Box Of Limes by RedDashGames
(just a note this is my First Ludum Dare game jam so keep that in mind when rating this work, and this was all made by one girl so try to go easy on me please.)
(also sorry about any bad English I'm not the best at spelling and writing)
This game is a mix of Tetris and Lemmings you play as a UFO trying to help the Little "Lime" (not a Lemming) to the exit door in each level.
Due to my other puzzle jam games getting criticised about their difficulty due to not having enough time to work on the difficulty curve of the to teach the player. this Ludum Dare i decided to design the levels as i would do if this was just a start of a real full game.
So due to this entry kinda ends just after the introductory levels so sorry about that but this is more so players can play as much of the game as they want to, tell me if you think this was a good or bad idea.
controls: this game uses a system that you can use both mouse and keyboard controls at the same time, to switch them simply press any keyboard key (apart from M/Space/R) to change to keyboard and click anywhere if you want to use the mouse. ( changeing between these has a cute little animation I'm really proud of. :3 )
keyboard controls:
Menu: Z - enter/select Up/Down - move selection up and down
InGame: Left/Right - Move UFO Left and Right Up/Down- Rotate Block Z - Drop Block Enter - pauses the game
Mouse controls:
Menu: Left Click - enter/select Swipe up/down - move selection up and down
InGame: Mouse Movement - move UFO Left and Right goes under your mouse Left Click - Drop Block Right Click- Rotate Block Pause button on the top right - pauses the game
Universal: (are on the keyboard but i couldn't fit them onscreen, but doesn't effect toggling) R - Restart Space - speed up game speed (doesn't effect blocks) M - Mute game (has a cute little animation I'm proud of btw)
as you can likely tell from the graphics of this game I spent a lot of time making things as clean and nice as i can expesaly with all the small little details, think of it of almost a vertical slice of a real game, its more quality than quantity.
Overall I do hope everyone who plays has a nice time with it.
Credits: LadyLeia - Art/Level Design/Code/Design/Ect
If something doesn’t work, please report it to me.
Version History: v1: Jam First release v2: Critical bug Fixed when playing a small handful of levels the game will freeze on boot, this was due to a platform not being under the player's UFO.
| Youtube | https://reddashgames.itch.io/box-of-limes-ld46 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/box-of-limes |
Ratings
| Overall | 91th | 4.16⭐ | 105🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 171th | 3.957⭐ | 107🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 52th | 4.202⭐ | 106🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 496th | 4.014⭐ | 107🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 124th | 4.467⭐ | 107🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 232th | 3.936⭐ | 103🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 659th | 3.351⭐ | 96🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 313th | 3.931⭐ | 103🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 58🗳️ | 38🗨️ |
I really like the graphics, and the way you made a version of Tetris with a completely different goal was interesting.
I enjoyed every part, not much to say. it really shows a high level of polishing.
Also, if you are into the fps style, check out my game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/the-last-hope-1
thanks so much, its one of the few games of mine I'm actually almost proud of.
@billnotic
oh.... I dont know why i keep typing LD36... sorry that was super dumb of me (i dont think i typed it right anywhere)...
anyways thanks for your kind words. :3
@megaqueijo thanks i think like 99% of the jam i was polishing, i really wish i got more content into it, but as the description said i was practicing polishing my artwork, game-play and animation hoping to do a more commercial game soon. :3
@damian1ilin
Thanks! and ill be sure to check it out. <3
@blakegamedev
the original doodles (i do doodles instead of design docs dont judge me :P) showed the UFO haveing free movement, based on my older jam game SnowDropRock (on my itch.io page if you want to try it out) with a nice screen scrolling area and much larger worlds and multiple Limes (the little creatures your saving), but it proved quite early on that i was biting off more than i could chew so i made it all one screen, thats why the levels are so easy (still unsure if thats a good or bad thing), the pause and count down was cut quite late. ill likely add that back in to an after jam build if I get around too it.
I'm hoping to be able to fix this ASAP but as of right now i cant work out what is creating this massive error, ill post a bug fixed version (under the rules critical bugs like this I can fix as long as I don't add any content).
There was one instance of one of the ledge levels (High Ledge) where I was able to place a block on the topmost ledge way above the dotted line despite when I reloaded the level, I couldn't do it again. I also had trouble navigating the level select menu when I had the mouse controls activated. The menu says to swipe to scroll, but when I tried to "swipe" by clicking and dragging down, I would just get stuck on the top part of the level select. I notice that the menu moves when I move the mouse, but it didn't really allow me to select anything past the first level with the mouse alone.
I think it would definitely be worth fixing those softlocks as soon as possible, and as you mention, would be within the rules. The rest of the game is pretty solid as it is. The added challenge of collecting the star was a nice touch.
the thing with mouse controls is that i think i accidentally inverted it at some point so try swiping the opiset direction than the way you intend to go. and when clicking the mouse it would only select the selected option (the one thats highlighted), not sure if it helps or not overall the mouse control on the menus are pretty poorly programmed in my opinion.
Also I'm still trying to work out what triggers those soft-locks, so far I'm still confused on what is triggering it.
Very good work the music is also very chill
I however found a bug. Game freezes upon entering level 8 - to the point. By passing level 7 or loading through continue the result was the same for me. Had to manually close the application through task manager after this.
Excellent job on this entry. Congrats!
I loved it!!!
All! Idea, gameplay, art, animation, music (very exciting). A happy son of Lemmings and Tetris. I will leave this game saved on my computer to try to get all the stars. Unfortunately there was an error after phase 10 (I think) and the game closed. I couldn't play at the end ... :(
But anyway, congratulations on the excellent game !!
https://reddashgames.itch.io/box-of-limes-ld46
Amazing pixel art & animations , amazing depth of detail and content for just 48h.
One minor problem ( on Windows 10 maybe?) is the mouse doesn't sync up to the ship/ cursor , so I end up using keyboard.
Some constructive criticism:
- Movement feels a bit slow and part of this is the fact that the UFO has requires some minimum key pressed time before moving. I think it would feel a lot better if the game registered all key presses and queued up the animations (with some max input buffer of say 3 inputs). Another part of this is that the animations in general are a bit slow and a fast forward button to skip waiting for the lemming to move to a specific part of the screen would be helpful. Finally, I think piece dropping could be slightly faster since it's a bit hard to judge if a piece might hit the lemming by the time it drops.
- In the level First Morning, I think it would help to remove the pit to the left. That level took me longer to complete than the next 2 or so, partly because I was getting used to the game. Having a timing element where the game state permanently changes if you don't act seemed like too much complexity for the first level.
- (minor nitpick): It'd be cool if the background animation showing you how to play were replaced with a keyboard animation if you're using keyboard, given that the game already has some logic to detect between a keyboard mode and a mouse mode.
Overall I really enjoyed this and it's in my top 3 of the jam so far!
Maybe I'm just an odd one out, but the controls were a bit awkward for me. The tutorial was also kind of confusing. The mouse didn't seem to want to line up and with the keyboard I kept accidentally hitting 'r' instead of 'z' for rotate. For the latter issue, I'm probably just used to another game/program though.
Ignoring the controls, this is an overall really polished game. It's a fun game mechanic and may be worth developing further.
I wish there was less lag on moving the UFO using the mouse, and that I could move/rotate the piece after releasing it, like in tetris.
First Morning was designed to have that pit so you had space to learn the controls and place a few blocks down as the "pit" keeps the player in one place and makeing it easy to get the Lime out of the hole as well, without it it was easy to die right away, only resion why the Lime doesnt start in the pit was to show how the creature moved around the world you can see a very simmler level at the end of the game (forgot what i called it) without the pit and its likely the 3rd hardist in the game.
and First Morning's background tutorial board thing was made last second didn't get time to do the graphics for that. though i expected people to really read the games instructions on the page but from the looks nobody reads them, even though a lot of other games here dont have any tutorial in game and its all on the page something i really dont get.
@thecritterscove I used Z due to it being the common Tetris rotation button, i never-seen any game use R for rotation R is restart due to it being far far away from all other buttons so you cant hit it by mistake.
@camden-obertop I used GameMakerStudio2 if you want to know. :3
and i noticed for my mouse calculations i didn't keep in count the resizable window, sorry about that.
Overall an awesome job and I think this game has a ton of potential for expansion! :D
Loved how different it was smashing 2 great games into one. Amazing job!!
Got 2 stars on all 12 levels. Things definitely got easier as I got used to the mechanics!
Thanks for this game, it was great!
I'm blown away.
Anyway, I played the entire game on stream, I can share a link of my playthough. I was able to get all the stars however there is a small visual glitch when you complete a level with both stars, it will look like the first one is not completed at the end of the level (it does record it correctly though).
Finally I tried to get the star and escape "The End". I got the star and then made it to the top right of the screen but that was not an exit. Is there a way to finish "The End"?
Either way, this game completely blew me away with how much you did in such short time. Even if you take out the art, the UI, the sound, and the music it is an incredble accomplishment for such short time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhXLQHA-5Z4
Like I said very impressed with it. You being able to make the art in 15-30 min is crazy. I wish I was that fast/good. Anyway here are the relevant timecodes:
3:46:45 Started Game
4:23:20 Started END screen attempts
4:37:00 My END screen "success" (is there a way to actually beat this screen?)