Signaling Home by TinySalad

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

Get Home, using nothing but your wits, a decades old phrase book, an even older radio, and of course a all the missiles you can carry! You might however be low on fuel...

shot_010636.png

Controls: left mouse.

The 4 signal, trade, warp, and shoot buttons!

tools: C, SDL2, Emscripten(web export), Blender, Clip Studio Paint

Ratings

Overall 171th 3.368⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 250th 2.737⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 162th 3.316⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 64th 4.132⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 50th 4.028⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Audio 106th 3.474⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 129th 2.625⭐ 18🧑‍⚖️
Mood 126th 3.528⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 32🗳️ 9🗨️

Feedback

Floonace
Apr 21st · 00:55 UTC
Really nice graphics and game looks fun but I didn't managed to find what pink-yellow-green-blue signal means.
Daliamha
Apr 23rd · 11:46 UTC
Interesting game. I like that i can flip through the pages but I don't understand what to do(
Sh0ck3r
Apr 23rd · 11:51 UTC
Nice graphics, but the game really lacks at least minimal tutorial, after 5 minutes of gameplay I still didn't understand what to do at all.
IRKAR
Apr 23rd · 12:05 UTC
I like visual game, this draws like in paint also nice sounds in game but i speak to aliens and don`t recognize whats they saying. Good job!![Screenshot_20260423_150127.png](///raw/25b/76/z/7271d.png)
13pilgrims
Apr 24th · 14:07 UTC
The art style is gorgeous — like a picture book brought to life, with that highly saturated fairy-tale palette. However, I feel the gameplay could be a bit more obvious. After starting the game, I noticed the patterns and figured out some rules, but I wasn't quite sure what I was actually supposed to do.
bigfatgua
Apr 25th · 08:21 UTC
![屏幕截图 2026-04-25 161808.png](///raw/787/76/z/72a8f.png)
I’m a bit confused about the old phrase book. I think I’ve figured out a little bit regarding how I should respond and receive signals, but I’m still not sure if I’m doing it correctly. Is this supposed to feel like a real-time exchange? Whenever I receive red, yellow, green, or purple signals, it seems that no matter how I respond, I just keep receiving the same signals back."
rexpeppers
May 05th · 01:15 UTC
Pretty damn cool, tho it seems like I always get the same signal back...
Jahwffrey
May 05th · 02:27 UTC
I love it, it took a while to understand what was going on but I managed to start talking to it and getting different responses and having a vague conversation. It's really tough and I honestly haven't gotten very far but this is too cool!
Maxwell3000
May 05th · 02:42 UTC
Really great style for the game, tho I think when it comes to the book the style is a little too much. A lot of this game was me squinting my eyes at the page trying to figure out what the words even meant since they were so small. Overall really well polished though, good stuff!
Jezzamon
May 05th · 02:44 UTC
I beat the game!! Maybe one of the few people to figure it out, looking at the comments.

Took me a while to understand that the "papers please" and similar dialogs were stuff that people didn't like. I seems like spamming that is a pretty decent strategy anyway haha. But once I realized that, I tried to play without it, and finding a good strategy was fun.

Great job with the signalling mechanic, felt really good and fitting for the theme!

I died once, when I clicked the trade button incorrectly on purpose to see what would happen. Sort of curious to see what happens if I intentionally send bad signals to aliens.

I think adding more clear instructions to the game would help people enjoy this more. It was fun when I figured it out, but I can see that a lot of people stumbled on this.

Also, cool that you programmed it in C!
Carraka
May 05th · 05:54 UTC
This looks really intriguing, but I couldn't figure out how to play. Also, it would be nice if the four buttons made different pitches. Then if nothing else, I could be making music!
csnxs
May 06th · 22:38 UTC
I like the style, but yeah, the game is pretty confusing. I sort of get the idea, but have failed to put it into practice...