LudumData

Signal-flag Shuffle by HacksawUnit

[raw]
made by HacksawUnit for Ludum Dare 59 (COMPO)

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In this game, you play as a sailor organizing navigational nautical signal flags after a long adventure along with his engineer friends. Use the power of throwing stuff to sort everything out, and use the power of explosions to... uh, help with that! Yeah. Not just because it's fun, or something... Anyway, try not to lose track of time or run out of space to put stuff!

CONTROLS LEFT AND RIGHT - Move! UP - Lob flags upwards. DOWN- Switch flag position.

HINTS - Three flags within a row clear as long as they're connected by crates or flags. They don't have to be touching, though, and everything else is cleared with them. - Make progress by matching the two flags at the right with your extra cleared flags. - Bump into your engineer friends to swap what you're holding with them. They'll make another one while you work. - Bombs remove everything above them. - Crates only clear when there's 5 in a row, which pauses the timer. - The game forces a game over at level 8. There's no special screen, though. :(

Game and source https://kirklindsay.itch.io/signal-flag-shuffle
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/signal-flag-shuffle

Ratings

Overall 63th 3.81⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 35th 3.857⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 138th 3.429⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 251th 2.786⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 54th 3.976⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 58th 3.714⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 47th 3.476⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 86th 3.7⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 15🗳️ 14🗨️

Feedback

William Corrin
Apr 20th · 04:34 UTC
The fact that you made the pirate have his face change animations to laughing and being scared depending on what your last action was icing on the cake.

This is my favorite one so far, nice job!
nathmate
Apr 20th · 06:26 UTC
I found it difficult to progress past the first step, once I parsed what "extra cleared flags" meant. Game felt very juicy.
blobo
Apr 20th · 18:14 UTC
It took me a while to figure out what the objective was and how to make it happen, but once it clicked, my goodness! What a fun and tricky block stacking game. P.S. those boxes are brutal. I know it would change the meta in a dramatic way, but I wonder how much the game changes if the boxes didn't exist. (or if they cleared like the flags, but without triggering the objective checks)

Destroying two columns of garbage simultaneously with two bombs is quite the dopamine rush, so much so that you've just won the **Most satisfying bomb** award.

![MostSatisfyingBomb.png](///raw/b02/2/z/70c6f.png)

And of course, here's my recorded gameplay to provide extra feedback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uHLsHW6y0
Mathstr0fficial
Apr 20th · 19:09 UTC
This was a blast! I was very confused on how everything works for a while there but once it clicked it really clicked. You've carved out a bit of a niche as the "weird block puzzle" guy and it always really works. I know you said you were planning on adding more of a campaign mode and that would've been great to see, but it works just as well as a flat-out puzzler. Here's my full playthrough!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNeCnP7Ii6E

I also present you with the **Captain Confusion** award. Maybe sort the flags out below deck next time.

![captain-confusion.png](///raw/422/3/z/70d4b.png)
Jezzamon
Apr 20th · 20:33 UTC
Stumbled across this on itch! I think I agree with folks about how I didn't really understand how to progress past the 0/2 and what the extra flags meant...

I like the little characters though! Fun vibes :)

And overall this felt quite well polished, so nice job with that!
Jezzamon
Apr 20th · 20:43 UTC
oooooh I get it now. Ok, the realization of figuring things out was nice :)
DecadeDecaf
Apr 21st · 02:31 UTC
I didn't read the list of "hints" at first, so the first time I grabbed a bomb, it felt like my entire world opened up. And the first time I cleared 5 crates? Oh boy.

This game had a really satisfying learning curve for me, and the fact that everything worked so well with only 4 buttons is impressive. The crates functioning as a bridge between triplets of flags without functioning as a flag itself is super interesting and lead to a lot of scary decision-making in the best way.

I actually really like when games Tell You Nothing, but I agree with other commenters that the lack of in-game information might be a tough pill to swallow for some players.

The music and spritework made me smile a lot. I like how the sailor's facial expression changes depending on the situation; that's a really nice touch. Overall, I really enjoyed this game!! Phenomenal work.
Purrseus
Apr 21st · 09:58 UTC
The Drunken Sailor jingle alone sold your game to me before it even began, oh my god!

Incredibly polished!
Wouter52
Apr 21st · 14:52 UTC
What a fun game! I found myself playing this for way too long. I agree with the feedback DecadeDecaf gave. First it was a bit unclear, but learning each mechanic was an eye opener and made me play better each time. The emotions of the little pirate are a very cool addition
Starlight Glimmer is best poney
Apr 22nd · 16:42 UTC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlOfAH0LaEs

If Hammer Golf was a unique take on Tetris then this one is a unique take on Match-3. Your games are super high quality but the learning curve is always an 80-degree mountain with an avalanche warning; it's nice in its own weird way because the multiple eureka moments the player gets to experience are very satisfying.
mahalis
Apr 23rd · 12:15 UTC
This is clever! I found it really challenging with such a small board, but there’s probably some better strategy that I haven’t been able to find yet. Love the illustrations (the “engineer friends” are a great way to give that mechanic more character), and the animation’s very juicy as others have said—I liked the cartoony zoom lines when tossing things onto the board. Nice work.
pickens-inc
Apr 25th · 17:03 UTC
Oh, I'm so terrible at these sorts of games, but it had a great feel! I feel like the "hints" are more like a necessary set of instructions to know what to do, but once I got to grips with the mechanics, it was a great little complex game, you strike that great balance in that you realise that the game seems simple but is much more cmoplex than it initially appears. The visuals are super charming, especially the emotion changes, and the flags have fun designs that are all distinctive from each other. Well done!
fractalsunrise
May 02nd · 05:39 UTC
This game was fun! I appreciated that the time limit wasn't very restrictive so I had time to figure out what to do. It took me a while to understand that the lower row of the sign was the leftover two in the row I just cleared, but once I got that I felt like I understood everything. The animations were great and it felt very satisfying to throw the blocks and bombs. Great job!
xotraz
May 03rd · 20:37 UTC
A solid take on a classic game, I would just have preferred more link with the theme.
Alchemic
May 07th · 21:37 UTC
It starts off pretty challenging, but it's very fun! Dealing with crates was very difficult, I feel like my board quickly became like half crates and I wasn't sure of how to deal with them.

I only managed to match the goal pair like 3 or 4 times before getting overwhelmed.

Overall very cool concept!
Sheepolution
May 08th · 13:06 UTC
Good thing 100thcoin had that video, because I was lost at what I was supposed to do. It's very tricky, but fun! One annoying this is when you reserve a block, and after a throw it changes into a bomb. The crates certainly make it a lot more difficult. I feel like with a few tweaks this can be an even better game. Or maybe I just suck :) Anyway, always nice to see your innovative match-3 like games, showing the genre is far from fully explored.