Very cool! I love the idea. It felt a little slow at first, but then I definitely was glad I wasn't moving faster as soon as a couple other red dots were dashing around. Very fun puzzles. Good level design / progression!

This is one of the best! I love the puzzles and am looking forward to more someday from @staircase27a who made a great game here. Several of them really took me a while in a good way. Thank you!

The macOS version is telling me I do not have permission to open it and to contact my computer administrator. Do you know why this is happening?

The macOS version is telling me I do not have permission to open it and to contact my computer administrator. Do you know why this is happening?

Really clever idea and well designed puzzles. Well done!

Love the idea and takes some planning, especially when you get to the third level.

So, I've launched the game and was like 'meh, another unfinished... thing. With basic controls and no graphics'.

All that until I've reached level with blue buttons and generate my first paradox. And it changed everything. It was a wow moment. The game immediately become something deep and meaningful. It goes from low tier to potential winner in main categories.

You MUST add web-build, upload it on itch. This game deserves better.

@silverhammermax: I'm afraid I don't have a mac so don't really know about the macOS version I'm afraid. From advice I found on the internet try running chmod 777 "Stuck in a (Time) Loop - Mac OS X Universal.app\Contents\MacOS\Stuck in a (Time) Loop - Mac OS X Universal" and it might work. I have also uploaded a new version of the app (exactly the same build but this time as a tgz file which claims the permissions on the file should be 777 as required).

@staircase27a The Mac version works now. I really enjoy the game.

Despite a lot of issues that are not perfect (or even good in some cases, unfortunately), I enjoyed the playthrough very much and do like the game. You came up with solid puzzle mechanics, clever twists and interesting levels, which during a game jam is not easy at all! And I'd actually play more if provided :)

What nearly made me quit in first level though is the movement. Haven't I found out that you can also control the character with mouse, I wouldn't continue, the keyboard movement was too floaty and unprecise to be at least plausible and was downright frustrating to keep losing just because the weird momentum of Unity physics. Don't do that next time, please, it would be shame if you'd lose players of good puzzle game because of bad controls. You're making a thinking game in a first place, the execution shouldn't be this difficult.

Minor stuff is that sometimes collisions won't trigger, so you have to wait for third or fourth bump to cause paradox, which with missing "R to restart" is causing unnecessary delays in play when you know you already messed up and there's nothing you can do. Also the graphics could use a lot more love, but since you made it all by yourself in 48 hours, I'm glad that you rather spent the time to actually think through the concept and some level design and I can totally go with the looks, as the core puzzles are fun enough :)

So overall I'm very, very glad I accidentaly discovered the mouse control which allowed me to have a good time, but please, be careful with your controls next time!

Also I think that what you have is good foundation for further development! Congrats, good job! :)

Thanks everyone for the comments.

@honey: The controls is one of the things I wasn't entirely happy with. I did try changing it so you more directly controlled the character however annoyingly it caused all the collision detection with walls (and the echos) to go badly wrong (think causing you to fly across the map when you gently run into the wall). I spent a few hours on it but sadly had to abandon and go back to the default controls so I didn't fail completely.

@kohcepba: I have a web build but my normal hosting is in the middle of migrating servers and I have been busy so it's not up yet. Hopefully will be up soon.

Update: Web version is now online.

Glad everyone is enjoying the game!

Thanks,
Simon

@staircase27a Yeah, I can imagine the pain, Unity can be very difficult to reason with sometimes :) It's usually better to not use Unity physics at all unless you really need physics calculation, like ragdolls or some box throwing/stacking fun or something like that. But movement is always tricky to get to feel right.

I'm too bad at puzzle, I was stuck in level 3 ;-).
I was also too bad at the puzzle to quit the game, I used Alt-F4 on windows.

@davidb Hi yeah I'm afraid that is the only way to exit from a level. I added escape to exit from one of the info screen but didn't have time to add it to the levels.

Lovely, a simple mechanic polished into a nice puzzler, well done, and thanks for including a WebGL build!

Something seems to be wildly off with the collision detection with past selves, but it only made the game easier, so I can't complain :) Would be great to have a larger collection of maps in a post-jam version, I'm curious how far you can push the boundaries of the concept.

Its very nice use of time loop, i really enjoyed mechanics, maybe graphics could be improved a bit ;P.

Simple-looking mechanic but some cool puzzles. Definitely more too it than meets the eye. I managed to get through to the end, and I even completed the last level on my first try (by some fluke, lol)

The movement was a little bit sluggish, though in a way that helped with the timing. It would probably be just fine with slightly higher acceleration and maybe slightly less open levels.

Could've definitely used more visual flair and some audio to spice the game up, but the mechanic was interesting enough that the simple graphics were fine.

Overall I really enjoyed it and it stuck nicely to the theme.

As others have mentioned, the controls are perhaps a little floaty with the keyboard, and despite what honey said, I couldn't get the mouse to control the dot (?). The puzzles were definitely the strongest element of the game, and they definitely helped carry the game.

It was very satisfying to see the progress of the past versions of myself pushing buttons and traversing the long corridors, for some reason it reminded me of Factorio.

As it's generally the negative criticism which is most helpful in these game jams, I would just add that I think the graphics were perhaps the weakest part of the game

Nice entry.
You used the theme to design the mecanic of the game in an ingenious way.

As others have mentioned, audio to spice the game up would have been great, but maybe a time constraint ?

@donamougou: Yeah audio would be nice but given I no experience with audio (yet) I had to decide between adding more levels or audio and more levels won. Audio would definitely be something to try for next game I think.

@lintfordpickle: Graphic design is also not one of my strong points and I hadn't used unity for quite a time so I kept it simple this time around. Also hmm not sure about the mouse not working. The mouse controls were mainly designed for touch controlled devices so you do have to hold the mouse down to move rather than it always following the mouse. Also means you can stay still if you want to.

Thanks everyone for the ratings :smile:

Such a strong, clever idea. I really felt like I was dealing with a time loop. Made you really think and plan ahead in satisfying ways. If you up the graphics and add some levels, this feels like the core of a very big idea.

Nice mix of puzzle and skill. I did not mind the floaty controls, they added a level of challenge that I enjoyed. An indicator for when a yellow button is pressed would be nice, even if it has no effect on it own. Maybe show a white inner circle on the button.

This was a pretty nice experience, although honestly some of the levels felt a bit too similar to each other. I think for a game like this, maybe having fewer, but more intricate levels would be more interesting. Some of the mechanics are introduced in a level, but never make a reappearance, such as dodging your echoes in the zig-zaggy hallway, or having to pass through a door twice like in the first level with the blue and yellow switches.

The final level was a bit too easy, and I feel like the mechanic of having inverted door buttons should have been introduced earlier. For puzzle games, I expect the final level to be a real brain-mangler, but this one was easier than some of the prior levels.

Overall pretty interesting, I enjoyed playing it.