Loopomotive by Tamas Turi

[raw]
made by Tamas Turi for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

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About

Your main objective is to maintain the railroad for the train. During the game you can build railroads, get points by connecting the roads to each other in order to form a loop. The bigger the loop is, the more points you get for it. Try to achieve the biggest loop.

Be careful as rail lines can break down randomly, provide a connected railway to the train. If you’re not fast enough and run out of rail under the train, the game is over.

Controls

  • Camera: Use the WASD/Arrows for camera movement and mouse wheels for camera zoom
  • Build: At the top of the screen you can find the buildable items, drag one item down to the play area then the possible connections are displayed, drag to one of them until they snap then release

loopomotive_game (4).jpg

loopomotive_game (3).jpg

loopomotive_game (1).jpg

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Credits

Zsuzsi Sarkany- Art (https://www.instagram.com/sarkany.zsuzsa.91/)

Tamas Turi - Programming

Ratings

Overall 238th 3.95⭐ 62🧑‍⚖️
Fun 457th 3.629⭐ 64🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 418th 3.68⭐ 63🧑‍⚖️
Theme 48th 4.377⭐ 63🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 145th 4.331⭐ 64🧑‍⚖️
Audio 238th 3.856⭐ 61🧑‍⚖️
Humor 758th 2.764⭐ 55🧑‍⚖️
Mood 631th 3.559⭐ 61🧑‍⚖️
Given 36🗳️ 18🗨️

Feedback

FlyingKiwi
05. Oct 2020 · 21:18 UTC
Just the game I've been train-ing for!
I'll queue to play it afterwork and rate it!
NicoCcino
05. Oct 2020 · 21:27 UTC
Looking amazing!!
Great system in place. Really makes me want having levels, specific objectives and challenges (more than just a scoring system). Maybe achievements ?
Good job, very well executed.
Jag
05. Oct 2020 · 21:31 UTC
Very well polished game! The visuals are very pleasing and music choice is great. It feels like a game for a kid at the moment so maybe a bit more challenge would have been nice. Overall I loved it!
Tobias Maushammer
05. Oct 2020 · 21:34 UTC
I loved it. A simple premise and it's easy to understand and get going. The design is very clean and consistent. I would love to have a build for mobile, because I think it would work a lot better using touch than it does with mouse and keyboard.

Sometimes I was confronted with obstacles that felt too easy, when I had to "just replace the disappearing track". To me this felt more like downtime. Maybe the AI could choose to vanish tracks that cannot be simply replaced more often? This lead to me actively choose what felt like a semi-optimal way to play (choose a piece that is not fitting in order to craete more challenge) to keep myself enganged.

Great work nonetheless :slight_smile:
Porcus_Pie
06. Oct 2020 · 00:35 UTC
I had a lot of fun with this game, it was simple in concept but executed really well. I won't echo what everyone else has said, as options such as objectives, AI choosing vanishing tracks etc. are all great and things which I also think would be great additions. That being said, not having that did not detract at all from my experience with the game. The visual style was simple but really easy to understand and really quite gorgeous in it's simplicity. The audio as well was really nice, with the music and audio cues all playing off each other nicely and rounding out the experience. I initially had a lot of frantic fun trying to rebuild tracks before the train could get to them, but then I discovered I could just break the game and force the train to go in a circle whilst I built loops away from it. Even then though, just building tracks and seeing the most complex loop I could make was fun on it's own. I think with a few tweaks, this could definitely be a game I could see myself coming back to again and again, nice work!!
Dom Harris
06. Oct 2020 · 08:01 UTC
Really well executed game - good job :grin: the audio is a really nice touch and fits well, though you should really opt out of that category given that you didn't make it :wink: I've used that exact track in jams past :joy:

it's a nice, simple premise that you've polished almost to perfection. Great job! I particularly love the effort you've put in to the UI, it's something that people often miss out during jams.

I can't find anything to complain about :grimacing:
Iak
06. Oct 2020 · 08:04 UTC
This is similar to an idea I had but didn't end up making =o
Nice game, looks good, plays well. My train eventually lost all its carts... no clue if that was intended or a bug, but it's a thing. XD
Excellent fit for the theme, of course.
lexi
06. Oct 2020 · 08:05 UTC
I got to 13600! Really well polished entry, I love it! Really great job on the audio & graphics especially!

It would have been cool to have a stronger incentive to build a bigger railroad, maybe even just a gold nugget or something that you get (of course just points) when you build around. That way it wouldn't have been just about building bigger, but actually trying to get somewhere.
ATonic
06. Oct 2020 · 08:10 UTC
I really enjoy the game and theme interpretation. What I like, most of all, is how the track and train elements interact to drive the player to fulfil the stuck in a loop aspect.

For the actual game. What has been presented is a nicely polished mvp for the level of time available. It is a solid base on which to build in the future, should you decide to do a post-ludum-dare. I'm sure you have lots of ideas on where you could go with this one.

I can see my young niece being happily invested in this game. For a while at least.

Very nice!
Animaster
06. Oct 2020 · 08:19 UTC
Nice and polished game, i liked it! Only one thing: i wish there is some indication when rails broke outside of view, because if you want to build really long road, you inevitably gonna miss it.
Tad
06. Oct 2020 · 08:27 UTC
This is so cool. Definitely one of the best I've played for LD47 so far! Well done!
Rolly
06. Oct 2020 · 09:30 UTC
That's the kind of game "just one last attempt", then you find yourself still playing half an hour later. The mechanics are trivial but the possibilities are great - the best kind of games for a LD. Now I think I mastered it, I can stop.

![loopomotive.png](///raw/46b/d1/z/38e10.png)

The visuals are neat and the music works perfectly.

Nice entry!
JPiolho
06. Oct 2020 · 10:24 UTC
Looks like we ended up with the same game name :see_no_evil: I really like your game though, it's really good!
Stefania Mak
06. Oct 2020 · 10:41 UTC
The graphics are absolutely adorable! That train is definitely stuck in a loop :laughing: The mechanics are really smooth, and the game gives you such freedom to make some creative paths, which is really cool!
KreGames
06. Oct 2020 · 11:09 UTC
Really great concept. I love the art. Trains and cartoony look is a nice match. Having fun playing it! Goes to my itch collection ;)
Jvdwijk
06. Oct 2020 · 11:57 UTC
This was really cute, really loved just upgrading my track. You could kinda manage your own difficulty by doing so which was really well designed!
WatermelonAndMe
06. Oct 2020 · 15:50 UTC
Saw a lot of such idea, but this is the greatest
wujood
06. Oct 2020 · 15:53 UTC
The graphics and sound are amazing and very polished! I wanted to play more levels! :grin:

EDIT: Nevermind i just saw that you can expand your track. Wow! That is amazing!!
namnam
06. Oct 2020 · 15:59 UTC
Nice entry, loved the art, music is nice too. Gameplay is very intuitive but also very repetitve (kind of the problem of this theme).
Brainwash Gang
06. Oct 2020 · 16:01 UTC
I got stuck for like 10 minutes playing without ever noticing it! Cool game!
Adil
06. Oct 2020 · 16:04 UTC
Building railways to form a loop is non-losing idea, it's not new mechanic, but still very interesting. Love design and sounds of that work, great job!
Orpartlu
06. Oct 2020 · 16:26 UTC
Wow. Really nice art and music. Did you make also the sound / music by yourself?
AvatarGreggles
06. Oct 2020 · 16:33 UTC
THIS IS EXTREMELEY GOOD WOW! Amazing job!!! I could honestly play this for hours!!!! One of the best I have played today for sure!
Dudum Lare
06. Oct 2020 · 17:02 UTC
What a relaxing little masterpiece! I could listen to that cute music for hours.
MikeSalyh
06. Oct 2020 · 19:09 UTC
Really fun and relaxing. The music and art sets a great, cozy mood and the gameplay was medetative & enjoyable.
My only wish was a way to zoom in/out without a mouse wheel; I don't have one!
Asue
07. Oct 2020 · 07:36 UTC
Graphics are really great and the music fits the game perfectly! I think this game would be perfect on mobile. The only point to be improved is the lack of challenge :)
AVAVT
07. Oct 2020 · 08:51 UTC
What I like:

- Fantastic art style! Really bring me back to the popcap games era where game could be pleasing to the eye without having to buy a RTX2090
- Choo-choo music
- Very interesting idea. (But I think it hasn't reached its full potential, more below)

What I think could be improved:

- The railway could be more... realistic. For example in the image below, the train is turning in a very illogical way, which make no sense. It'd be much better if the railways order their z-index constantly to reflect correctly how the train will turn when it reaches that intersection.
![Screenshot_122.png](///raw/b42/3/z/3960d.png)

- Currently it is possible to just leave the number of railway to a manageable scope and wait to gain points via railway repair, then I could have infinite score (even though it's slow). One can immediately see that issue at the start of the game, and thus make the aim of the game unclear.

^ My approach to understand the game is: first, understand how the train move, then see what I must do to get point, then try to get better. But as it turn out after making 4 full circles (to understand the train movement) I immediately realized I already "mastered" the game. Which is definitely not good.

Minor issues / nitpicking:

- WebGL initial window size is too small on itch.io, which force me to play in full screen. Maybe adjust it to be a bit bigger?

- The railway snap could be more intuitive, as in image below, this is where I think the railway should snap into position, but in game it snap only when I move it... I'm not sure, somewhere above where it should be?
![Screenshot_120.png](///raw/b42/3/z/39616.png)


All in all I think the idea is quite promising, but require reimplementation for the "endgame goal". I'd love to play a game like this on mobile, not as a panic attack hyper-casual but some kind of mediative/relaxing game.
Leo Red
07. Oct 2020 · 10:41 UTC
Great game. The graphics is amazing. Great use of the theme. Played for a lot of time.
JUSTCAMH
07. Oct 2020 · 15:13 UTC
Hey, I got ya on stream, thanks for submitting! Here's the vod if you wanna rewatch it.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/763143712
Jenny Bourke
07. Oct 2020 · 17:01 UTC
I really liked this game!Super sweet concept and really beautiful graphics! Great job!!
Esphoros
07. Oct 2020 · 17:36 UTC
This game is righteous. I like it a lot, both the concept and the execution, and I think there are a lot of things you could do with it, were you do do a post LD version. It fits the theme well, I played for a long time before realising that I should stop and review other games, the graphics are very calm-looking, in something of a contrast to the frantic gameplay as the train speeds up (which isn't a bad thing,) and the music was nice. A couple of suggestions I'd make would be maybe some different levels, with different track layouts, maybe some levels with multiple trains going at once, and maybe some achievements for getting to a certain score. Just some ideas, anyway. Epic game overall
Renge
07. Oct 2020 · 21:08 UTC
I played your game live yesterday! Too bad you weren't there to see it! Here's me playing if you would like to see in replay, I believe it was the first game I played:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDxga2LIpCM
SaraFilipa
08. Oct 2020 · 08:15 UTC
Hi train & game name buddy! :D It's a really cool coincidence that we share game names and yet have two completely different concepts. I will say, your game is amazing and I had so much fun playing it! The graphics are gorgeous (I like how soft and yet clean they look), the audio is really good as well and fits so nicely, the gameplay is so much fun. Original and innovative and what a great approach to the loop theme! Polished entry. Well done. :)
Fax
08. Oct 2020 · 08:25 UTC
Hey good entry for the jam. Simple and efficient. Well realized.
Congratulations.
thunderkerrigan
08. Oct 2020 · 10:02 UTC
We made something along the line as well. Yours is very enjoyable! I really like how you made it harder and rewarding at the same time. It's veryl well balanced in my opinion. Controls were not intuitive for me though but nothing really serious to consider. Graphics are nice and the sound set the mood pretty well.
Great entry overall! :thumbsup:
X_Pilot
08. Oct 2020 · 17:15 UTC
Really liked the aesthetics of the game! Not sure how much destroying tracks added to the game, but overall very nicely done!
MikoziQ
08. Oct 2020 · 21:37 UTC
It was cool playing your game on stream. I wish the tracks were more polished when it comes to the direction where your train is going to go. You could also add a bit more levels, skins etc. but nontheless, the game is basically a ship-ready product for mobile especially. Well done!
J0ye
09. Oct 2020 · 20:20 UTC
It is a bit unclear which way the train will drive and which rails break and why they do so. But I liked the gameplay loop and loved the graphics. The music was more than a fit.
voidfishing
19. Oct 2020 · 21:39 UTC
neat little game! simple mechanics made it really easy to pick up, but I could keep playing for ages. I definitely think you've got a really good concept you could build on if you wanted to - like others have suggested, levels, new objectives/challenges, etc, but even just with the score system, it's really fun to play! the art is really nice too - especially the background :)
nsadie
21. Oct 2020 · 11:21 UTC
Really fun little game! Excellent presentation and good effective art.

On my first try I did not realise you could add tracks and just waited to fix things, which was a little boring. Maybe that could have been better indicated, but luckily I then figured out you can lay more tracks and had lots of fun.

Other little issues I found was that some times the trucks bunch up a bit and get stuck in each other, also it is difficult to see where the train is going next as the tracks don't really overlay each other in a logical way.