Hexle by TRASEVOL_DOG

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

Hexle_000.gif

Hexle is a small number-guessing puzzle game, kindof like Sudoku, with original rules that I came up with after rattling my brain for much of the first 36 hours of the compo!

I ran out of time on the introduction part of the game, but I did try to make the game comprehensible. :smile: Also my take on the theme is a bit meta as it's mostly about possibility space, and how lower numbers of blank squares are usually helpful in this type of games.

Here are the rules, though hopefully the game itself should do a better job of explaining them when you start playing: * all numbers appear once per 4x4 square.​ * each 4 digit column and row has a restricting 'bit': 1, 2, 4 or 8. * restrictive bits apply no further than the closest 4 digit row or column. * restrictive bits do not apply to zeros, you should place zeros by exclusion. * a digit cannot appear twice in the same row or column. * restrictive bits should be guessed

This is a compo entry, and so in accordance to *the rules I made everything myself within 48 hours.*

It was my first time ever making a puzzle game, I'm quite happy I managed to finish it and make it playable! Please do let me know what you think of it!

edit: as is authorized by the Ludum Dare rules, I fixed a crash when trying to restart a level, and fixed the phrasing for rule #5. (the previous phrasing was plain wrong, sorry :sweat_smile:)

Hexle<em>snap</em>003.png

Hexle<em>snap</em>008.png

Ratings

Overall 27th 4.15⭐ 42🧑‍⚖️
Fun 68th 3.9⭐ 42🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 27th 4.175⭐ 42🧑‍⚖️
Theme 203th 3.563⭐ 42🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 67th 4.013⭐ 41🧑‍⚖️
Audio 77th 3.684⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Mood 97th 3.653⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Given 25🗳️ 25🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 376284
02. Oct 2023 · 01:47 UTC
I've never seen this concept before! I just had one question about a certain rule. The game says that "every number must appear in each 8 digit row or column," even though there are 16 numbers. Does it just mean numbers can't repeat in a row or column, or does it mean each bit must appear in each row or column? While this rule could be a bit clearer, I found the game very enjoyable once I got the hang of it!
🎤 TRASEVOL_DOG
02. Oct 2023 · 10:27 UTC
@jack728 Yes sorry I made a mistake when writing the rule you mention, I was very tired :sweat_smile:, I fixed it so now it says "a digit cannot appear twice in the same row or column", which is what I meant. :slight_smile:
Thanks for the feedback!
stmate03
02. Oct 2023 · 14:24 UTC
The game is super easy and addicting to play, I only begun understanding the rules and how they work together to fill a board, The puzzle generation is a bit slow however as I see the game chug trying to generate a puzzle, the sound effects are nice, wish it had a calm music to accompany the game, but without music it also works just fine, there was also a crash after the tutorial, unsure if it was fixed or not, bot overall a lovely little game I will play when my brain needs a restart :smiley:
cleitoneldorn
02. Oct 2023 · 17:50 UTC
Awesome game, and very well polished!
Corporation
02. Oct 2023 · 18:09 UTC
Very interesting game! It's really a puzzle not even in terms of video games, but actually feels like a physical puzzle, that you can touch, inspect and learn. I very much enjoyed the process of learning all the rules, even though some still feels unclear to me. Reminder me of a "Witness" game.

My only suggestion would be maybe to hint the goal of the game in the begining, because the rules described pretty clear, but a player can get confused and be left with a question: yes, but what is my goal here? But maybe it's just the intended process of learning as you planned)
zanagi
02. Oct 2023 · 18:12 UTC
This was a very creative take on sudoku-like games.
Initially, rule 6 seemed really daunting but after actually giving it a try it was clearly doable :smile:
I did feel like I had to take notes on possible restricting bits after they were hidden; I wish that it would've been possible to do that in-game.

Still, this was a wonderful game with a nice and clean look, and congrats for submission!
Doot
02. Oct 2023 · 20:18 UTC
This is really impressive ✨

I can't imagine how hard it must be to design such rules and then make a good enough puzzle generator based on them. I'm really admirative! The polish and game feel are also really good, well done!

Overall it was a bit difficult to grasp everything for my post-compo brain, but I still had fun and might come back to it later to do some daily puzzles!
Strato
02. Oct 2023 · 20:23 UTC
I love this. Was a bit overwhelming at first when you're going through the rules but once it all clicks it's a very neat puzzle, and the reactive feedback of the game elements feel very nice. A solid idea with an impressive amount of polish.
LDJam user 372063
02. Oct 2023 · 21:59 UTC
Great spin for a sudoku fan! I was going for fewest mistakes, so kept wanting to write a "maybe" number down for places where there were 2 possible placements for a number. If there was a way to do this I couldn't find one, but I used the right-click to cross a number out instead.

The buttons were pushed slightly off the bottom during tutorials but not in the main game. Great work on the tutorial btw, it's unusual to see that in a jam game. :) Also I liked the sfx!

My technique was to place the 1,2,4,8 first then work through from 3-F in each corner. For some reason, there weren't many times that the rule about numbers being unique in a row/column helped me.
Hunter Van Brocklin
03. Oct 2023 · 02:38 UTC
i really enjoy this! it took a bit to fully grasp the ruleset but i got the hang of it by the last tutorial game so i guess i was right on track haha. definitely the sort of thing i'd enjoy just quickly playing a game or two of in spare time : )
fractalsunrise
03. Oct 2023 · 03:20 UTC
Incredible job! I really liked how the rules led to "theorems" which then made solving the puzzles easier (won't spoil them here). The polish was great and the confetti was really fun. Sometimes in fullscreen on my HD monitor the buttons at the bottom were partially offscreen, and for one of the rule tutorial levels the rule text partially overlapped the constraint bits at the top, but the buttons were still clickable and the constraints were still readable so I could still keep going. But so many things worked so well for this game; I'm very impressed.
It's really fun; great job!
mao
03. Oct 2023 · 03:33 UTC
Neat take on sudoku! It took a while to resolve any cells until I figured out a few tricks to make things faster, like placing digits with fewer bits first. A way to quickly cross out numbers would be nice, or some kind of assist like showing which numbers have been used in the given 4x4 box (I'm a very casual sudoku solver).
LDJam user 316658
03. Oct 2023 · 04:25 UTC
this is a really fun take on a sudoku-like game! there's something very satisfying about filling up the 4x4 square.
stevenjmiller
03. Oct 2023 · 07:46 UTC
Great game, it was a lot of fun figuring out strategies to solve the puzzles faster (the main breakthrough for me was realizing that numbers comprised of two bits need to be in line with the corresponding numbers in their 4x4 grid).
tanis
03. Oct 2023 · 16:05 UTC
Nice twist on the sudoku genre. I would have liked some music in the background. And I must admit that I like the minimalist look you went for. Nice one.
recursor
03. Oct 2023 · 17:19 UTC
This is a very well-done little sudoku-flavored game. I thing the low-res graphics and minimal sounds add to the experience. You even managed to get a little bit of 'juice' in there too. Well-done.
torcado
03. Oct 2023 · 21:57 UTC
wow this is wonderful! buitifully polished as always, really neat to see a purely "ui" game from you as a departure from your usually very juicy and flashy games, and how the design style transfers :)

this is a very cool sudoku modification, im surprised i havent seen it before! it works really well. and fits the theme great of course :) very nice work
Phobos001
04. Oct 2023 · 14:29 UTC
Very hard because I'm not familiar with sudoku at all x.x Lol building whole new neural paths for this game. It's a great brain scratcher and it feels good to solve a square. The visuals are great for such a simple game too. Great work! I'm gonna keep trying :smile:
Local Minimum
06. Oct 2023 · 14:16 UTC
Great Sudoku variant. I managed to beat a board on normal mode at least and it perhaps I shouldn't say too much as I didn't try it on hard, but I feel like the:

!> single bit numbers seem to give a lot more information than others and greatly limits the possibilities.

It was great that the game was helpful in showing the bits of all numbers, else I would probably have given up.

At times I would have liked being able to take notes about possible values in a cell without guessing but within the scope of the compo, I very much understand why it would have been one too many features.

It also felt a bit like cheating that the game let me know when I guessed wrong, and I would have liked being able to disable that and instead only get evaluated when the board completes.

Perhaps you should submit it to the "Cracking The Cryptic"-youtube channel...
LDJam user 4886
08. Oct 2023 · 13:00 UTC
Mind-blowing! You better print it on paper to annotate options! I love when you are sure about a number and meeec it's not, and you start debugging your reasoning to figure out why.
LDJam user 277851
16. Oct 2023 · 00:45 UTC
Your pixel art is already masterful. It's hard to imagine a pixel game impressing me so much. The colors and layout are so perfect, presenting a simple, clear and attractive gameplay. You are awesome. good job!
digital bacon
17. Oct 2023 · 10:19 UTC
Nice little puzzle game. Rules need a bit more polish on the explanation, but I think you're almost there. Great work.