Stars Align by cassowary

You are a lizard, who is also a wizard. You have the power to cast a summoning spell to pull tiles towards you. Your mission is to align all the magical tiles in order to ensure that their magic power can flow freely. Can you line up the tiles in all 15 levels?
This one ended up being surprisingly challenging, I think, so be forewarned...
How to play
- Use the arrow keys to move around.
- Use the space bar to pull a tile towards you. Tiles can move over empty spaces but not gaps in the level.
- You can pull tiles from as far away as you want, even from the other side of a gap.
- Your goal is to line up the lines on the edge of each marked tile with another marked tile, with a clear path between them. They can align over gaps, but not through walls.
- Blank tiles can be moved around but don't need to be lined up with anything.
- Brick walls block alignment and the character's pull power.
- Z to undo, R to reset, M to mute.
Tools used * Graphics: Aseprite * Game engine: zucchinibread.js, my browser game engine * Level design: Tiled + ulvl * Sound effects: PXTone and Audacity * Music: Ableton Live

| Link | https://github.com/cassowarii/ld55 |
| Link | https://cassowary.itch.io/stars-align |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/stars-align |
Ratings
| Overall | 17th | 4.256⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 36th | 4.037⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 41th | 4.024⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 175th | 3.585⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 61th | 4.073⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 24th | 4.049⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 187th | 2.77⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 46th | 3.938⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 22🗳️ | 27🗨️ |
The controls felt a bit awkward at first (probably because of how you can turn in place), but I'm not sure if they can be improved.
I played up to level 9, will continue later. Some of the puzzles seemed impossible at first, but were solvable with just a bit of persistence, which I think is ideal.
graphics are simple and cool, i particularly like the particles (saw your post when you were working on it) and how the line brightens when tiles are linked.
controls were a bit awkward because i often wanted to only look in a direction and ended up walking toward it because i pressed the key for too long. apart from that i don't see any issue!
Great job a usual!
(edit: I'll probably fix the control issue after the rating period is up -- it's really just a matter of adjusting a constant in the code which I think I accidentally set a bit too low.)
I really liked that the _distance_ to the pieces didn't matter, just the alignment did. It made it easy to get the general idea of how to solve a level immediately, but made it so you had to experiment a bit to figure out exactly where they go.
Level 6 was really deceptive - it _looks_ easy, but was actually a bit of a head-scratcher.
The pacing was good too. Awesome job!
It's as you this is not your first puzzle game ;)
I liked getting used to thinking about a sliding block puzzle from a pull rather than push perspective. The puzzles were also deceptively difficult because I didn't initially know which block had to align with which.
It was interesting that some levels definitely had multiple solutions. I feel like I stumbled into a solution on the last level purely by luck :)
I'll resume my progress on this game when I had time.
Everything done so well, great puzzle design and just generally fun to play!
Anyway, it's a great game, well played !
I got this message when loading into Firefox (115.8.0esr (64-bit))
```
Uncaught TypeError: map is undefined
draw_map https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/10181599/packaging/game.js:1028
do_draw https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/10181599/packaging/game.js:935
_draw https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/10181599/packaging/zucchinibread.js:569
_start_transition https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/10181599/packaging/zucchinibread.js:725
start_transition https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/10181599/packaging/zucchinibread.js:307
reset https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/10181599/packaging/game.js:665
handle_keyup https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/10181599/packaging/game.js:1103
onkeyup https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/10181599/packaging/zucchinibread.js:363
game.js:1028:24
```
(I don't get an error with Hazel and Hector ( https://cassowary.itch.io/hazel-and-hector ), which I think uses the same engine (probably an earlier version, though!))
One thing I'd hope for is faster movement (at least for quick successive moves), as sometimes the solution sequence is long and I'm retrying multiple times from scratch. There is an apparently random bug where a key (movement/summon) gets stuck for a while (maybe with accidental triggering of context menus), and the levels' order might need a bit tuning (some later puzzles can turn out more straightforward once things start moving), but those are none of a problem. I can never get enough of such kind of puzzles. Kudos!
Edit: mentions puzzle ordering
Thanks for the help, and thanks for the game, which is great! I'm still struggling to get to the end!
Control wise I'd increase the buffer time for tapping slightly.
After giving my brain a good scratch, I got to level 7.
I'd also like to remind you that we are in fact in year 2024, not 2023 :P

Sadly I'm not caffeinated enough to figure out the final puzzles , but just to say, amazing job for such a polished and rounded entry.

There have been so many Sokaban-style games at this point that it's surprising that this one feels so unique even though there are only really two changes to the core game:
- You suck instead of push
- The blocks need to be arranged in a certain way
It turns out those two things make a big difference! Along with good level design, they led for a number of "aha" moments and head-scratcher situations where a deceptively simple problem required several steps to execute on. A slightly awkward byproduct is that you could never bring the blocks quite to the edge, since you're in the way, but you play this to its strengths by designing levels where you have to avoid boxing yourself in or where you're separated from the blocks by a big chasm anyway. But there are some moments where this feels a little weird because the level looks very open but plays like it's cramped --- and you have to mentally subtract the one-block border to find navigable paths.
Graphics and audio are charming, I like the lizard wizard as a protagonist! Here's a doodle:

Firstly, the gameplay is nice, even though I was a little bit confused in the first level. I didn't realise that you need to pull blocks. But when I got the hang of it, I really like that mechanic!
The game is fun and pleasantly difficult. I'm no puzzle expert, in fact I rarely play puzzle games, but I really like this one!
Also, the graphics and sound is pretty great in my opinion! I like the lizard, very cute! And I must tell you about the music. I **really** like it. It feels calming, warm, and welcoming, which is my jam.
The only issue that I had I think is that you need to press a button very briefly to just turn, but it was just a very minor annoyance.
Oh, and I like the way how you nicely integrate the current level number with the actual level. Very nice attention to detail.
Overall, this was a very well made submission, loved it. Will play again! _(brain, please remember to play this game again)_