Connect by BruceZoom
Please play the game on the itch page if the web build does not run!!!
There is no WiFi signal in your neighborhood!
You only have one network port. Build the network for yourself and your neighbors with cables and routers!
How to Play
- Drag LMB in empty space or use WASD/arrow keys to move the camera.
- Scroll mouse wheel to zoom.
- LMB click to connect wires.
- RMB click to disconnect wires.
- Hold LMB to move equipment.
Credits
- Thanks for music by https://tallbeard.itch.io/
- Thanks for reference art by Mom.
Changelog
- 2026/4/20 21:00
- Camera improvement: zoom out to view the entire unlocked area.
- Camera improvement: move with WASD and arrow keys
- Bugfix: equipment pickup is less likely to triggers wiring by mistake
- Visual improvement: juicy animations
- 2026/5/2
- Improve UX: click-and-drag now triggers wiring instead of moving
- Lower the requirement to unlock the final area
| Itch.io | https://brucezoom.itch.io/connect |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/connect |
Ratings
| Overall | 277th | 3.788⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 182th | 3.75⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 77th | 3.981⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 75th | 4.327⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 679th | 3.096⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 396th | 2.84⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 582th | 3.365⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 30🗨️ |
I wish the UX was a bit more polished, I struggled a lot moving the objects around, most of the time it drew cables out of the objects instead. The sound effects can be a bit repetitive and annoying, especially the high pitched ones. And I agree on what's been said about the camera that should be able to zoom out a bit more to see everything.
The wireless connection system was a very cool twist too!
Overall I really love your entry, congratulations!
Thank you all for playing my game and your feedbacks!
I will definitely fix some of these issues when I get back home today!
It's amazing that similar ideas can lead to such different outcomes!
The idea with the bandwidth loss would actually solve our issue with unreadable signal loss values :c
If we ever have to remake the internet we'll split it. You're doing WiFi and cabeling and we're doing antennas and satelite dishes!
A game with a bit of an engineering feel! The background music is really good! But the lines actually follow the mouse cursor, haha, my connecting lines are so ugly, but the square cross-sections with only crooked lines are visually interesting. The map expanding as it grows is quite impressive, and the background music even changes with the stage – it's really exciting! The art style is simple, the line shaking effect is great, and the little appliance icons are cute. I also like the design where clicking on it directly leads to the first level and the title! But honestly, I still haven't quite figured it out yet; maybe they could provide more guidance in the early stages?
@cotijelucie The revolution of modern internet! But in game lol
@awwwz Maybe I should have added more instructions. The purpose of the current design is to let players figure out most of the game themselves, but that's really hard to do. I have supply the control for any operation one can do when the mouse is hovered upon something interactible. But seems that's not enough.
The UX is a bit rough though. It says "[LMB] Connect" but if you click and immediately move your mouse it moves the object instead of drawing a connection. Also the output icons are very misleading. At the beginning I thought that the splitter would only split up to 3 because both the splitter itself and the output icons have 3 outputs displayed. Only at the end when I tried to optimize things I realized that you can have more. Made everything much more messy without me realizing it.
By the way I think there no reason not to chain all your repeaters right at your network source since there is no package size limit.
- I agree the UX is a mess here. In fact, I intentionally made click and immediate drag to move the object to make it easier to move the object. I didn't realize it made the wiring hard.
- I should have explicitly say the splitter can have more than 3 outputs in the tooltip. Sorry about that.
- Chaining all repeaters near the source is definitely one strategy. However, you need to use WiFi to broadcast it to other areas, but the wireless sender has a bandwidth limit, which brings one challenge to this strategy.
- It is also less modular. You would have to adjust the layout in the source area everytime you have enough money for a new repeater. While on the other hand, applying repeater only in the middle or at the end of main routes waste some data but provide better modularity.
Small suggestions: Maybe add a hint for opening the door on the right? Or maybe I'm just dumb—I first noticed the 500 unlock area on the left, and only tried opening the door after I realized I couldn't route the cable over there.
Is there no way to increase the network speed before unlocking the third area? Or did I just miss it...
After I unlocked the 500 area, the previous port was still 256 with no second port—or were you guys intentionally making players choose strategically, like prioritizing wireless signal to the workstation?
来了哥们儿,你这个真的很有意思,游戏时间也很长,两个房子靠一个网络接口那两家人都纯享福了。
小小建议:可以给右边开门加一个提示,要么就是我太蠢了,我一开始首先看到的是左侧500解锁区域,发现线绕不过去之后才尝试去开门。
没有办法在解锁第三个区域前增加网速吗?或者又是我没发现……
我解锁500的区域后,前面的接口还是256的并且没有第二个接口——或者说你们想让玩家做出策略的选择,优先用无线给工作台供信号?
我现在解锁了第三个区域,我有repeater用了!也许这个早点出来,但是限制购买数量除非解锁新区域会好一些?另外好奇问问,真实世界是不是不存在这种设备hh
第三个区域也只有一个接口!小区里的人应该给我立个碑!
I noticed the music evolves as the game progresses, that's really cool. It's just that the area unlocking and progression feels a bit too slow for the audio transitions hh
我注意到音乐也是随着游戏推进会迭代的,那很酷,只是游戏区域的解锁和推进对于音频变换来说有点太慢了hh
事实上区域的解锁除了作为目标驱动玩家游玩,还有一定的教程的作用在里面。区域一主要是教学基础的有线网络搭建。本来相加更多的隐藏区域的,但是确实如你所说可能比较难发现,就只加了一个影响不是特别大的。区域二是强制要求玩家学会无线网络的使用,同时这个阶段的理论上限会大于源头的上限,开始引导玩家寻找可以优化的细节,同时让玩家意识到源头是有上限的。区域三repeater的解锁让玩家得以对源头的数据进行扩容,解决前一阶段的问题。同时带来三个优化目标,驱动玩家进一步研究优化方式。
This game really has a lot of potential, I think the output might be a little slow? Although, I wasn't really sure how to optimize the network? Seeing an upgrade system could be really cool as a way of speeding up gameplay if you ever decide to continue development!
@fleetingmoment Thanks for playing the game! The key idea to optimize in the current game is to prevent waste. Everytime an oversized packet (say 64mb) send to a device (say with input size 16mb), 48mb data gets wasted! So the optimization would be carefully divide packet to fit into the input size. But this might be too obsecure that it should have deserved some in-game hint/tutorial.