Neon Tower by Sli
Hello & Welcome to my page. This time around I decided to think small-scope, early on. I came with the idea pretty quickly. I liked the theme, although it felt a bit ironic, because I am in relatable state these days. Having only 4-5 hours a day to work I'm glad I was able to finish in time. I thought it was going to be fast and easy, but I did stumble on some challenges, because of poor early decisions.
Anyway I hope you like the game.
Also do share screen if you manage to beat it:smile:. I now realize that after the last minute tweaks the normal mode turned out a bit more difficult.
I would be glad if you could give me feedback on that issue. Maybe I should remove the game over logic when you lose a shape and just lose points instead? What do you think?



Attributions: music by www.freesound.org/people/setuniman/
| Link | https://sligames.itch.io/neon-tower-ludum-dare-49 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/neon-tower |
Ratings
| Overall | 486th | 3.71⭐ | 64🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 500th | 3.637⭐ | 64🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 857th | 3.206⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 358th | 3.937⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 517th | 3.857⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1173th | 2.109⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 817th | 3.352⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 86🗳️ | 107🗨️ |
Good job!
Beautiful neon aesthetic.
The first time I played, sounds weren't working for some reason - I only went back to check on them once I saw them complimented here in the comments. And going back I only found more polish :)
Thanks for the feedback! I will try all your games tonight :)
@t-r-e-f-e-t-h-e-n Thanks for the feedback. I definitely have to give this more thought. As the design stands now the move and rotation speed increase slowly with every next shape. So I set my the highest(In my opinion) speeds for the 50th shape(the end of the level) and calculated backwards. But yeah at the beginning rotation does feel slow. Again Thanks :)
Wasn’t expecting this gameplay mechanic though. It was surprising. Worked great on my tablet but sound is getting noisy. I think it might be an issue with apple / safari.
I’m pretty sure it would feel more open to a larger public with a carved wood style. Like kid’s toys.
But the experience is really smooth and I didn’t find any physics issues, so well done :)
The thing is I didn't tweak the variables as well in the last minute and it turned out a little difficult to do so unless you practice a lot and get lucky. Design-wise the trick is to build a good foundation with the simpler shapes. Also as time passes by the shapes in the tower become static so that helps as well if you manage to stack them good. The easiest fix from me would be just to remove the game over logic when you miss a piece. But anyway thanks for playing :smiley_cat:
@cloudlunar @fupi @sherwood @potkirland @gus-goucher @turquoise-moon Thanks for the tips and the feedback. It means a lot :smiley_cat:
I tried for a while, but couldn't make it to the end. Bloody hard and I like it! Some shapes probably should be simpler to be used, though. This is my best run:

@outfrost thanks for the feedback and the tips in your stream. It was really helpful.
@civmaniac Wow thanks for the screen share. I think this must be one of the top results. It turned out a bit difficult and I can tune it pretty quickly to be finishable. But at the end of the day I decided to leave it that way. After all this was the original submission.
For the glow, yes I used the simplest environment solution of unity. There are 17 or 18 shapes and each one gets a random of 6 of 7 pre-chosen colours when created.
Fun game! The bounce is so... unstable. Sometimes the piece just land and stay but just when you think you are safe the damn piece bounce off in the wrong direction.
Great work!
I really like the neon graphics (i used them myself) but have some improvements there:
The glow/bloom effect can be toned down just a bit for my taste. And some colours are far brighter than others - maybe playing around with the hsv values (especially the value) can be an easy fix. Also there are destinct visual differences between hand drawn and some of the more geometric shapes (circle, rectangle etc.). Keeping it visually consistent is always important to me. And at last - maybe use a different font. The pixel font really doesnt suit the general aesthetics of the game.
That sounds a bit too nitpicky but is just meant to help^^
Otherwise i really like it and the bounce sounds are nice too.