Shape Escape - A minimalist strategy game by S J Palmer
Place goals on the map, and guide the shapes towards them by bending the tracks with a click. Don't be too slow or the shape will explode, changing the tracks and leaving you without a point. But don't be too reckless - bring the wrong shape to the wrong goal and both will explode. Lose all your goals and it's game over!
Controls * Click and drag goals (which also act as your lives) onto the map * Click and hold between loops to merge or unmerge tracks
Many thanks to all the users who made their assets free to use!
Music * Life in corrupted binary - HaelDB (https://opengameart.org/content/life-corrupted-binary)
Sound effects * pluckedstring.wav - kotzbrocken (https://freesound.org/people/kotzbrocken/sounds/15487/) * Tight kick - tasmanian-drums (https://freesound.org/people/tasmanian-drums/sounds/157757/) * error - LeszekSzary (https://freesound.org/people/LeszekSzary/sounds/171497/) * Powerup/success.wav - GabrielAraujo (https://freesound.org/people/GabrielAraujo/sounds/242501/) * Bamboo Swing, A14.wav - InspectorJ (https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/394418/) * whooshlong_low.wav - DJT4NN3R (https://freesound.org/people/DJT4NN3R/sounds/449990/)
Font * Cooper Hewitt Heavy - https://open-foundry.com/fonts/cooperhewittheavy
| Youtube | https://sjpalmer.itch.io/ludum-dare-47 |
| Youtube | https://sjpalmer.itch.io/ludum-dare-47 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/shape-escape-a-minimalist-strategy-game |
Ratings
| Overall | 403th | 3.786⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 206th | 3.905⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 29th | 4.286⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 141th | 4.214⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 740th | 3.619⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1096th | 2.235⭐ | 19🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 385th | 3.786⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 15🗳️ | 8🗨️ |
Right now clicks change a section of tracks temporarily, as long as you hold. Have you considered letting these changes be permanent? I think it would be easier to manage lots of shapes if you can re-arrange the map permanently (you could just set & forget). But perhaps you already tried this idea during playtesting?
@kregames I was absolutely inspired by Mini Metro but on crazy loops! Then I tried to invert the gameplay by having you place the 'stations' rather than the tracks
@amarillion I originally had the track changes as permanent (and I actually forgot to remove my developer cheat codes, so you can push "tab" in game to try it out - although some of the track colours will get messed up!). However I found that having the track be more permanent lead to more strategy when deciding where to place the goals
Overall I liked it very much good job.
I also prefer the permanent track changes, but I wonder if that has to do with the fact that we're all beginners here. Like, we don't understand the metagame so we have to constantly correct our course, but a more experienced player would understand the flow of things and get more enjoyment about the correct planning of goals. Like how a beginner Tetris player might go for single-line clears to keep their board clear while a veteran would build it up for back-to-back tetrises. I dunno, food for thought.
It's pretty hard, though – I'd appreciate a slower ramp up at the beginning. The various settings (dot speed, map size, etc) are super useful but I'd want to be able to make new dots not show up as fast (is time between new lives the right setting for this? I couldn't tell that it made a big difference).
It seems to me that one could win this game easily by created and isolating goals, that is, never let any shapes get near them; just keep a few in their own very small tracks. Maybe the goals should explode eventually as well?