Signals From Somewhere by BrittleLizard

[raw]
made by BrittleLizard for Ludum Dare 59 (JAM)

Signals From Somewhere is an experimental puzzle(?) game about tuning dials to return and communicate with mysterious frequencies.

Headphones are highly recommended.

Playable entirely with mouse.

The goal is meant to be intuited in-game, but if you're having trouble figuring it out: !>Simply tune the dial(s) so they match the tower's sound as closely as possible. Each dial will modify a different effect on the audio, e.g. pitch, tremolo, etc.

As an additional hint: !>Depending on how many dials you have correct already, your side of the screen will send out yellow circles(s) a few moments after the tower flashes its blue circle(s). One correct dial = one circle, two correct dials = two circles, etc.

If the Ludum Dare embed seems excessively slow to load, please view the itch.io link below.

Made in GameMaker.

Ratings

Overall 573th 3.364⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 661th 2.977⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 69th 4.023⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 51th 4.409⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 664th 3.136⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 224th 3.75⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 434th 3.614⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 10🗳️ 6🗨️

Feedback

Mr. Flower
Apr 20th · 20:28 UTC
Very nice entry, I like the idea of trying to find the right signal through trial and error. I do have to admit I wasn't able to get past that third one with the disconnected sounds. But other than that, I think the game is great (for as little of it as a played).
khaotom
Apr 21st · 04:18 UTC
The whale song one was the hardest to do, that one i had to resort to trial and error. the others i was able to tune by ear. very fun take on the theme. nice work!
4farandbeyond
Apr 21st · 04:27 UTC
Theres a lot of really cool audio in this one. I dig the vibe as well. I do wish there was a bit more clarity towards what you were doing wrong with the dials, like how in the 2 dial levels you get pings when 1 is correct. Very nice though!
beats
Apr 21st · 12:23 UTC
I assume experimenting with the dials are part of the gameplay experience but I couldnt quite figure this one out. I heard koreans fighting during my first playthrough and never again and managed to beat the first level but unsure of how I did it. I would have appreciated more guidance either in the description or in game.
23edsa
Apr 21st · 20:59 UTC
I somehow guessed how to do the first one, but I had learned nothing for the third one :D
🎤 BrittleLizard
Apr 21st · 21:56 UTC
@23edsa @beats I updated the page with some information if you would like to try it out again.
SilentLegion
Apr 23rd · 16:20 UTC
Fun game with an interesting idea, but some of the sounds were a bit too hard to match up (whale song) as there is to much silence in between the effects. It was still fun enough that I would have played it until the end, but the very slow animations annoyed me too much to keep playing
Kandvise
Apr 25th · 10:06 UTC
Great work with sound. But the signals are quite difficult to pick up. It seems to me that the marks on the scale of the controls would make the gameplay more understandable, for example, as in the picture)![example.png](///raw/faf/76/z/72aae.png)
cedaoan
Apr 25th · 10:21 UTC
Very very interesting idea! Took me a short moment to understand what I need to do, but I had fun playing it, nice job!
LDJam user 179298
May 06th · 02:21 UTC
I find the game quite hard but I really like the concept, made me feel like an audio engineer. It's also quite immersive which I appreciate.
auxC
May 06th · 02:45 UTC
Interesting idea and very fitting for the theme. I was able to get most of the signals without resorting to trial and error. Playing this reminded me a bit of snooping around with WebSDR radios, which adds a bunch of cool points!
Winbion
May 06th · 02:57 UTC
I like the concept, but I’m worried it might not be for everyone. It would be convenient if there were some kind of “visualization” of the original sound and the sound we are adjusting. I genuinely liked the idea, and I think I’ll add something like this to one of my own games.

But it was very inconvenient to adjust the sound when it was intermittent. I also think there should always be at least two sliders; otherwise, you can simply brute-force the answer.

Ну а так же надо было сделать что бы ползунок крутился относительно того где игрок зажал кнопку(Нередки случае когда у меня просто сбивалась настройка в крайнее положение)
В теории можно просто брать передвижение мышы по "y" не учитывая "x"

P.S. Only after writing this comment did I read the spoilers under the description. While playing, I didn’t even understand what the yellow circles meant.
LDJam user 379026
May 06th · 02:57 UTC
Fun concept, I've run across a few such games and I always feel they ramp up in difficulty a bit too quick for me personally. I'd love to see some more playful signals coming in to match back to, kinda playing off of something similar to Project Hail Marry.
Danibeve
May 06th · 06:18 UTC
The game is quite difficult, but very original idea, it matches perfectly the jam theme. Congratulations, very good job for a two people game!
Bernhard
May 06th · 09:39 UTC
I think this is one of the best “knob tune” games I’ve played so far, with the variations of effects and multiple levels and everything!
Lenny Rudeberg
May 06th · 16:46 UTC
Very interesting concept, I did enjoy attempting to match the pitch and timing of the incoming signal but as the levels progressed I found it a bit difficult to understand how my adjustments were affecting my signal in relation to the reference signal. That being said it was still a cool, fun idea. GG!
Tanjou
May 07th · 11:59 UTC
The controls are a bit hard but a nice twist on the signal matching mechanic!
Jvdwijk
May 07th · 20:51 UTC
Interesting take on the theme! The first couple of levels were quite fun to figure out but it got pretty difficult later on. It would be nice to toggle mute sliders so you can focus on one slider at a time to align them properly.

Unfortunately the game started freezing every so often which made it difficult to fully beat the game.
Still, great job with this entry!
🎤 BrittleLizard
May 07th · 21:53 UTC
@jvdwijk Can you tell me what platform you were playing on and if anything in particular caused the freezes? There really isn't a lot going on under the hood, so it shouldn't be hard for most people to run