LudumData

BoxBox by mao

[raw]
made by mao for Ludum Dare 54 (COMPO)

boxbox_screenshot.png

Store and retrieve as many items as you can in a small but recursive warehouse.

Mobile web supported!

Instructions

Drag items into free slots to store them until they are requested.

Drag boxes onto viewers for more space. Some slots can only hold boxes.

Don't forget where you put everything!

About

This is my first game with Godot! I really love how quickly I can hook things up and iterate in it.

I came up with the idea for this pretty late, so I ended up with less than 24 hours to finish this. I had to leave out a lot of stuff I wanted to add, like sound and music, keyboard support, and a whole upgrade tree. I also didn't have time to properly test the difficulty, so it's way harder than I intended. Alas, such is the way of the game jam. I might polish this some more and release a post-jam version at some point.

Inspired by Wilmot's Warehouse, Patrick's Parabox, Recursed, and Wikipedia pages about data structures.

Hotfix: Fixed screen resolution scaling on web export

Link https://woofmao.itch.io/boxbox
Link https://woofmao.itch.io/boxbox
Link https://woofmao.itch.io/boxbox
Link https://woofmao.itch.io/boxbox
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/boxbox

Ratings

Overall 206th 3.48⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 225th 3.3⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 91th 3.78⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 51th 4.22⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 293th 2.938⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Mood 313th 2.571⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 27🗨️

Feedback

bmacintosh
02. Oct 2023 · 16:54 UTC
It took me a whole game to figure out how the boxes could be nested; when I did I just said "oh no", haha. Very innovative. It's fun for some time, though it gets less so when you start nesting boxes two deep and have to unroll the stacks to dig something out. I might have liked a couple of different box spawners so I have access to some different color options - I spent some time just throwing boxes in the trash trying to get to vaguely the color I wanted.
🎤 mao
02. Oct 2023 · 18:36 UTC
@bmacintosh Funny story... The original plan was to let the player choose box colors, and I started out with exactly the solution you described. I removed it, with the intention of adding a tool to recolor boxes, but I didn't finish it before the compo deadline rolled around.
Pe7e
02. Oct 2023 · 19:01 UTC
Like bmac above it took me a while to figure out the nesting, but it was a nice aha moment when I did. Stored full boxes in the delete square at times, not sure if that was intended.
mahalis
03. Oct 2023 · 01:43 UTC
Oh wow, this is clever. I like how it sort of forces you to come up with an organizational scheme on the fly, just based on what you’ve seen so far—I ended up grouping things by hue, which seemed obvious, and eventually realized I needed to keep a couple of regions free for unboxing my boxes. Some sound effects and/or music could’ve added a lot to the engagement, but it’s compelling as-is. Nice work!
DSFAN
03. Oct 2023 · 06:21 UTC
Like from me. Very interesting mechanic, it took me a couple of runs to figure out why boxes are colored and why they have a box place inside them. The difficulty progression is so straightforward and natural once you realize about nesting boxes, very cool.
Yeah, minimal sound effect would make this game even better. Also might be a small suggestion, sometimes in the beginning you receive an out task with input which you haven't placed into storage yet (I was confused a bit when I couldn't find it) but once I learned it's in the tasks also I could continue.
![image_2023-10-03_091452257.png](///raw/cf8/95/z/5f101.png)
aerial
03. Oct 2023 · 06:24 UTC
![sort.jpeg](///raw/702/b5/z/5f0f9.jpg)

I only had 4 pieces left to complete that wave and couldn't find the one that should go out and I lost. Good stuff. Very interesting concept. I think it would be cool to have like an easy mode where the ones that are due to go out are highlighted so you can quickly tell if the box has something when you have 4 levels of nesting to unpack and check.

A fun and challenging game overall. Good job!
minjutin
03. Oct 2023 · 06:59 UTC
It got a lot better after I realized that the boxes can be filled. I didn't know that organizing color could feel this satisfying. Simple but fun, good job!
crylica
03. Oct 2023 · 07:01 UTC
Great job! The gameplay loop is good. Some UI suggestions - personally I think differentiating by shape and colour is better than all circles + text (even though it's more work) I love the idea of nesting boxes, very clever concept and quite difficult to remember what you put in. The entire game fits the theme excellently!
Branquelo
04. Oct 2023 · 04:50 UTC
Man, what a fun puzzle. To be honest, at some point my brain started to melt hahaha. It's a pretty nice idea, and i can see this game progressing a lot. Nice job!
bradjste
04. Oct 2023 · 04:59 UTC
Really neat idea and execution, great take on the theme!
breadstick
04. Oct 2023 · 05:01 UTC
This game makes my brain hurt (and it also makes the brain stored inside of my brain hurt and it also makes the brain stored inside of the brain inside of my brain hurt)

Very fun and novel framework set up here--especially given that it was all assembled in 24 hours. Nicely done!
Tero Pulkkinen
04. Oct 2023 · 06:42 UTC
couldnt figure out what to do after first ones were placed
JoeTheHive
04. Oct 2023 · 06:53 UTC
Considering that you made it in less than a day, game's great. I love how the game forces you to think with all the boxes round wave 3
Alis
04. Oct 2023 · 11:24 UTC
Nice concept, gets hard real fast though. Very good entry, liked it :)
chitoyuu
04. Oct 2023 · 13:43 UTC
Took me a while to understand what "recursive warehouse“ was supposed to mean in this context, but eventually I got it through some trial and error. Cool concept!
Game Dev With Michael
04. Oct 2023 · 13:52 UTC
Cool Puzzle game.

Like others, it took me a few waves to realize I could store the boxes with items in it.

Could be a cool concept to take further into a full game.
LDJam user 280036
04. Oct 2023 · 20:01 UTC
I don't think I understand this one :frowning2: what are we trying to do?

I was able to place the circles and brackets but after that I didn't know what I was going for.
wisstopher
04. Oct 2023 · 21:39 UTC
I didn't understand it right away, but then I did and I was flying. It's impressive that this is your first game in Godot and you managed to get something so solid running in such a short amount of time. Maybe I should check it out. Anyway, great jam!
LDJam user 372085
04. Oct 2023 · 23:08 UTC
i liked this concept a lot! I think if the things you were story were easier to remember (like little pictures maybe?) then i would feel more incentivized to try and make it farther - feels a bit impossible on my memory banks after a certain point right now.
Catulus Zesmar
06. Oct 2023 · 02:58 UTC
Took me a bit to get the hang of the latter waves but the game mechanics are fun and challenging,
indivicivet
06. Oct 2023 · 16:07 UTC
I was a bit confused how it worked -- I saw you could move boxes to inside other boxes, but the first time I moved a box it was to the "delete box" slot, which told me "empty boxes only", so I thought you can only nest empty boxes, which of course is useless... I hadn't realized it was specifically for that slot. maybe a text label would help.

I got to 80 then my brain hurt so I stopped :D

good:
- cool concept, simple to understand (once you actually see what's going on) but incredibly difficult to play
- fits the theme very well

bad:
- hurt my brain (this was probably what you were going for tbh)
- too many letters/numbers to remember. the ideal would be to have lots of visually distinctive things (letter + shape + icon combo kinda thing), but I guess that takes time to do in a jam. maybe if everything was two characters rather than 3 that'd help? (and that wouldn't take added time)
Jimbly
10. Oct 2023 · 02:27 UTC
I got to 168! That was pretty cool, and very intense. I liked the color plus random string labels, it was just enough that I could organize things (by color, in my case) and recognize things (by string once in the right box) which was fun. Until I had one thingy in a wrong box somewhere =). I really like being able to spend as long as I want organizing between rounds, although it was never enough! A little sound would have been nice.
🎤 mao
10. Oct 2023 · 16:13 UTC
@jimbly 168??? Wow, that's way more than my best score!