Stuck in a Loop (station) by erikiene
Have you ever wondered how a Loop Station works? Well you better figure it out fast because you’re stuck in one!😱
The only way out is through - complete the musical puzzles in challenge mode to make your way through the loop stations maze of wires and circuits and escape or... accept your fate and enjoy your new life of beautiful beats, which you get to make yourself in the sandbox mode!
If you find yourself grooving hard at the track you built in the Sandbox mode - screencap the sequence and share in the comments below so that we and other players could groove along! :musical_note:
!!! Extremely important !!! Found yourself stuck in one of the rooms, unable to proceed? Now thinking to yourself "surely this is not the fault of the developers' lack of puzzle design skills, but rather my incompetence in puzzle-solving.. Their puzzles are mind-bendingly genius, I should find means of following the work these developers embark on in the future."? Well, you're in luck!! Our Twitter page just stepped off the boat and would be humbled to have you follow it.
The People
🔊 Andrius Mackevicius - Music & Sound Effects, UI
⌨️ Erikas Kamaitis - Code
🧱 Paulius Cerkauskas - 3D Models
⌨️ 🍗 Rytis Rukuiza - Code, Executive Roaster of Chicken
The Tools
- Unity 2019.4.11f1
- Ableton 10 Standard
- Reaper
- Wwise 2019.2.6
- Autodesk Maya 2018
The Experience
As soon as the topic was announced a rapid-fire brainstorming session ensued. After a cavalcade of ideas, ranging from a racing game, to what was basically a remake of Tennet, we decided on a first-person rhythm puzzle game. No small task for 72 hours, but hey, we love a good challenge!
Early next morning Andrius and Erikas got to work, laying the groundwork for the puzzle mechanics and sound effects, while Rytis and Paulius joined in the afternoon. Working late into the night (or rather into the morning), the team managed to create a pretty sweet loop station in a 3D environment. The beats still ringing in our ears, we called it a day.
Just a few hours later the coffee was brewing and the team got back to work, and before we knew it the day was coming to an end (it's crazy how fast 72 hours disappears on a Game Jam crunch)! Fortunately, with main mechanics in place, the sound effects crisp and the 3D models looking pretty damn good, the game was coming together nicely!
Known Bugs
- Not very playable for colour-blind players. We bow our heads in shame and promise to put in some research and time into making a colour-blind friendly mode available.
- ~~Environment too dark on some screens.~~ 2020/10/08: Partially fixed by adding a flashlight ('L' key to toggle).
| Youtube | https://e.itch.io/stuck-in-a-loop-station |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/stuck-in-a-loop-station |
Ratings
| Overall | 347th | 3.846⭐ | 70🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 378th | 3.706⭐ | 70🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 146th | 3.978⭐ | 69🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 343th | 4.007⭐ | 71🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 360th | 4.036⭐ | 72🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 44th | 4.294⭐ | 70🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 623th | 2.933⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 380th | 3.791⭐ | 69🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 78🗳️ | 120🗨️ |
Even though it was very fun o play and fit the theme quite well, I had to give up at that point, sadly without reaching the probably very satisfying ending. 4.0 Overall and personal winner in Graphics (4.0), Mood (4.5) and Sound (4.0) so far but beyond my puzzle solving skills, sadly.
@klaaswag @giordas thanks a lot! 🙌🙌
@abdul-zakkar thanks, puzzle fix on the way!
By the way, drop us a screenshot of what you come up with in the sandbox mode, so we could recreate and jam to it here! Here's mine to get the party going 🕺
Would love to see this finished as some kind of environmental puzzle game not unlike The Witness
: feels like so much could be done with this idea.
Good job to the team!
@don-tnowe - funny you say that, we mentioned The Witness a few times during development! We'll try and launch a twitter page in the coming week or two so that anyone interested can follow for further developments as we do intend to push on with this project. Will notify you one that's ready (whether you want it or not :) )
@tipyx - yeah, we had better ideas for lighting but good old time ran out.. :D hence the addition of a flashlight, which I recognise is not the best solution but hopefully works somewhat. We've got sorting the lights out in the pipeline.
@vphyre - "allow you"?! We love the feedback! We were thinking something like "press h for hint" to give hints in each room when a player needs them, but a tutorial might be an alternative solution.
@jogy34 - well, as per the theme, you are *stuck* in a loop! But yeah, lazy excuses aside - we aim to put that functionality in soon and until then hopefully alt+f4 does the trick as per my teammate above. Thank you for playing! ;)
i enjoyed playing a lot, like the rest i was stacked on the 3rd room, wish igot passed it.
amazing graphic, mood, and generl game!!!!!
I got stuck on the TV puzzle but I've already read you're working on that so I'll wait to the 2.0 version to play it again.
Congratulations!
@blue-pin-studio - yeah, we recognise we're introducing some random concepts out of nowhere without really easing the player into them and so will aim to fix that with.. (drumroll).... **more rooms**! in our post-jam releases. And yeah, a pause menu is something we should probably give some focus to creating :sweat_smile:
@lucbarr - that's a very good suggestion! we had it in our minds that we need to solve the colour blind friendliness of this game, but didn't yet know how. Shapes might be the answer. If we apply such a solution soon, I will be sure to notify you!
@zacharieg - y-....you....... might be the first player to have completed all the rooms! (at least going by the comments) congratulations! Thank you for the kind words! Humbled by the winning though and definitely by being likened to (although far from the quality of) The Witness :bow:
@aflatthrasher - you have no idea how the puzzle-building parts of our brains are relieved to hear such words coming from a player! (regarding the nature of puzzle games). And hell yeah we're continuing! I invite you to follow our [spanking-new twitter page](https://twitter.com/UnvrsllyAbsrd) (despite its lack of content) where we will try and inform people on updates to this experience and any future developments.
@commanderstitch - damn. We are honoured by you thinking of some fairly advanced ways of solving the rooms, while in reality we wouldn't have been able to think of such puzzles in the first place! :laughing: Room 3 is in fact simpler than that, but we do recognise it's causing friction for many players and are therefore trying to work out ways of making it less confusing and more pleasing, while still keeping it more difficult than rooms 1&2. As I am a big fan of the comment you left, I offer you and others reading this reply an exclusive (which might go out of date if we apply a patch..) - the word above the door offers several clues. One contextual (via the meaning of the word) and one more direct (via the parts of the word).
I don't have much to say other than that. The game is good overall for me not to have anything really relevant to say ^^. Continue like that !
Congratulations on making it to LD47 ! It's a solid entry !
A few issues i had were:
- The FPS (It was around 20) So I'll Recommend At Least Enabling Unity's Default Graphics Options.
- The Sensitivity Just Having a Slider In The Menu Makes Your Game Way More Accessible.
Other Than That, Great Game! Really Enjoyed It.
Other than that; game was fairly enjoyable. I really felt no motivation to solve the puzzles, same issue I had with the witness. The only reward was more puzzles, which is a bit of a shame. I get that's it's own fairly successful niche that I'm just not a part of though. Great visual and auditory polish as well
Above all I agree with your sentiment that living with mistakes is part of the gamejam experience! We are living with the classic mistake of overscoping, bad UI, very poor difficulty scaling and a long long list of more such mistakes.
I think your point about motivation is a very interesting one. Our needs for motivation in games likely differ, but that's not to say I don't understand your point. In our minds the main motivators in this experience are 1) the same as any escape room's (i.e. escaping) and 2) seeing yourself create a groovy track as you progress through the rooms. I fully get not all people dig such motivators and appreciate your comment because it will make us think more about this for future developments.
Finally - huge respect for being able to write a critical comment and at the same time point out what you did like.
@fluffy-kaeloky Ah, the tv puzzle... :sweat_smile: Thanks for playing and the feedback! Had a look at FRACT OSC and it looks amazing, I definitely get where you see the similarities, thanks for showing it!
@whynotyt Thanks for the kind words and super happy you enjoyed the sandbox mode! If you make some cool loops there, be sure to share it with us via a screenshot, so we could recreate it! :man_dancing: Sorry, that you had performance issues, that's definitely something we need to look at and your suggestions will be addressed!
I wish we could have increased the BPM of the loop station!
Thanks for this pleasant (game?) experience! :D
Great job about everything in this game ! I love it and I want more !
the graphics are gorgeous and really gives the game a polished and futuristic feel.
The music is absolutely amazing, you can hear your progression which is such a cool reward for solving the puzzles. the addition of a Sandbox is also nice, I had some fun there ^^
this is definitely a must play of this ludum dare :D
btw, here is my Sandox creation ^^
https://youtu.be/1Wxlb8IoQH0
@hoolop Thanks for playing and for the feedback! Oh yes we're definitely thinking of doing something more, consider following us on [twitter](https://twitter.com/UnvrsllyAbsrd), we'll be posting updates (even though there's nothing there yet haha)
@jrevel haha I knew more people must've thought about something similar! Very inspiring indeed and thanks for playing!
@loligxp Oh wow, that was amazing, we recreated your track and hell yeah - it's killer! I just wish we had given you more options and more lines for each instrument, perhaps an option to change in between sections, I can only imagine what you would've come up with then! Thanks so much for sharing and if you ever want to hear it again, here's your recreated track:
https://youtu.be/eXzKxMO-6Tw
My only complaint is that it was a little too dark for me to see my way around...
Alas, I couldn't get past the hi-hat puzzle... which was really frustrating as I desparately wanted the next part of the loop!!
Oh, yes, one other thought: In the sandbox, please add a CONFIRMATION BEFORE RESET!!!!111one
My first composition was much better... ahh well.
_Loved_ this entry. Well done.
I liked how each step added to the background music and the models really added to being trapped in a machine.
I think having a smaller puzzle before the TV room could help with introducing needing to look for more than a flashing light would be a good stepping stone but not sure if it would be able to fit with the song being built around you.
Looking forward to a release with more puzzles, and playing more with the sandbox.
@hicko thanks :)
@apfel thank you :)
@cdunham thanks for playing and for the awesome entry! I beg to differ regarding your comment on your music making skills! I really love the way that the keys line seems to morph and variate when listening together with the bass, seems it's always kind of evolving, love it! Here - listen for yourself!
https://youtu.be/v8cXDk-mcvk
@garys Hey thanks so much for playing, the screen and the feedback! Apologies about the room being too dark, our original idea was to play around with the lighting so that it would react to the music, but unfortunately we couldn't do that in time... buuuut we added a flashlight hahah ('L' to toggle). And we wrote down the confirmation thingy on our to-do list, thanks.
Very happy you managed to crack the hi-hat puzzle with the help of the community, that's awesome! Yeah we're sad as well that the keys puzzle isn't there (...yet, something might happen after the jam ends...). Again, we had a puzzle in mind, we even left the models for the keys that @cerka made (we think they're very pretty), but alas we envisioned a bit too much :smile: That's something we will try to rectify with our next Jam.
Lastly LOVED your composition, super groovy and I particularly liked the way you used the attack on the orange Keys notes, sort of introduced a rhythmicality to the line, really cool! Here's your stuff on youtube :raised_hands: :
https://youtu.be/MBccLaoY_CI
@jammygunns Thanks for the feedback and playing. We totally agree that the learning curve is way too steep after the second room, some easier puzzles before getting to the TVs would definitely help set players in the right mindset for the puzzle. Looking forward to hearing what you make in the Sandbox!
@palemek haha thanks for playing and the feedback, very happy you didn't give up! :muscle:
@papaver Thank you and congrats on beating the game! So cool that your hints are helping other people as well, that's great. Totally blown away by your track, it's been playing here in the background for ages and it still remains fresh. Very musical use of the stops as well, really really great stuff! :bow: On youtube:
https://youtu.be/yt2hXZ6qByc
@f1krazy Hey thanks for playing and very happy you managed to get through it! Happy to hear that even though it's not particularly easy, it's still doable :pray:
"F" to applaud yourself on this creative puzzle you created (and the audio prototyping tool, aswell)!
@trexxak hahah thanks and great that you found some help in the community! :raised_hands: and thank you so much for the submission, loved the track has this uplifting positive vibe to it, it fascinates me how different everyone's compositions get to be, very inspiring! Standing "F" ovation from our team here to you sir :clap: :clap: :clap:
https://youtu.be/ftiLURSP-5o
Thanks everyone who rated, commented and played the game! This was an amazing and truly inspiring experience. Difficult to put to words how much fun it was recreating the music that you guys created with the tools that we gave you, it was amazing how different and interesting every single entry was, even though the tools themselves were quite limited. Massive thanks to everyone and we're bashing 'F' to applaud every single one! :heart: