyed playing your game!
Yonman
11. Oct 2019 · 19:39 UTC
Great puzzle game! The story was interesting and I really got into it.
🎤 Ithildin
11. Oct 2019 · 20:25 UTC
Thank you all for playing and your feedback, it is really useful and encouraging! I've taken note of some issues I need to address, specially those regarding movement controls and the level pacing.

The latter issue comes down mostly to lack of content. I do want those first levels to be easy so the player learns the mechanics naturally without having to implement a hand-holding tutorial BUT past those first 2-3 levels I should definitely offer a decent amount of content offering some fair challenge. The last level, on the other hand, is the sandbox level I used while developing the game. Since I realised I'd run out of time for level design and I had managed to beat it a number of times myself, I decided to keep it as some sort of boss level. Since it doesn't really offer new mechanics I assumed it would work, but I agree that it's too harsh, especially since there are very few opportunities to place corridor + wall blocks in reasonable spots.

@gabriele If the goal isn't reachable AND you can't reach any scrolls either when you place a block you lose. Could you remember if that condition applied? Even then, I fixed some of those false wins/losses during development and while I haven't been able to reproduce it on the finished build so far, perhaps there are still some corner cases left. I'll look into it, thank you!

@yeomsley You're right. For the first iteration I decided not to randomize the scrolls because a full shuffle could alter the balancing. Smarter alternatives like assigning a block to a scroll by picking a random item from a scroll-dependent set of choices, to name a relatively simple one, would have taken a time I didn't have so I decided to be safe.
Because of this, at the moment memory definitely plays a role, specially on smaller levels (and well, on the final one you end up learning where the walled corridors are to avoid them like the plague :grin:).
Something else I would have liked to test is if being able to see the available types of blocks on the level screen could play a role in the way players approach the level.

@walkingtall85 That was weird. The shaking may happen occasionally from move to move, but it's not super frequent. I want to polish the controls and hopefully fix both the game feel and glitches like this. Were you using a keyboard or a gamepad?

@jupiter-hadley Thank you for playing! I remember you mentioned on the video being able to fill the map and that was something I'd considered. When I play games with a strong focus on exploration I always like to reveal 100% of the maps, and for this I had thought about having a goal that required you to fill the map (or at least a minimum percentage).

@blobo Thank you! I was fearing the theme connection would be hard to perceive :sweat_smile:

@webox I definitely agree. I'm a coder by trade, and level design is something I'm still getting better at, but it's true time constraints don't make it easier :smile:

@gamefive I can't promise a lot because every time I say I want to keep working on a game it tends to vanish from my focus after a few weeks, but I'd definitely like to add more levels (and hopefully new elements) to a post-compo version.

@talia Thanks! I've been a massive Greek mythology nerd since I was a little girl, so I was looking forward to use it as a setting for a game. Noted your criticism about the controls, I reaally need to fix them.
Susumu Asaga
12. Oct 2019 · 01:24 UTC
Really nice and creative game, had loads of fun playing it.

I just don't like the way you move, it's a little stiff that you can only continue to move once the player reaches the center of the tile he is moving into.

One other problem that I came across is that when you cancel the building, the piece vanish, I feel that it should remain in the same spot to be used later.

I'm just not smart enough to beat the last level kkkk, but I really liked the Greek theme.

Overall a really fun game that I'm amazed that it was made by a single dev in 48h.
frenchie
12. Oct 2019 · 07:08 UTC
Woohoo! I'm a master builder! Had fun piecing the levels together (especially that last one)! I do wish the movement were a little less stiff. Faster movement between tiles and a little leniency on letting someone press their next move key before they arrive at the destination would go a long way. Overall, a pretty great entry! :smile:
Piturnah
12. Oct 2019 · 14:47 UTC
Really awesome game! Biggest thing to improve would be the movement
🎤 Ithildin
13. Oct 2019 · 02:30 UTC
@susumu-asaga @frenchie @piturnah Thank you, glad you liked it! I've addressed the movement on v0.0.2 which is already on itch.io. I might iterate over it a bit further in the future (depending on what mechanics or level elements I might add next, I was considering even switching from turn-based to real-time, for example), but it shouldn't feel so stiff now.

As for cancelling placement destroying the block, I did a quick test where cancelling restores the block. It improves the experience quite a bit, so I'll add that to the post-compo version instead of the compo's.
egos
13. Oct 2019 · 07:45 UTC
really like the concept and well realized
But i have to stop because the movement of the player bug when i hit the border black
if you make change pls let me know i will like to try again

edit : @Ithildin it was the vibrating player issue i will test your change soon thanks ;)
🎤 Ithildin
13. Oct 2019 · 14:40 UTC
@egos Thanks for playing! What was the exact problem you experienced with the movement? Could you tell me which version you played (web v0.2, mac, etc, etc) and the input device, please?

I've updated the Web/Windows versions again with a small change to the movement routine that should fix the vibrating player issue once and for all :fingers_crossed: . If this was what you meant, could you please try again? If not, I'm afraid I might need a bit more information :sweat_smile:
Majadroid
13. Oct 2019 · 18:17 UTC
Nice puzzle mechanis with much potetial. I liked playing it and I also would like to play some more levels (with some calm music ^^).
schwede
15. Oct 2019 · 17:46 UTC
This is a really cool idea! But only not that, I got also impressed how good you made the graphics in a short time. You should stick to this idea and develop a bit further.
aeveis
19. Oct 2019 · 05:53 UTC
Nice! Here's my final level solution: ![DaedalusSolution.png](///raw/2e2/1/z/29b3c.png)

The earlier levels felt more puzzle-y as certain pieces only fit in certain ways, the bigger levels felt more like adapt as you go. I lost the last level several times before I figured out pieces for a solution. It was confusing as first that I couldn't place pieces on the question marks, but realized they made their own tile was a piece was placed. I could see some more designed levels, but since you have to guess and check for some of them perhaps a faster restart or a way to undo. Nice job, keep up the good work!