Carrot Conundrum by blinry

[raw]
made by blinry for Ludum Dare 52 (JAM)

screenshots.png

The incredible adventures of the bunny who hopped through time!
A grid-based puzzle game about breaking the fourth wall, inspired by Mr. Invincible and Ijon Tichy.

Estimated play time: 20-30 minutes

Controls

Arrow keys: Move
Space: Wait
U or Backspace: Undo
R: Reset level

Esc: Quit game
M: Mute music
F: Toggle fullscreen

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUdZyLRMkTk

Misc

Original score by @winniehell! Thanks to bleeptrack and mad for playtesting! <3

Made with LÖVE. To run the Linux/macOS version, install LÖVE 11.4.

Ratings

Overall 14th 4.355⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Fun 23th 4.226⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1th 4.774⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Theme 482th 3.581⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 533th 3.323⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Audio 197th 3.638⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Humor 94th 3.767⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Mood 80th 4.083⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 11🗳️ 18🗨️

Feedback

Hiku
10. Jan 2023 · 10:48 UTC
Wow! That was really awesome. Very original, and some great level designs! Well done!
DrawRunner
10. Jan 2023 · 11:49 UTC
I love the game ! Graphics are very minimalistic but the gameplay is very deep
The music and the character are also lovely.
The game is a bit difficult for me, but I had still a very good time !
Coderah
10. Jan 2023 · 18:02 UTC
Fantastic! love the idea.... my brain hurts.
Buni
10. Jan 2023 · 18:05 UTC
I like the idea of playing a character inside a comic, but I found myself stuck several times (maybe because of the web version)
919113
10. Jan 2023 · 18:17 UTC
Very nice game, I may come back to play it again later.
Fluburbio
10. Jan 2023 · 18:17 UTC
Great concept, very imaginative! The concepts are very well introduced, this is well designed. Thanks for the game!
cactusdan
10. Jan 2023 · 18:22 UTC
This was my favorite game so far. The puzzles were really clever and a couple of them I had to walk away from and come back to (but I did figure them out!)
Forgin Bits
10. Jan 2023 · 18:24 UTC
This in an amazing puzzler, with a very interesting twist and well thought-out level design. Loved the little nods to Stanley's parable and such. The movement was sometimes a little hard to follow, perhaps a few animations could help with easing the player follow the rabbit from one strip to another.

Overall an extremely interesting mechanics which I would really love to see developed into more levels with a more fleshed out visual and sound design. Great work !
ArtsyOmni
11. Jan 2023 · 00:17 UTC
Very clever. Makes me feel smart. =P
lxndrdagreat
11. Jan 2023 · 02:33 UTC
I love this. Everything about it.
caeonosphere
11. Jan 2023 · 04:49 UTC
Wow! One of your best, I think. Great core mechanic, and I loved the comic-strip presentation. More, please!

Mandatory victory screen:
![bun2.png](///raw/8d0/41/z/560f2.png)
🎤 blinry
11. Jan 2023 · 21:09 UTC
@cactusdan Yay, glad to hear you figured them out! :)

@forgin-bits Oh yeah, animations would be so helpful here, also to explain the pushing mechanic later! We had to cut extras like that due to time. :/ Thanks for your feedback, and props for getting the Stanley reference!
Pdog1
14. Jan 2023 · 04:06 UTC
Overall I thought this was fantastic! I definitely agree with the animation suggestion because i did struggle a bit keeping up with where I was going, but obviously that's jam games for ya! The tutorialization was really well done although I'm pretty positive I beat the "wait" tutorial without using the wait so I'm not sure if maybe I missed something there.

Great job!
moonlightbomber
14. Jan 2023 · 10:25 UTC
This game reminds me of Comix Zone for the Sega Genesis.
MarcoMing
14. Jan 2023 · 10:40 UTC
Very original idea and it worked well with the theme! the trailer was also quite good! Good Job!
spyranteros
14. Jan 2023 · 10:46 UTC
I love the character design, nailed the theme category. Very well polished.
Matank
14. Jan 2023 · 10:53 UTC
Amazing puzzle game! What a cool idea. I liked the comic book look, and the comic book based puzzles. Everything about this was perfect. Usually I try to give a list of things that were good and things to improve but here I'm speechless it's just incredible. I remember some of your games from previous jams and I would love to see a full project made by you guys. You have so many amazing ideas and great executions. Good job again! :)
boaz4
14. Jan 2023 · 11:27 UTC
Absolutely fantastic puzzle game!
I've played my share of time-travel puzzle games, and this was very innovative.

The only thing I felt was missing was a little more indication as to what each of my moves did.
When I try move up but it creates a paradox - I would have wanted to see the offending bunny highlighted, so I can more easily understand what I did wrong.

Also, the UNDO mechanic is taught a few levels in, but if you accidentally mess up the first two levels, you would essentially be stuck. (I luckily guessed you had an undo mechanic implemented and I pressed Z and it worked well enough, but I don't know if every other player will be so lucky - especially if they don't play many puzzle games).

[BIG PUZZLE SPOILER AHEAD, DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THE GAME]

...

More than one of the puzzle mechanics were useful in only one level (for instance, the mechanic where you can push
yourself). I would love to see these more fleshed out in later puzzles. (Please reply to this comment if you ever get around to it!)

...

[NO MORE SPOILERS AHEAD]

Anyway, terrific job on the game! Definitely one of the best puzzle games I've seen in this jam thus far.
Wendel Scardua
14. Jan 2023 · 21:12 UTC
I saw the posts about the game on Mastodon and knew instantly I *needed* this game to exist :) I'm a great fan of things revolving around time travel and metalanguage, and even more so of things that combine them (like Carrot Conundrum).
KeichiTS
14. Jan 2023 · 21:19 UTC
OMG!

What a brilliant idea!

For me, it's the best puzzle game in this jam and one of the bests game in LD52.
It's a 5/5 game, off course, a really masterpiece!

I really enjoyed! Contrats!
Duncan 3
16. Jan 2023 · 01:20 UTC
this was a really interesting way of doing time travel
Local Minimum
17. Jan 2023 · 16:30 UTC
Wow that was a great puzzle game. I was about to give up on a level until I read the text page intro once more and realized there was a hint in it. Still some of the levels really had me thinking for a while before I figured it out.

One UX thing that I noticed though was that I got lost about which pane I was on quite a lot, so perhaps the effect on the active rabbit was a bit too subtle, and perhaps the active pane should be standing out more too.

Another minor thing was that on one of the levels towards the end with a lot of panes and quite a few positions within each, the sprites got really really small and might have benefited from a simplified more stylized version.

Over all though a really great game.
🎤 blinry
17. Jan 2023 · 16:35 UTC
@boaz4 @local-minimum Thanks for your detailed feedback! <3 These are great remarks on level design and UX, much appreciated!
rodel77
18. Jan 2023 · 22:32 UTC
Wow, amazing puzzles, it really makes you think! I also love to see games built in love2d, keep the good work!
noskro
19. Jan 2023 · 11:19 UTC
Wow. I found this game by accident in one of those "my favorite jam games so far" posts. And I am so happy I did find this gem. Like every jam puzzle game I would love to see more levels, but 14 is also a lot for a jam. And they have a really nice progression.
Although in the later levels I wasn't sure if I found the correct/best solution or just hopped around until I somehow made it to all carrots :D
cassowary
25. Jan 2023 · 05:13 UTC
Whoa, this is super clever. I love how meta the mechanic is here and it went a lot deeper than I initially expected. Definitely seconding the opinion that I'd love to see this stuff expanded upon more in future. Also love the Stanley reference. The comic interface is a really nice metaphor for conveying the discrete slices of time. Well done, always love to see innovative puzzle games in LD!
klianc09
25. Jan 2023 · 21:54 UTC
Very clever puzzle mechanics, love some good comic book themeing.
digital bacon
27. Jan 2023 · 10:38 UTC
An interesting game. Loved the graphics and sound. Tricksy little problem-solver, well done!
Simon Rahnasto
28. Jan 2023 · 20:51 UTC
Congratulations on #1 innovation! :smiley: :trophy:
PeachTreeOath
29. Jan 2023 · 00:32 UTC
Played this going through the winners. Very deserving of the #1 spot :)
LDJam user 2900
29. Jan 2023 · 18:11 UTC
Just played this one. Loved it. Interesting puzzles and really clever use of comic panels.