Points by Tesseract
The signals aren't working but the trains haven't stopped moving. Set the points to make sure they don't crash.
Controls
- Mouse click on a junction - change the direction in which incoming trains get sent
- Spacebar - pause/resume
- m - mute/unmute audio
It's my first time making a game with music. I expect most of my score for audio comes from the button to turn it off :).
Mechancics
Sending a train to the square depot with matching color will bring you closer to the target (or score points in the final level). Sending them to other depots doesn't cause you to lose. Crashing trains into other trains means you need to restart the level.
Restarting a level resets the tracks - don't assume they've stayed the way you put them.
There are 4 levels, the first of which is a tutorial that should only need one click, and the last of which has the same map as the 3rd level but quickly gets harder, adding more simultaneous trains as your score grows. Let me know what score you can reach.
It can be played on mobile if you can tap precisely, but desktop is strongly recommended.
Toolset
Kate editor, kolorpaint image editor, tenacity for audio recording (most audio and graphics generated by code), firefox for testing & debugging. No LLM usage.
| Link | https://penteract.github.io/ld59/points.html |
| Link | https://github.com/penteract/ld59 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/points |
Ratings
| Overall | 179th | 3.316⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 118th | 3.447⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 157th | 3.368⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 157th | 3.605⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 258th | 2.763⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 200th | 2.833⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 141th | 2.559⭐ | 19🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 213th | 3.056⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 17🗳️ | 7🗨️ |
Good game overall and music is not that bad ^^
(me just before the crash)

Simple and neat entry.
Only thing I had trouble with some times is that I couldn't directly tell the position of a switch, maybe a clearer indicator would've been helpful.
BTW, if you're interested in this kind of games, go also give my game a try, it's using a very similar concept (I feel like your game is more fleshed out though)
The graphics are simple, which isn't a problem, but I had some difficulty understanding the paths when I glanced at them quickly. Something more visually appealing might be easier to understand.
I apologize in advance for my honesty, but the music is awful. I had to mute it and open Spotify. It was good in a way because I discovered a wonderful album.
Congratulations on the game. I saved it here for my children to play. It will be good for their brains.
:)
You've made a good start with music, too - it sounds maybe code-generated to me, which is pretty cool. I think you could make the compositional idea work a little better by making it less relentless and choosing a less harsh sound. Let it fade in and out a bit, create a chill ambient vibe. Keep it up, writing game music is super rewarding :)
Overall, great work! There's a nice zen atmosphere to this one.
I wonder if one collision being an instant game over might be a bit harsh on the longer levels - could maybe give the player a few lives instead?
If you continue extending this post-jam, I think directional hints/path previews for each train could really help readability and predictability during the later chaos. A high score or speed-solving system would fit nicely too.
The procedural music was a really nice touch. Feels like it could go even further with automation reacting to gameplay/events as things get more intense.
I also agree with the other comments about clearing crashed trains faster to make room for incoming ones (even if that’s not exactly realistic 😄).
And frankly, a planning/sandbox round where we can place all the pieces first and then hit play to watch the whole system unfold would be super satisfying.

Overall looks nice and clean, gives you everything you need to understand what's going on, and the overlapping tracks could've easily been messy but you made them work well and it feels intuitive where the trains will go! The UI controls could be a bit more cohesive with the graphics, looks a bit browser defaulty.
I will agree with yourself that the music was a bit grating :p But I still wanted to play with sound on because the sound effects were great feedback. Even more train sounds and animations would've been cool, but I think it also works well with the minimalistic style.
Gameplay itself is great. Again, it was difficult sometimes when there were many trains at the same time, but it didn't feel unfair and it always felt like it was possible to make it if it hadn't been for my own mistakes. The variety between levels is nice. I wonder if it could be expanded into a longer game with more mechanics introduced later. At the beginning I thought maybe a fast-forward button would've been nice but as soon as you get more than one train you definitely don't want that, so I'm not sure. Guess it's nice to have and just not use it most of the time :p
Cool stuff, thanks for making it! I still want to go back and try to do better at it~
And about music. It isn't that bad, I didn't mute it thru all my tries on lvl 3 and that can tell you sth. I mean it is pretty repetitive so it could get to the point of being annoying. But I also think the track fits the game nicely.