Digital Squirm Processing by GuyUnger
a game where you learn sound stuff with a worm
Ratings
| Overall | 2th | 4.583⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 2th | 4.444⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 4th | 4.583⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 5th | 4.694⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 175th | 4.222⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 7th | 4.515⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 3th | 4.583⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 66th | 4.271⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 34🗳️ | 7🗨️ |
if you plan to expand on this, a sandbox mode would be great!
Besides the magic of learning, the graphics and interface were excellent and felt very responsive. The "worm as signal display" is very charming and there's lots of little subtle and helpful guides (like the graph lines that appear on some adjustments) which make "tuning" the worm a lot easier.
I also liked that you gave the worm some personality. Having it feel more like a friend was telling me this stuff instead of just coldly trying to match the pattern went a long way! Thank you to the worm. :)
This is a great little game as it is, but I could easily see a full-scale game teaching more concepts with this concept if you wanted! Worms teaching about delay, reverb, chord basics... maybe even visual stuff like RGB color codes, noise generation, pallets? At any rate, great work!
I liked the gameplay a lot! The game manages to be a fun teaching tool about waveforms while also making puzzles out of it. Some of the puzzles could be a little more trial-and-error than real challenges (slide vibrato until it matches, slide distortion until it matches, etc.) but given the educational goal of the game I don't think that's a huge issue. I kind of wanted a final level that included all of the effects, although maybe that would be visually confusing. I bet you could do cool things with other ways of processing audio, too, if you ever wanted to expand this - maybe you'd start working with multiple worms and start dealing with phase and stuff? Not sure. But the game does work well in its current form!
The gameplay was also helped a lot by the sound design, which is just great. The waveform manipulation sounds excellent obviously, but even little things like the buttons and... worm noises?... made everything a lot of fun to interact with. There's very good auditory feedback for everything the player does, which is crucial for any game but especially one about audio like this!
Awesome work! I had a great time with this one.
I kept wishing there was a way to preview/hear the target wave more directly while tuning toward it. Gliding into the right frequency already feels satisfying, especially with how the visuals react when hovering over the keys. Lovely execution there.
Had fun messing around with the controls to make weird shapes and sounds:

Would honestly love a sandbox mode too. Just vibing with the worm, chaining together a whole pile of effect pedals and making chaotic signal creatures out of it. Almost like a Balatro of audio effects 😄