Diacombs by aeveis

Description
You are this microscopic creature called a Diacomb. You can combine simple diacombs together to make more fully formed diacombs. Explore and go deeper downwards in this top-down grid based puzzle game.
Thanks for playing!
Updates
4/25/21 - If you undo very fast you may run into some undo bugs, but it is not game breaking. - Pushing things be be weird if game happens to be lagging - There is a bug with textboxes not going away when you want them - Text options and some other options may not be working properly
Controls
- [Arrow Keys] to Move
- [Z] to Undo
- [X] to Select and to Ring Bell (found later in game)
- [R] to restart the game
- [Enter] Options for rebinding controls (somewhat untested)
[ ] ] If you get stuck: Right Bracket for skipping doors just to see what is next.
Tools
Art: Gimp
- Library: HaxeFlixel
- IDE: HaxeDevelop
- Music/Sound: OpenMPT, Audacity
- Level Editor: Tiled
Ratings
| Overall | 83th | 4⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 128th | 3.867⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 197th | 3.7⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 776th | 2.9⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 82th | 4.177⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 212th | 3.583⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 395th | 2.591⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 268th | 3.569⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 30🗳️ | 40🗨️ |
Other than some minor bugs (undo weirdness mentioned on the page, and got myself stuck at the very end messing with several dozen dragons), this is a very nice puzzle game! fairly short but still got me scratching my head at some sections. great stuff!
graphisms are very "moodesque", but I got a little confused because sometimes they flip automatically horizontally to fit their match. I thought at first that there was a difference between an object flipped and a not-flipped one.
Music is soft and fits well with the game, but it ends up being annoying.
The enigma on the fourth screen, with all the simple diacombs is very well-balanced. It looks scary and full of combinations. Then you understand little by little how it is structured.
Every time I changed screen I thought there would be a way of cheating, by bringing diacombs to the new screen. But every time, it revealed impossible, or just useless.
Let's call this puzzle type "soko-merge" !
@mdotedot thanks! The animation on the player is just 3 frames, but added some scale to the regular sprites add a lot.
@100th-coin Thanks!
@recher oh yeah, I wanted a bit more variation, but the outline still needs to match haha. Perhaps something to think about for later.
@zzox Thanks! Yeah, wanted to get a bit of exploration-y feely in there
@foolmoron Thanks! I was looking at diatoms (the -tom part means split, so they are called daicombs (combine)) for visual inspiration.
@john-gabriel if you want to take a peek ahead, "]" will open doors :) thanks!
@quoclon Thanks!
I didn't read carefully at first and lost a couple minutes of progress because I thought R would restart a screen instead of the whole game. I see you did that because it made for the neat aha moment of (ROT13'd for spoilers) oevatvat va qvngbzf sebz bgure fperraf, so I think it was worth it. However, it'd have been nice to be able to press Z to undo a restart, since it was a little stressful knowing I could restart the whole game with a single button press.
Also, like @recher above I was confused by the outline reflections at first, but the gameplay is pretty intuitive so it wasn't for too long.
The game did end sorta abruptly right after you introduced a new mechanic (the bell), but I understand that there's only so much you can do in 48 hours - I'd be interested to see what other sorts of levels could be made!
Nice job overall, and thanks for the puzzles!

@nikolaj Thanks! You might have to press z several times if you bonked against the wall a lot (this is fixed in an not online post compo version).
@connorses Yeah, I think I made that puzzle a bit too long. the solution here is at the beginning you need to push one diacomb up so you can use it later and not fill the star diacombs until after you push most things in since you end up making a bunch of them anyway. Also, you can press ']' if you want to skip ahead just to see :).
@silkypantsdan Thanks! Yeah that was the next feature I was going to work on (have worked on now) for the compo haha. you can press ']' to open doors if you want to skip ahead.
Very impressive, especially for a compo entry, congratulations!
However you did place a lot of frustrations in the end:
* The long corridor puzzle with the whole corridor with all the diacombs. I think we both are aware that's too long to finish and will definitely confuse the player if not eased in, especially with the concept of taking out a diacomb out that whole set.
* I can't help but feel there should be a 2-diacomb and 3-diacomb versions of the Diabos. It's like being given a head banger of a puzzle immediately to another head banger of a puzzle.
* I am actually sad I can't properly place this in full screen since it just hugs the top-left corner without rescaling.
* Oh and uh... hold rewind please. That would be great. I can't really tap rewind for like, 20 moves in a row.
Either way, it's a really fun and visually appealing remix of Sokoban and I would definitely love to see this finished post jam!
1. Yep, I saw that after testing with a friend, but the compo was done haha
2. 2-3 level Diabos are a good idea! I think my first thought would be that they would be very much like the pattern matchers, just that there are four of them surrounding a thing. I might have been thinking that they might move too, so I'll have to think about that. 2-3 level diabos would definitely open up another set of puzzles that probably have more open ended solutions (2/4 and 3/4 possible places, so some leeway). something good to think about.
3. haha I noticed this too, I forget to set rescaleable to true in the xml build file. I would probably just update it but I already changed some level stuff (perhaps good note to actually use version control even if solo project) :sweat_smile:
4. I post added a reset that just undos the current room you're at, but that's a good idea too.
Good job!
I really like all the puzzle mechanics presented in this game, from the tried-and-true Sokoban formula to Pikmin-esque command-'em-all movement. I did find the latter mechanic to be rather confusing at the very last puzzle, given that the characters, after bumping into a wall, sticks for one turn. Also, fantastic touch on requiring the player to rely on pieces from other sections of the screen, and even a full screen apart! It really helps make each level feel connected, as well as testing your own memory.
My biggest complaint (other than the hard parts of the puzzles; 'tis the nature of puzzle games) actually has more to do with the undo feature. There are turns I wish the undo system didn't record, such as pushing a non-movable object. Most movements where I'm not pushing something, I also wish wasn't recorded, either. This would have made the harder puzzles more tolerable to deal with, given it would have taken less input to get back to where I wanted to be.
I also thought that while the sound effects design is quite excellent (realistic, timed well, and informative), the music felt really dull. Even if it's a thinking-game, I think it could have used a few more instruments and a longer composition to lighten up the mood, especially if the player got stuck.
Had a lot of fun, great job!