It's absulutely fantastic! The music as always perfect, the best is the placment sound. And when the yellow phase occurs, that's stresses out everything from me! I'm gonna go for some more round today. And btw, it's as polished as I **expected** :D Poor you, we got used to expect games 100% polished from you :)

Very interesting this reutilization of the classic tetris concept! I found it very fun to have to create a path with the pieces. As always, very high polishing quality: graphics, music, sound effects, interfaces: everything impeccable. Nice job!!


Dude this is addictive, been playing for an hour now trying to beat my own highscore. Would love to play this on my phone. Nice game dude.

Like the soundtrack, the concept, the visuals, and pretty much everything about this game. My only issue is that some of the pre-made obstacles feel a little bit too hard.

This is certainly a game I can see myself keep coming back too! The audio and visuals are really nice. There were a couple of early attempts where I thought I was completely stuck with a line of unbreakable blocks. It was only after a few more games I realised I could have placed blocks further up to cycle to a new piece - it felt really good when it finally clicked! Something about using the mouse to rotate the pieces took a little while to get used to, but overall its a fantastic game! Well done!

@philstrahl Amazing as always... The polish.. I Love it..!! Only thing I would change, is that the escape key exits the game.. Was playing my best game, and wanted to pause for a sec and by happit I clicked escape. :anger:


Might be a good idea to adjust the amount of bombs, in late game I found there to be way to few.

And you added an icon too. (I made sure to include one in my game as well, I know it's something you notice)

As I already said it amazing in every category. Perfect.!! It's staying on my computer. :smile:

Nicetris!)

Things I liked:
- really great concept, really
- good music that fit the game well
- liked the blips for rotating pieces and the satisfying screen-shake and thump for placing pieces
- the aesthetic progression is quite nice as well
- and thanks for putting a high-score board; so many people miss this and it's important for competing with yourself


Improvements:
- the only improvements I can think of is a have to do with how to make the game last longer; but I can't help but think a sharp curve around level 100-120 ensures short games that don't get old and have you hitting "play again" in a loop.
- perhaps power grids similar in shape to the game pieces (but maybe a bit bigger) on the ground and once you fill them in completely with bricks there's some form of a power-up
- this game can easily be made into something for steam if you add head-to-head modes and add the necessary lobby and leadersboards.


Bugs:
- didn't observe any

--

This is really innovative and pretty fun to play. A good idea done well. I like how there is a constant balance between staying high for the ability to observe and find optimal paths, and digging low for better protection against bad shape rolls. Nice game!

Wow, this is amazing! A truly original concept that fits the theme perfectly.
It gets pretty stressful and hard at the purple stage, but in a good way. That's the farthest I got so far, is there an actual ending? And if so, have you managed to beat it yourself? :D
Audio, visuals and polish are all on a really high level, it just feels great!
I could very well see this developed into a full release. It would sit quite well in your catalogue alongside Fine Sweeper :) Some rogue-like or -lite elements and maybe a storyline would probably also suit the game quite well if developed further.
Overall, I really enjoyed it and see myself coming back to it, highest marks from me all around!

Great job on this one. The game fits the theme well and was enjoyable to play. Maybe tutorial would have helped somewhat though I imagine time constriants got in the way of that one.

I like the look, great polish. Fantastic mood with the music/sfx, the suspense is killing me! Not a fan of the mouse click for rotation, I think I would have preferred keyboard for rotation and mouse click for placement? I didn't quite realize the use of the bombs at first but once I ran out further down it hit me lol.

So... how deep does it really go? :-)

Really fun, and clever twist on the Tetris formula! I think a little bit more padding at the start would have made the objective clearer - I died a bunch before the gameplay clicked.

The difficulty definitely ramps up at a nice pace. Here was my highest score:


Great work!

Absolutely love the feel, look and sound of this game! Controls are very intuitive and easy to understand, the graphics are great to look at and very easy to read. The music beautifuly fits the theme and mood, making it even more nerve racking in the later stages!
Great game with great replay value! Will play a lot more!

I love the entry: the visual is good, the idea is nice. I especially like how you placed controlls to the right: very convenient.

To me the scrolling works a bit frustrating: first 90% of the game I am spending in the bottom of the screen, waiting for it to scroll one more line down, and then accidentally I can't place a piece nowhere on the board and just watch how the game slowly ends. There will be much more dynamics if the screen will scroll right when the player puts the block in the bottom of the screen. But this is nothing given how well the game is polished.

Very well done! Can't wait for post mortem!

Really great idea. First i was wondering how to play :D but as a tetris gamer i knew it pretty fast.
Really great entry mate and a moody soundtrack :)

Looking forward to the Post Mortem of it :D

WOW! This is so creative! Took a second to figure out what I was supposed to do- but once I got a hold on it I couldn't put the game down! There was a lot of fun strategizing around when to descend deeper, and when to branch out from my main path to grab the gems and bombs! Your visual and audio direction is great. I also love how the game yells at you to go faster haha!

The only thing I could think that might improve it, would be to see the next two pieces rather than just the next one. That way I can plan my moves out even further in advance! Good Job!! :v:

Great job as always Phil! Top marks for innovation, for basically reinventing a classic and turning it into something new! I really enjoyed playing it. Top score was 128413.

Very cool! Really impressed with the creativity of the mechanics. Music and sound were very fitting.

The visuals got a bit too low contrast at some points, and it feels a bit jumpy when the screen moves down.

Really feels like you have something here, fantastic work!


@mudlee Phew: I'm glad you liked it. Music and visuals where a bit of a scramble towards the end but if you want to come back to it, I think I got something right at least 😅

@eduardo-yukio: Thank you so much! I wouldn't call it "impeccable", not by a long shot, but thank you nonetheless!

@lomna: Oh wow, that's great!! Glad you're enjoying it! I wanted to have a high-score table but ran out of time, so if you wish, please post your high-score! 😊

@monkosum You're too kind, thank you! And I agree, some of them can show up a bit too early and if you don't have enough bombs (which happens easily) they can be very punishing. Your feedback is now on my list of improvements!

@soyeahimjames WHy thank you! Yes, that's a viable strategy, I'm glad you figured it out! I wanted to have a tutorial level teaching players all these things, then again, it feels probably pretty good to figure out things like that yourself!

@incd021 Thank you so much! And that's super helpful feedback regarding key mapping and especially the frequency of the bombs. And now I'll keep an eye out for your game's icon 😉

@ancooper Thankstris!

@bw-devel Thanks for your detailed list of feedback! Tweaking the difficulty curve is on my list, as well as some kind of a "smart bomb" that makes all unbreakable tiles breakable. I love the idea of the "power-grids", btw! I might keep working on this and make it a proper game, but lobby and multiplayer-gameplay sounds super daunting 😅

@toasteater Thank you for playing and your feedback regarding that risk/reward behavior; that's exactly what I was going for! 😊

@erkberg Wow, thank you so much! Currently there is no ending, but some surprises when you get really deep. Not that I expect anyone ever getting there, for that it's not play-tested enough … yet 😅 And I agree that this game has quite some potential and I think I will keep working on it. I have some ideas for some sort of "campaign" mode with different "biomes" and mechanics. Glad you liked it! 😊

@adamwatters Thanks, Adam! I agree, I really wanted to do a tutorial and not offload the "how to play" to this page, so I am glad you stuck with it!

@interface Thank you for playing and the feedback in regards to the controls. I agree that it's counter intuitive until (if) you get into it, so providing different control sets is something that's on my list. And it goes deeper and deeper with some … surprises further down, but I don't have a proper ending for it yet.

@andrewkennedy Thank you! Absolutely, I wanted to start players one third down, into the screen, with a little derrick on top, etc. Thanks for the feedback!

@the-baldur Glad you found the controls intuitive, they can be a mixed bag, as I learned from reading the comments 😅 Glad you also liked the dark music, it does add quite a lot of suspense for sure!

@iovorobiev Thank you for playing. The legend with the controls where literally the last thing I was able to put in before submitting, so I am glad it was a wise investment 😅 Also thanks for the feedback. It's a valid strategy to place tiles further up on the board to make the board scroll, or (still a debug-remnant) hit the down-key to advance manually. And thanks for watching in advance! 😉

@neowhoru Thank you for playing. Glad you stuck with it and figured out how to play it!

@slimabob Oh wow, reading your comment makes me very happy! I'm glad you stuck with the game that doesn't do ~~~anything~~~ a lot in terms of on-boarding new players. Thanks for the feedback in regards to seeing more than just the next piece, maybe that's something that unlocks at a certain depth… 🤔 Thanks for the new ideas! 😊

@wongkongphooey Aw, thank you so much! And congrats on your high-score! 😊

@dpmzi Thank you for the feedback! I agree, I was developing the game in a very dark room and the purple scheme looked still barely passable but with daylight even I had to slow down at a moment when I really couldn't afford it. I think I will keep working on it. And congrats on your hi-score, that's quite something!

Ayy! I love your videos on YouTube, and I wanted to play and rate this game, but I don't have a windows computer! :frowning2:

I really like the visuals, they're minimal but they fit with the mood you create here and your music is friggin' ridiculously good. The game itself doesn't feel bare-bones to me. I like the concept of a reverse tetris, and the blocks, bombs, and treasure make it that much more rich. For a 48hr prototype I really enjoyed it.


Loved the game! it's so cool polished and slides really well. I wish i could have saved a piece!

I really enjoyed the menacing music. The game mechanic reminds me of the board game Blokus. A solid game, nicely done!

I think this is a really cool concept. It's such a vastly different concept from Tetris, you have a lot more options and control, but it still creates that sense of tension when figuring out where a block can go as quickly as possible.

It's also made me extremely nostalgic. There was an old, underappreciated RTS from the late 90's called Netstorm where you had to create bridges between floating islands using randomized pieces to get around the map. The feeling of twisting around the map with the small, randomly generated bridge pieces felt very similar to your game, and I like it a lot.

The density of obstacles does feel like it transitions a little too rapidly. I feel like I go from still having a pretty easy time getting around to getting pretty solidly blocked in quite quickly. That may just be me being kind of bad though.

> I had a good start but **polishing** and data structures kept me busy for too long.

Yup, it's a Phil game. 😂 Looking forward to your post mortem!

Good game. Maybe at the start it's too easy for too long so it gets boring but then it gets really exciting. The controls are a little bit strange, sine I normally expect pressing left mouse button to place something but you can get used to it

Fun game and spot on audio.. as per usual.
Also thanks for introducing me to Ludum Date, I (We) also took part in it :wink: :thumbsup:

Very cool idea and well executed.

This is a very good game, especially for such a short amount of time. Great use of theme and it's fun to play. The only downside are the controls, it's hard to get use to theme. But it's definitely a game I will play later again. Great work!

OMG It's at least as addictive as Tetris! Looks very polished and executed with great craftsmanship. Congrats! :)

Hey! This is really interesting variant of tetris! It could be easily a whole rogue-like game with collecting/purchasing power-ups.. :) I dig the polish namely how you change music and color when you increase the speed and difficulty. I'd switch controls - place by mouse and rotating by the space but it's highly subjective :)
Anyway.. congrats on another great jam game, two thumbs up!

Absolutely lovely game! I love the UI, music, graphics, all of it! Especially the timer, with it making things faster and that whole concept. My only complaint was that when I didn't have any moves left, I kinda had to just wait until I died. Maybe some sort of system to detect when you have no moves left? Other than that, great work!

Wow Phil! You went for a puzzle game this time I see and reinvented Tetris :D Gameplay amazing, art very clean, music perfect (especially when the drum track hits, that snare is huge)! Can't wait for the Post Mortem next year :angel:

I really like the concept! It took me a couple tries to realise how the game actually worked, but once I got the hang of it it really was a "blast".
The polish was nice and I liked the added touch of the music getting more intense the deeper I got.
Only improvement I would suggest would be to add a bit more kick when placing the blocks and using bombs, just to really get me more immersed in the game.

To be honest, it didn't look like much at first. I really didn't expect a puzzle game from you. But I was pleasantly surprised how you managed to twist the tetris to perfection. It took me a while how to use bombs though, it made life so much easier after that discovery :-D

An excellent game! It took me a few tries to get the hang of it, but then it's a lot of fun. The music and graphics are very nice.
The one thing I'd have liked is better end detection, as in the game knowing I was out of valid moves, getting a long piece when I built up to the bottom of the screen and I'm out of bombs does feel a bit tedious. Not a problem for a jam release of course

Great puzzle game. I always like reuses or reinterpretations of the tetris mechanics.
The only thing I really don't like is the control sceme. It feels very counter-intuitive to use SPACE to place the parts. I would have found rotating with right click and placing with left click much, much better.

Nice game, died because the piece I had was not compatible with the way, maybe you could add a feature to switch the piece, but otherwise really nice

Wow! To be honest, I didn't expect such a "high concept gamemechanic" type of game from you. It's so different to what you usually do, with moody graphics and lots of atmosphere and lore. But I like that, I think that's what games should be about. A strong adcictive mechanic that then gets expanded. For me the first entry, where I can see myself playing endlessly. Maybe thats the Tetris effect. Thats a 5 star for fun! But I must say at the beginning I was confused for quite a while, and it took me so long to understand the simple idea of placement, that I nearly gave up before even playing properly. A better explanation at the start of the game would help. But wow, innovative, something completely new I never played before. Really exceded my expectations in that regard. Awesome entry!

That was loads of fun, and one I'm keeping on my hard drive for future plays. Love the retro-ish graphics, music and mood are perfect, really cool variation on Tetris. Love it, can't wait for the post mortem video :smiley:

@eboatwright If you're on Linux, I added a link to a x86 version that _should_ run in Wine, maybe that helps?

@pohko Thank you so much. I guess I keep working on it and make it … even better!

@commanderstitch Thanks for the suggestion, I already implemented that in my post-jam version and, boy, does it make a difference! Impressive score btw, wow!

@shawn-moore Thanks, also for the suggestion, never heard of Blokus before.

@kovi Thanks for recommending NetStorm to me, from what I've seen it looks like I would have had a lot of fun with it when it came out. And thanks for the feedback in regards to my proc-gen algorithm that ramps up the difficulty a bit to abruptly. Gotta get back to polishing now!

@franciszek-pyrc Thanks for playing. I see what you mean with the beginning. And I definitely want to add different control sets because you either get them right away … or never, especially not when things get frantic.

@xparker Thanks for playing and I hope you had a great time them. Kind regards to your team as well! 😊

@smbe19 Thank you! 😊

@wowa Thank you so much. I agree, the controls are an acquired taste 😅 I'll add options

@shaggyfox Wow, what a compliment! Thank you!

@jiri-hysek Thank you for the feedback! Controls seem to be the biggest issue for sure. But that's easily fixed, right? 😅

@hedgy Wow, nice playing, Hedgy! And thanks for the feedback. There's a band-aid to the problem where you can just hit the down-arrow to advance the screen one row at a time so you don't have to wait when you're in a bad spot.

@spyranteros Thank you so much. I was really lucky that I came up with the idea relatively early and had lots of time (still not enough) for polish.

@james-7777 Haha thank you for playing and sticking with it until you figured it out and thanks for the feedback. I'll put it down as "needs more juice" on my todo list 😊

@ondy1985 I didn't expect a puzzle game from me either! 😅 And thank you so much for the praise. And I agree, using the bombs is not very straight forward

@frank-gevaerts Thank you so much, Frank! As for the ending-detection, my current "solution" is that you can hit the down-cursor and advance the playfield so you don't have to wait.

@majadroid Can't have enough Tetris in your life for sure 😊! And you're not the first having troubles with the controls, that's high up on my list to offer players different controls. Thanks for the feedback!

@momo-hunter Thanks for playing and the feature request! In my current post-jam version I added a feature that you can hold onto one piece and swap it with the current one which helps a lot. :)

@johannimations Wow thank you so much for your comment! I guess it was a fluke when I realized that "Tetris is about building towers, what would it look like if you'd dig tunnels?", probably because I've been playing Tetris for over 30 years now 😅 And thank you so much for sticking with the game despite it being rather unwelcoming to new players. I wanted to add a tutorial but, guess what, ran out of time. 😅

@digital-bacon Thank you so much! Then maybe I can interest you in a post-jam version I am working on with some new features (preview of an additional upcoming piece, option to hold on to a piece, tweaked level generation algorithm, etc.)?

@eboatwright it runs just fine for me on linux using wine. No idea about other operating systems

I DECLARE A HIGHSCORE WAR!!!


Jokes apart, congrats on managing to create a whole different experience this time, Phil! :) This game is intense (and music conveys it wonderfully), I felt like I didn't have the time to look at the upcoming shape to plan my moves, but I don't think I would have lasted much farther if I did it. I missed the ability to hold shape for later or to drop it completely. Or, maybe, to leave it somewhere to connect to the grid later. :thinking: Also, level generation algorithm may need tweaking, since at some moment it starts generating much more obstacles than player could collect.

All in all, it's a solid game I would love to see in Steam. I mean, look at all this polish: fonts, colors, music and sound effects, stats (!). This is one of the games you return to after the jam is over, quite an elusive beast should I say. :)

Here's a video of me playing your game, hope you'll find it useful:

https://youtu.be/leRkx8_QfLc

@philstrahl @frank-gevaerts I'm on Mac. so :|

@eboatwright there's also Wine for Mac :P My girlfriend uses it all the time to play The Sims 4.

Very nice game. I liked it as soon as I realized, that I don't need to place a block every time the timer hits. :) What a nice polish. A game, we will definitely go back to. And we are already hyped for the PostMortem in 1 1/2 years. 😝

@yngvarr 🤯 OMG it's on! And thank you for playing and your feedback. In my current post jam version there's already the feature to hold on to a piece and see the next 2 ones you get. As for the level generation algorithm I agree. Currently there's a chance for a tile becoming a gem, a block, or a solid depending on the depth and clearly I couldn't test as much as I wanted, especially the further down you get. Also thanks for the video, very enlightening to see how people play it! <3

@spyturtle Ah, thanks for the feedback, I should have made this more explicit then! And the post mortem is recorded, so it can only take 2 to 3 years for it to come out 😂😭😂

This really is the perfect inverse of tetris :smile: It conveys a great mood and has cool gameplay. I once got stuck with a 2x2 block and no place to place it (and no bombs). So maybe skip block would have been useful but probably this is an intentional game over. Overall great and novel game!

@oadt Thank you very much for playing and your feedback! In my current post-jam version I already added the feature to hold on to a piece and swap it with the current one to give players a little more flexibility. Oh, and there are more bombs to pick up, the jam version is super stingy with those. And I am glad you had no problems with the shitty controls 😅

Very fun iteration of Tetris, and the challenge amps up really well. Great work!

I think it's the best of your games so far. The mechanic is so unique and fun, it looks like a finished commercial game already. Just put it to stores and make a fortune! The only thing to complain about is the lack of a "Drop it" button. A couple of times I just had no space to place the piece and ended up frustratingly losing. Overall it's one of these games, Jams made to discover. With new awesome mechanics and unusual gameplay. Nicely done!

@cameron-paxton Thank you for playing! :)

@bereg That's so nice of you, thank you so much for playing and your feedback. In my current version I added an additional preview for the upcoming pieces and the option to hold on to a piece. Next up is adding different control schemes and better level generation.

Its a really fun game! But also quite challenging after some time. At first I was just always ahead of the game just placing blocks but then it turned on me and I ran out of place to place them. I also like how simple it is!

The idea ist just awesome.
The music is pumping and the rising speed feels really good.
I had some issues with the controlls, I always wanted to use Left Click for the Placement but that was just a training thing.

Two times I ran into a situation where I couldn't progress, maybe my fault because I didn't had any bombs left. But one time it was the Piece which was the Issue. Maybe a Button to "Drop" the current Piece could be nice. THis could help to keep running on a price of points for example.

But in general an awesome Game with great soundtrack and a phantastic idea. I would suggest to keep this idea and make a "full" game out of it.

This game is really awesome. I played it a while without looking at the clock.
The music, the graphics and the difficulty are on point.
The only thing I would add is a Tutorial (or a explaining screen).

Very good job !

Gotta admit, even being a tetris fan, I didn't expect this to be as addicting as it is! I had to remind myself that I have to play and rate other games rather than just trying to beat my own high score all night XD. Made it to 440K+ I may revisit for the high score wars. The music fit, as it always does in your games, and it was very visually appealing! Great job!

@preda Thank you, Préda! A fun game from me, for once! 😅

@deathstorm Thank you for playing! Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the feedback! In my current post-jam version I already have a feature where you can hold on to a piece to use later, so I am still working on it to make it a full game! :)

@verygenuinecraze Thank you so much! There was no time for a tutorial and the game just expect you to learn as you go. 😅 Glad you didn't give up

@ladymistleaf Aw thank you so much! I myself got a bit hooked when testing so I guess that's a good thing. And 440k+ -- wow! 😲

Nice one ! Interesting idea to go for a classic and make it works with the theme beautifuly. It's also nicely polished. I believe the difficulty curve could use a bit more work, and it looked like I got stuck at some point, but overall it's very well made, especially for compo.

Over 190,000! Took me a minute to figure out the mechanics, but once I dialed it in it was a load of fun. A really interesting twist to the tetris style block stacking... or I guess digging in this case.

@yorsh Thank you! And you are right, there's definitely a spike where there are too little bombs and atoo many obstacles at a point. Glad you still had fun with it :)

@lelulagames Congrats on 190k points! Thank you for sticking with the game despite it being not very forthcoming at the start 😅

I thought this worked really well as a gameplay concept, in the end I ended up blocked in way that feels like it was pretty out of my control, so maybe a bit more careful tweaking of the random minefield would be needed to avoid that (or maybe I just wasn't very good). Also maybe if I could see the next few pieces that are coming so if my brain is fast enough I can plan out a path would be cool maybe. Anyway really enjoyed playing. Artstyle is minimal but works perfectly well. The soundtrack is really atmospheric in that 80s sci-fi horror style that I am personally a sucker for. Fun gameplay concept, solid execution, Good times were had. Nice work