Lotus Well by LDJam user 382954

[raw]
made by LDJam user 382954 for Ludum Dare 57 (COMPO)

"Habitually do I sound the depths of human hearts.

Some stretch cloudless to the horizon -

while others know only the drumbeat of rain."

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Description

This is a (~~probably~~ very hardcore) puzzle game made for LD57, the theme is Depths, and it belongs to the COMPO category.

All of the game art, music, etc. are made by myself.

I used Godot 4.4 as the game engine, drew with SAI2, made simple animations with Aseprite, and wrote BGM in Bandlab (although it was just a jumble of a few notes). The main part of the game took about 40h to complete. Ah. Dead tired (> <)

Anyway it's a tiny story about the depth of one's heart. There are currently five chapters. It takes 1-2 hours to complete all of them. If you can't solve some of these puzzles, check out the comments section of itch's page for hint!

Hope you enjoy it ૮₍ ˃̶ ꇴ ˂̶ ₎ა

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Ratings

Overall 51th 3.875⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Fun 133th 3.397⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 29th 4.017⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 177th 3.431⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 2th 4.583⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Audio 59th 3.741⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Humor 163th 2.615⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 29th 4.103⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 15🗨️

Feedback

ThisIsSpy
06. Apr 2025 · 19:42 UTC
Looks awesome! Although I'm too sleepy to get past level 2 :( Still a great game nonetheless
JavaSaurus
06. Apr 2025 · 23:06 UTC
This is so beautiful... Everything meshes so well, atmospheric. I love the transitions as well. The only downside that I'm noticing is a little lag, but that might be on my side and it doesn't really take a way from the experience. This is literally playing a poem. Lovely ! Thank you
LDJam user 396269
07. Apr 2025 · 04:40 UTC
amazing atmosphere! great graphics and sound
stormouse_indie
07. Apr 2025 · 06:11 UTC
Great atmosphere! But I can't get pass level 2 :(
🎤 LDJam user 382954
07. Apr 2025 · 11:24 UTC
@stormouse-indie Maybe check out the simple hint in the comments section of the itch page, or use Ctrl+Right to skip level? It's my fault, the difficulty curve of the game is a bit steep...

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it !(〃’▽’〃)
ellaris
07. Apr 2025 · 13:59 UTC
The art looks really good, the sound is nice, the puzzles are engaging, loved it. The only complaint I could have would be about things not always being clear, like explosions, enemies attacking, the paper airplane, it's cool but learning it as you play means you are going have to reset and it feels bad because it's as if you're getting punished for exploring, especially if you have to do it multiple times per level, gets more annoying the further in the level you get.
LDJam user 5243
07. Apr 2025 · 14:29 UTC
Very moody game and beautiful art. The puzzles are quite hard since there's no way to tell If I'm doing anything correctly before trying. Both since the icons have unknown actions and that there are hidden tiles. But you've managed to do a whole lot on short time, so kudos!
LDJam user 384191
07. Apr 2025 · 15:01 UTC
Nice puzzle game, an interesting take on the theme. My only complaint is that the game's resolution is a bit large for my screen, so I couldn't read all the dialogues 🫤. But it's otherwise an amazing entry, and the fact that you managed to come up with, and implement an original puzzle idea with this level of polish is really impressive. Great job!
🎤 LDJam user 382954
07. Apr 2025 · 15:21 UTC
@ellaris @daandruff Thanks for your valuable feedback! That really stands a point!

My concern is that if I tell the player all the mechanics from the beginning, will it make the game seem a little... Monotone? That way, the player can even plan where to go right at the beginning of the level, and it feels like a lot to lose... feelings of "fun" and "unknown"? (Or probably my ideas are just too hardcore and not fun (x
🎤 LDJam user 382954
07. Apr 2025 · 15:23 UTC
@ghettobastler That's a pity... Maybe resizing the default browser display size can work?

I'm trying to work out the resolution issue and the scaling of the game window itself. Hope it helps. Thanks for your valuable feedback!
JCMonkey
07. Apr 2025 · 19:27 UTC
it was fun till you said place all the umbrellas in the top row! then i just noped right out of there :D
OnnGD
07. Apr 2025 · 20:02 UTC
very beautiful and the background music is awesome, cool work
ellaris
07. Apr 2025 · 21:52 UTC
@aly-name I think not seeing the whole board was fine, what I didn't like seeing the pawn and not knowing if it's good or bad, and even after activating it I still wasn't sure (was very annoying making you wait until he finishes the animation), the description only said he attacks, but it didn't explain what that meant in the context of a puzzle game, or that he only does so to the left tile. The other thing is that the unknown has a very high price, you make a mistake and have to start the level from the beginning (at least you don't have to start from level 1), where in other games you can learn the unknown and from your mistakes, losing a bit of hp or being slightly weaker than anticipated, you get to continue (unless you make a lot of bad choices). Here you still have to remember what you did before to get to that state and figure out at which point you should make an adjustment.

With all of that I think having an undo mechanic for the last move or if after resting you could see all the tiles you already interacted with would be nice (so you can plan moves up to your failure, and not for the whole level), although I don't hold it against you for not having it in the jam, you still had a very good entry.

One thing I forgot to mention is that sometimes the text disappeared, or weirdly appeared when I was concentrated on the puzzle and I didn't get to read it (if there was any, sometimes it felt like just the image?)

Also Also, I'm not sure if it's just me but the music hint wasn't helpful, I did have some music in school but don't remember anything and the only thing I noticed is that one note and the clue had # in them
🎤 LDJam user 382954
08. Apr 2025 · 02:16 UTC
@ellaris Thanks for your advice! That really helps ૮₍˶ᵔᵕᵔ˶₎ა

Managing to fix them in a post-jam update now ...
marudziik
08. Apr 2025 · 09:18 UTC
Very awesome, and the puzzles were really smartly designed. I enjoyed the try-to-learn approach, thank you!
Tero Pulkkinen
08. Apr 2025 · 10:17 UTC
i was expecting the game to end after finishing first level, but instead there was cool animations...
kaliuresis
08. Apr 2025 · 13:08 UTC
I liked the art a lot. I think the infinite energy loops happen a bit too frequently, it would have been more interesting to me if they were something that I had to deliberately plan out instead of just happening on their own. Having to click between two blocks over and over to generate energy also felt a bit tedious, if the energy limit was lower (maybe even just on and off) or there were more moving parts you needed to manage it might have worked better. Overall nice entry, I know it's very difficult to fine tune puzzle mechanics like that during a jam.
Bestdtang
08. Apr 2025 · 13:36 UTC
Really cool art style!
Follusior
08. Apr 2025 · 14:36 UTC
the second game in the list of favorites
Follusior
08. Apr 2025 · 14:36 UTC
You've created something incredibly cute and interesting. I really liked the graphics and effects in this game. The mechanics of the puzzle are responsibly woven into the plot. Definitely a favorite of this jam.
Retrisma
08. Apr 2025 · 14:59 UTC
Very cool puzzle design and great artwork! I wish the rate at which new mechanics were introduced was a little less difficult, but all of the puzzles were very rewarding to complete. It's amazing how far you took the core puzzle mechanic you introduced. (The lightning in level 3 was extra difficult...)
izzqz
08. Apr 2025 · 16:21 UTC
THIS GAME IS SOO POLISHED! Definitely underrated FIVE STARS!

My adhd ass cant wait this those looong transitions between levels. Need a skip feature for me
Rinevard
10. Apr 2025 · 10:17 UTC
The artwork is fantastic!
Tobius
10. Apr 2025 · 18:22 UTC
Great entry! The art was well done from characters, to backgrounds to icons. The puzzle mechanics were also unique and interesting.

The running animation at the beginning looked great!

One thing I would suggest to improve this entry, is more focus on designing cleaner early puzzles to help the player learn the mechanics easier. Make fewer levels overall and improve the quality of each level instead. I found it a little tedious to solve the puzzles, as once I figured out what had to do, it was a lot of clicks to accomplish it.

Additionally, I would’ve liked some small audio feedback for each tile interaction. The paper plane was very cute though! Do more of that!
grid96
11. Apr 2025 · 12:34 UTC
Very cool and unique puzzle game, don't remember having seen these mechanics anywhere before. At first I always saw the lightbulbs as nose apes though xD
dumchevdev
11. Apr 2025 · 22:38 UTC
When a girl with red hair and a hat ran across the screen, I admired her. And on the second level, when the paper plane crashed into the cube, I was shocked. The sound of the explosion scared me😄 I really liked the dialogues. They were fun to read.
On the minus side, unfortunately I got stuck on the second level:( I would like to finish the game, it was a lot of fun. It showed that I lit 6/7 books, however I managed to light them all, I don't know why the last one didn't count no matter how hard I tried.
Anyway, the game is super duper cool! You can be proud of yourself dude🔥 I shake your hand, huge kudos to you and good luck with your next projects👍
🎤 LDJam user 382954
12. Apr 2025 · 01:57 UTC
Thanks for your valuable feedback! (/ω\)

@dumchevdev Fixed the possible bugs. (If the same issue do appears again, a RESET can probably solve it?)
CircleOfLife
14. Apr 2025 · 13:21 UTC
I really liked the visual style, but because the bloom is very strong when you press it often, it is sometimes difficult to understand which element you need to interact with next, because they are all the same color.
I tried to pass the 4th puzzle several times, but I couldn’t, because every time I reached a certain point, made a mistake and had to go through the whole puzzle again. It would be easier for me if it was possible to undo the action a couple of steps back. But this does not make the game worse overall. A great game on LD.
Nakasa06
22. Apr 2025 · 12:16 UTC
I really liked the vibe you created in this game!!!!!Though it's a bit complicated for me XD
LDJam user 233659
25. Apr 2025 · 02:37 UTC
I keep coming back to Lotus Well. There's something here that really sticks in the mind. Maybe it's the sincere story, maybe its how every level keeps it fresh with a new aesthetic of not only visuals, but play to match those visuals, maybe it's the writing, maybe it's the sheer density of mechanics. More likely, it's all of these things. A lot of heart went into this and it shows. I will confess that I did get filtered a couple of times with how hard the puzzles are, but again, I keep coming back. I really like what you've made, it's sweet and captivating to play.