Boomie by Chris Hall

made by Chris Hall for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

boomieloop2.gif

(Safari users, if you experience sound issues, please read instructions at the bottom of the Itch page)

Find your way through a secret laboratory with Boomie, your trusty boomerang. Boomie is quirky - rather than come back to you, Boomie likes to circle around and around! Can you use Boomie's abilities to find your way to the end?

Best experienced with headphones!

Controls

WASD - move around

Space - Throw or recall Boomie. You must create a looping path for Boomie to follow!

K - switch characters

Tools

Engine - Phaser.js

Graphics - FTLPaint by Nikolai

Levels - Tiled

SFX - BFXR

Music - Bosca Ceoil

Screenshots

Post-deadline fixes 10/5 8:40 PM - Fixed crash in Safari and Opera - Added boomerang hit prompt in title screen updatedtitletut.png - Added switch in last level to prevent soft lock updatedescapeswitch.png - 10:43 PM Widened hallway to prevent getting trapped in a door updatednarrowhallway2.png - 10/6 10:43 AM Ad blockers didn't like the file called boomerang.js . Renamed to boomie.js

Youtube	https://github.com/nshkurkin/ldjam2020
Youtube	https://chrislhall.itch.io/boomie
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/boomie

Ratings

Overall	193^th	3.988⭐	44🧑‍⚖️
Fun	260^th	3.83⭐	46🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	37^th	4.25⭐	44🧑‍⚖️
Theme	267^th	4.08⭐	46🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	855^th	3.489⭐	46🧑‍⚖️
Audio	707^th	3.279⭐	45🧑‍⚖️
Mood	845^th	3.354⭐	43🧑‍⚖️
Given		46🗳️	68🗨️

Feedback

Holly

05. Oct 2020 · 20:39 UTC

Great idea for a game. Probably the best I've played so far! Good work :)

Prostone

05. Oct 2020 · 21:05 UTC

Love the idea, was having fun till I got stuck behind a door, because I walked through when it was opened but it closed on me before I recalled the rang. Was having fun playing this one.
Note: I had to switch to edge (i know), when I was playing in opera, game froze when boomerang looped (so the core mechanic)

floboc

05. Oct 2020 · 23:19 UTC

I like the idea, it was fun playing :)

Nikolai Shkurkin

06. Oct 2020 · 06:46 UTC

@Prostone thank you for the feedback! I think we figured out where you got stuck (we found two possible spots, one soft-lock and another had an issue with collisions). As for the other web browser support... OOOPS... we didn't budget any time to check other web browser :sweat_smile: We've updated the submission to fix crashes on Safari, Opera, and Firefox, as well as eliminate the soft-locks we found. Cheers.

Nikolai Shkurkin

06. Oct 2020 · 06:47 UTC

@holly, @floboc, thank you! We had lots of fun making it. Every step of the way held pleasant surprises :smile:

Chris Fagan

06. Oct 2020 · 07:13 UTC

Unfortunately something breaks for me when I connect Boomie to the line. The whole game freezes and nothing works.

benjamin

06. Oct 2020 · 07:18 UTC

This is very innovative. I love the little tutorial on start. The difficulty curve could be rounded a bit : The game seems very easy then I got stuck in the timed lever room without being able to pass it. Maybe some other rooms between this one and the previous would help the player to handle more difficult puzzles.

Nikolai Shkurkin

06. Oct 2020 · 07:18 UTC

@chris-fagan which browser are you using? Someone else reported this. I would recommend trying another browser (Chrome). Cheers

Nikolai Shkurkin

06. Oct 2020 · 07:23 UTC

@benjamin, thank you! And yes, that is the hardest puzzle in the game. Too late to change it for the purposes of this Jam, but I think like probably 60-80% of people get stuck there. I agree that there needed to be some ramp-up to introduce more concepts (boomie-through-a-door, then timer-switch, then combine, etc., etc.)... if only we had more time :smile:

typeswitch

06. Oct 2020 · 07:30 UTC

Loved it! Great puzzles and length!

🎤 Chris Hall

06. Oct 2020 · 08:49 UTC

Thanks @typeswitch!

AvatarGreggles

06. Oct 2020 · 12:56 UTC

I had a blast with this! Fantastic job!! I got really into it! Its tricky but fun as hell!

Pradhuman

06. Oct 2020 · 13:51 UTC

Great Game
Cool Puzzles

at end sound of burning boxes was satisfying :smiley:

Duke

06. Oct 2020 · 16:29 UTC

I can't really play it right now. Every time the boomerang makes a loop, the game crashed with the following log message: `Boomerang is not defined`

Nikolai Shkurkin

06. Oct 2020 · 17:00 UTC

@duke, @chris-fagan, can you try disabling your AdBlocker? I just discovered an issue that our `boomerang.js` gets AdBlocked :laughing:

🎤 Chris Hall

06. Oct 2020 · 17:01 UTC

@duke Yikes, which browser and platform are you on right now?

🎤 Chris Hall

06. Oct 2020 · 17:48 UTC

Nikolai made the fix for ad-block. The fix is live now!

Duke

06. Oct 2020 · 17:52 UTC

@nikolai-shkurkin oh man, your were right :) now it works.
Really cool game game! The game play loop is well thought out and works wonders. The reduced pixel art and musics fits as well. Even though one could get a little drowsy while drawing the boomerang lines while listening to the deep bass of the ost. The riddles are satisfying to solve but get a tad repetitive after the first few rooms. Sill, a worthwhile game :) Good job!

Nikolai Shkurkin

06. Oct 2020 · 17:53 UTC

@duke, @chris-fagan, @prostone, we pushed up a fix that renames the file "boomerang.js" to "boomie.js" and the game should work now with AdBlockers turned on :laughing:

🎤 Chris Hall

06. Oct 2020 · 17:56 UTC

Thanks Duke!

Chris Fagan

06. Oct 2020 · 20:42 UTC

Thanks!

Lees-Pac

07. Oct 2020 · 05:28 UTC

the idea of this game is super interesting im really impressed with this game

Nikolai Shkurkin

07. Oct 2020 · 05:35 UTC

@lees-pac thank you!

ThunderSalt

07. Oct 2020 · 05:43 UTC

Really good game, the looping and puzzle solving is really fun and intuitive!

FireSlash

07. Oct 2020 · 06:09 UTC

This is really fun!

The only complaint I have is that it plays pretty slowly. I think this is absolutely fine for LD, since it lets people get up to speed at a comfortable pace, but if you decide to flesh this out more, I'd look at ways to speed up the loop creation (Maybe letting you draw points with the mouse?)

Overall I really love this entry. The gameplay is brilliant and the puzzles have a comfy pace with new things being introduced every few levels and mechanics being tweaked and used in new ways. I really hope you keep working on this!

Nikolai Shkurkin

07. Oct 2020 · 06:19 UTC

Thank you @thundersalt, @fireslash! Everything is such a mad dash to get things put together it was easy to lose scope on how to pace the game properly. Often times I would make a puzzle and then we wouldn't have any time to redo it or put it somewhere else. We've heard a variety of responses on difficulty, from it being too slow/boring, to being just fine, to it having too hard of a spike near the end. Now that I am rating games, I appreciate ones that are easy to pick up and get through quickly, like a bite-sized snack.

And yes, we do plan to continue working on Boomie :smile: We made a design doc the first day and we had lots of ideas we couldn't get to that we think could push this concept to the next level.

Thanks again for the feedback. Cheers!

nardandas

07. Oct 2020 · 07:03 UTC

Really fun game, I really never thought it got too hard, but stayed engaging throughout. I thought the little thing where doing a puzzle in an adjacent room and lighting a torch in that room lighting a torch in the main room was a bit unintuitive, but enjoyable once I figured it out. Overall I really liked it, the floor patterns were a nice touch.

walaber

08. Oct 2020 · 04:00 UTC

nice idea! we got pretty stuck as things got harder though! very clever idea.

Nikolai Shkurkin

08. Oct 2020 · 04:30 UTC

@nardandas, @walaber, thank you so much for your feedback! Haha and thank goodness I added the floor pattern tiles or else it would look a lot more bland...

Fryer

08. Oct 2020 · 09:24 UTC

I love this game, best one I played so far, I just wish there were more levels so I could keep playing! The puzzles were not very hard, but one of them did take me a while to figure out. That ending was great too. I walked into the room and thought "I know exactly what this is!" and it was just a satisfying as I wanted it to be.

All the mechanics pretty much explained themselves as I tried doing different things, and I didn't run into any bugs or soft-locks.

Nikolai Shkurkin

08. Oct 2020 · 14:26 UTC

Thank you @fryer! We are glad you love the game :smile: There was definitely not enough time to explore everything that was possible, and my goal was to introduce each concept in the “Nintendo style” (provide gentle introductions with variations to teach you the idea) which is why it was mostly easy (except for the one hard puzzle :sweat_smile: ) I’m a big fan of the level design teaching you how things work and that seems to have been mostly successful.

Tipu

09. Oct 2020 · 14:15 UTC

Great idea and very innotavie, some times bumerang feels weird but mostly its fun and well made puzzle desing,

arzi

10. Oct 2020 · 21:52 UTC

Wow, love the idea! You also got a lot out of a relatively simple mechanic, great work!

MrchickenBoy

11. Oct 2020 · 07:04 UTC

I love the idea! The looping music soon gets boring, maybe you can change it? But overall, really fun game

gardosj

11. Oct 2020 · 15:29 UTC

Really enjoyed this game! The boomerang mechanic is really creative and works very well with the theme, and I enjoyed the challenges each level brought, especially the ones with fire. Overall awesome job!

Floata_1

12. Oct 2020 · 21:09 UTC

very fun liked the end burning all the boxes , nice puzzle game very good entry

Porcus_Pie

13. Oct 2020 · 08:47 UTC

This was a neat little game, I really liked the concept and I feel you executed it very well. The graphics are simple but they do their job, and I think that they fit your game really well. The audio, whilst sparse at times and lacking in some areas, fit the game pretty well too. The boomerang took a bit to get used to, but once I got it it felt really good. I love that I don't have to loop the entire thing, and rather I can have a long trail leading towards the loop. That made things feel a lot nicer. I do agree with a few of the comments I saw earlier about the difficulty curve, I was thinking one level that there could be more challenge, before being completely stuck on the next. Overall this was a fun game, and I definitely enjoyed my time with it.

Bocchi-dev

13. Oct 2020 · 08:53 UTC

I loved this! Definitely the best I've played so far. I love the subtle hints on the floor for some of the levels and the puzzles had me thinking. You really made good use of such a fun mechanic! Props to you dude!

firellon

13. Oct 2020 · 18:26 UTC

That's a really solid entry, had a lot of fun playing it!
The mechanic of planning your boomerang's movement is very enjoyable and fits the theme well (although the loops are often only needed to signal the end of boomie's route)

It's a bit sad that Boomie stops being alit after a bit of time, was trying to use this in the level with two torches supposed to be ignited from the one inside (which I did not ignite, but used the inside one instead to traverse the whole level being on fire)

el-pepi

14. Oct 2020 · 04:07 UTC

Great game! Very solid all around. Chill music and nice gameplay. Sometimes it´s kinda hard to tell where the boomerang can go through and where it can´t. I managed to get softlocked here and I had to restart the game ![softlock.png](///raw/b1e/z/3a234.png). Very satisfying ending

Nikolai Shkurkin

14. Oct 2020 · 04:16 UTC

@el-pepi sorry you felt like you were soft-locked! That is the trickiest puzzle in the game, but to get out of that position you need to hit the first switch again.

![Screen Shot 2020-10-13 at 9.12.47 PM.png](///raw/940/43/z/3a236.png)

Anyways, thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed it even though you restarted the game. Cheers!

DDRKirbyISQ

16. Oct 2020 · 21:43 UTC

Naice. The puzzles were not too difficult for me, but still required a bit of thinking at some points. It was great for a jam game! My main critique is that the path drawing speed feels a bit sluggish, it sort of slowed down the pace of the gameplay a bit much for me during the times when I already knew what I needed to do but had to wait for the boomerang path. Though, I understand that this is a puzzle game, not an action game, and maybe you wanted to be conservative so that people wouldn't have difficulty executing what they wanted to.

Arad HamidSamiee

17. Oct 2020 · 07:34 UTC

Sprites look good, nice set of art assets. The game could use some polishing but it does the job and fits the jame. good job

ditam

25. Oct 2020 · 10:14 UTC

Good job! A very unique mechanic that fits the theme well. The tutorial was a great touch, but it could have been extended a bit to teach more about boomerang behaviour, it would have helped with the level progression - sometimes I wasn't sure if the game is glitching or if I'm just not understanding movement rules.

Nicely polished game all in all.

kevinworkman

27. Oct 2020 · 19:54 UTC

This is a really interesting use of the theme! I enjoyed playing through this. A couple of the levels felt like I was trying random things rather than planning out my route, but this worked really well and was totally fun, so great work!