Quite confusing to play, I couldn't figure out how the controls worked in the first proper room. Nice 3d art though

thanks for playing! i have just fixed eachbug. now it should be clear/obvious how to play since instructions and all the gauges work as should.

Cool graphics, but I have no idea what to do. Got stuck on the "Press e to start the machine" prompt.

@ethanzech thanks for sparing your time ethan im sorry for the trouble but i thought i fixed the bugs. NOW i really did fix it thou. and uploaded an even newer version with this bug fixed. thanks for the heads up! feel free to check it out again.

@potkirland played the new version. No bugs this time, which is good.

I will say next time it would be better if you find a way to slowly and safely explain how to play to your players. Because currently before I understand anything the machine explodes and I lose.

I appreciate the fixes though.

@ethanzech thanks for the review. you are definitely right :thumbsup: im still new to game development and coding im glad i even have a playable game for this jam :D

Well done making a playable game. I was even able to reach my family, so I feel rather satisfied. :smile:

I had to play a couple times to figure out how the various systems interacted, but since it was fairly easy to restart, that wasn't too bad. For whatever reason, I didn't understand how the lever interacted with the orb, so that part had me confused for a while.

In the end though, the contextual messages gave me enough information to figure things out. Thanks for sharing the game (and for fixing the bugs... that's always nice).

@thepelranthean thanks for checking it out. "yeaaaa... about the leverrrrrr..." i just couldn't convey how it works sadly :smile: but its like a transmission system (like the wagons in halflife) with 3 levels on each side. basically pushes the orb to the way its facing according to the level and direction it is at.

Great game, I really liked the atmosphere.

@thegamerasd thank you im glad you like it :smiley:

Nice graphics, agree with others on how the gameplay is pretty confusing

@baconharemthug thanks for checking it out having others play your games really helps understand what is missing.

Game seemed really cool, unfortunately I was very confused at what to do.

@morepixels thanks for checking it out i should have made the gauges on the screens more obvious

Nice work, I too struggled with a bit of usability, but appreciate the work that went into the atmosphere and feel of the whole game. I'm not so smart so a little more instruction would be great but excellent effort!

I was a bit confused about what i had to do, and when i got it, i was a tad too focus on the jauges to reallky enjoy the atmosphere that you created

But solid game, quite captivating i'd say!

Loved the visuals, and the theme of the game was really cool! Loved it, perhaps adding more information and easier to digest information as how to play would be a nice to have. Overall a great game.

Perhaps a bit too complex, but the idea is fun. The game looks pretty good, and the music is okay. Overall a interesting little jam game.

Nice game. Still quite confusing at first.

A really good looking game! I love the smooth and wobbly animations on text & prompts, gives out a really polished feel. The gameplay, however, was a bit too confusing for me. I did manage to get everything started, but ended up always exploding the machine...

@owl-skip @magic-mike @iamdavidmt @jk5000 @hobzone @munkkeli thank you all for checking it out and all the reviews... i can see how main console gauges took too much focus but i hope you all had a fun time..


- you only need to keep the energy matched to prevent explotion and wavelength matching only works if energies matched. i guess that second part is what makes it unresponsive therefore unreadable other than the gauges capturing all the focus..

tips for if anyone couldn't get to the end but still wants to see it :smile:

Weird thing, when I ran this it would start up SteamVR. I didn't put on the headset to see if there was something going on in there.

I said I liked explosions. Not disappointed, I exploded 10/10. If you're good at multitasking games, this is for you.

@alex-one Hey! thanks for checking it out. i sadly didnt have time to add all the camshakes and explotion effects :(

@sethjmoore i don't know why that would happen .s its just the default package settings on unreal .s.s that is really strange. but still thanks for your time i hope you can get it to work :)

The game is a bit confusing at first and it takes some figuring out to know what to actually do. But otherwise the game is really nice and fits the theme really well!

@boroboro thanks for checking it out boro im glad its atleast playable throughout :smile: i will make sure to make my games more intuitive!

I can echo what the other comments say about the usability, but otherwise it's really moody and fitting for the theme!

@dent hey thanks for playing and the review.. i hope you got to the end :smile:

Hey I liked this one! I didn't understand what to do at first, the levels shown on the lever aren't immediately apparent. Once I saw that it was not as difficult. Great mood overall, good art, and good idea!

Game seems to be interesting. I liked the graphics and the music in general.

But I had some issues with gameplay. I don't know if I correctly understood the game's proposal, every time I should press CTRL or SPACE, I couldn't move the character anymore, I could just see a small circle in the background spinning, but I couldn't progress beyond that. I don't know if I understood exactly what I was supposed to do.

But understand, I'm not saying that your game is bad, but that maybe you could somehow put some kind of tutorial or even some explanation on how your game works. It can be here on the Ludum Dare page. If there is anything like that, please disregard what I said.

But I see potential in your game, it seemed like a creative and interesting project, thinking about the deadline of a few days to make a game, it seems like a good job. I just felt like I couldn't enjoy the experience your game possibly provides.

Anyway, good job!

Okay, I must recant here. I tried to play a few more times I understood that first I should press SPACE first to be able to "progress" in the game.

The concept of Orb control is very interesting. This time I was able to understand your game a little better.

I'm sorry if my previous comment sounded rude.

I had a pretty difficult time knowing what to do, since the instructions appeared right during the time I had to do something to not fail. So if I took the second to read the prompt, I'd lose and have to restart. Having said that, the 3D environment was impressive and set the mood quite well, so nice work!

@adrenallen wow thanks im glad you liked it :smile:

@vphyre dont worry i totally understand... :thumbsup: i shouldve made it all clearer. it gets too easy to miss what to lay in front while you r developing since you basically know what is going on already. hope you were able to get to the end eventually

@diego-escalante thanks for giving it a try sorry for the trouble :smile: im glad you liked it hope you got to the end too

I enjoyed the visuals of the game, I think more UI is needed to help guide the player in a post jam build.

Interesting game concept. Hard to learn tho.

@simpathey hey simpathey thank you for your time im really sorry for the trouble i caused... but i fixed the issue with framerates (i think) and i slowed games pace and also made cranking easier.. it now requiers way less cranking to get the energy up higher. also gauges had samename and they werent readable and all. i fixed that too. now there are no repeated names and i think it is way more readable ^^ so sorry anyone who played it before and had a bad time :sweat_smile:

@sploky thanks for playing the game its now easier to learn and playthrough.. there was also a problem with lever introduction. it passed the stage automatically and i believe that caused problems conveying information.

Really interesting game. I like a lot the art and music.
Once you get what to do, it is easy to stabilize the orb but, I have to admit that I never understood what the lever is for and, how it works. I just move it right and left all the time :laughing:

Good job! :smile:

Good joob, a very unique gameplay. I like when I see new things and ideas. It's a bit of difficult to play, but very fun.

This is a pretty ambitious game for a compo entry! It took a while to get used to the game and figure things out.

I really liked the ambience! I think you just need to try to make things a little bit more intuitive or self explained. But besides that, it was really fun to play

@m-a-t :sweat_smile: thank you for your time.. the idea was to move the dishes looking at to the orb with lever wich would be pushing the orb according to direction. and levers oscilation is actually orbs distance to rotation center in x axis :smile: but i sadly didnt have time to show all the cables and pushing of the orb. im glad you like it :thumbsup:

@jpatchz @megamasterx @cabjhegas thanks you all for giving my entry a chance im really glad its at least playable :smile: hope i'll better do on next jam

Unfortunately I was unable to understand the commands. pity it looked nice. The thema, however, seems to be respected

thanks for playing @raffaello sorry for the trouble. you should keep energies matched at all times via cranking and try to adjust orb location with lever arm. bars under lever shows where it should be facing at. hope you had a fun time :sweat_smile:

Hey I was able to get to my family! Cool idea and great work getting it all together for the jam! As others have said, it was pretty difficult to figure out what to do, although once I tried it a few times it wasn't too bad. Would have been cool to have some kind of feedback sounds on the different interacting systems, but totally feel time constraints are a thing. Good work overall!

Uh.. I have no idea what I'm doing. :L You said I'm supposed to match the energies and move the ball, but nothing I do seems to do anything. The gauges stay the same and the ball keeps spinning. I played with all the bugfixes so I think this is a matter of me not getting it.. I like the art and sounds though.

I made it to two "press E to reach parallel" sequences but no idea how or why I "couldn't keep up and it exploded" - very confusing.
Graphics are quite good, music too but sound effects are missing completely.

I couldn't get past the first part, I tried to keep it stable before the lever just stopped having any effect and it would inevitably explode.

Some sound effects would be nice, otherwise I really like the art style, good job!

@teegan heeyyy nice im happy you could play it! thanks for your time and all but i loved your game it is fantastic!

Yeah, sorry, just wanted to add I also couldn't figure out the stabilization part. Cool graphics, though, and I liked the music.

Original game and atmosphere! The player is made simple but works with the enigmatic scene, the movement is also cool. It's confusing at first but also connects well with the game. Good job!

I liked your story and the orb was beautiful!

@fegabe thanks im glad people can play and im also glad you liked it :smile:

@erikengineengineer thank you for your time im happy you liked the story :D

Really interesting concept! The graphics looked great and loved the atmosphere

The topic of reactor balancing in this jam is as popular as any other)

Nice game! A little confusing at first but well, after trying harder "I couldn’t keep up and it exploded".
Great atmosphere and concept. :wink:

@cozygamepals @tory @srynetix thanks for your time im glad you guys like it :smile: srry for the troubles

Wonderful artwork!
It lacked sound a little bit, don't know if it is a bug or by design, but experience was really nice anyway.

Good work and good luck!

I got confused when playing. but I feel I understand what you want the player to do. the mood and atmosphere is nice, matches well with the theme.

thank you @mrbell270 im glad you could play it. the sound sadly didnt make it to the deadline. i am working on it. im hoping i will add everything i wanted to at first but that will be after jam and no one will know of it except me LOL :smile:

@vivyhasadream thank you for your time im glad you like the mood :smile:

Very interesting idea. Nice take on the theme. I had a hard time figuring out exactly which is the best strategy, but still had fun. Good Job!

@sli thanks for giving it a chance i am still working on it with more animations and stuff i will make a full postjam version with all those reviews in mind :smile:

Nice atmosphere and story. I like that this scientist guy is doing sketch stuff in his basement and the way you presented the story elements is perfect. The way the lighting coming down the stairs and reflecting on the picture and how it leads into this dark, red lit area with his machine was done really well and I liked how you used the empty space of the silhouettes when the figures were flashing on screen


I think the most improvements could be made in some of the gameplay elements (I gave some of these suggestions on stream, but here's ideas again!):
-make the bars horizontal so you can read the text easier
-attach wires/pipes between the lever/crank to the bars
-have to move between the crank and the level
-up + down for the crank!

That's some kind of raving Doc theme with a slight vibe of Twin Peaks (black and white episode), maybe that's like it all started... Anyway, nice concept. Cool blurry movement effects).

@itsboats thanks for playing my game im really glad you like it :smile: i am working on it i hope for next jam i can make a game that is as clean as yours

@ardorugus thanks for giving my game a chance :smile: i hope you got to the end

I very like graphics, style and different inserts, ui elements and animation, its all i like)

Really nice concept the atmosphere is great, also the music is very good. Though since this is a 3D game it did not run well on my pc, since my pc is powered by 2 hamsters. Sometimes I could not read what was written on the pipes. It has a nice short story...

@lovor & @neeko69 thank you all for checking my game out i am glad you liked it :smile:

Nice art and sound mix, I would say creates fitting atmosphere. Activities seems simple enough, but after several attempts I still couldn't figure should I push level in the same direction as the darker "hilight" under it, or in the opposite side. as doing either seemed to do nothing. Or little enough to not get noticed by me :/
Good job having working game though :)

I especially liked the character, he was very stylized and had a lot of charm.

The story was interesting, and I wish there was a little more sprinkled within the game. I assume we want to "touch the parallel" because something tragic happened to our wife and kid in this universe? And we're somehow able to access another universe and live happily ever after? I think that's what the game is going for, but I wasn't too sure. If so, its a good story, and I wish it was made more clear, and that there was more story to go off of.

The controls were a little confusing at first, but I did eventually get the hang of it.
The art overall works for the game, and it was well executed.

Очень интересный эксперимент. Спасибо!