It Was Desert by senar93
Run towards the exit before time expires! It wont be as easy as it looks since each time the dice moves, the WASD controls change orientation.

Overview:
Reach the finish before time expires. The WASD orientation changes following the arrows on the dice, the W leads you to the direction the arrow points at.
Controls:
WASD to move the Dice
(arrow keys work too)
Thanks for playing! And don't hate your WASD too much it is just our fault ;_;
graphics & coding: Marco Marchitelli https://twitter.com/_Deirin
gameplay & level design: Andrea Ancona https://twitter.com/AndreaAncona01
design & tool programming: Andrea Teruzzi https://twitter.com/TeruzziAndrea
| Link | https://andrea-teruzzi.itch.io/itwasdesert-ld49 |
| Link | https://andrea-teruzzi.itch.io/itwasdesert-ld49 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/it-was-desert |
Ratings
| Overall | 239th | 3.924⭐ | 48🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 487th | 3.644⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 70th | 4.1⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 876th | 3.4⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 26th | 4.641⭐ | 48🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 838th | 2.769⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 533th | 3.6⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 163🗳️ | 15🗨️ |
Oh, and by the way, 3 stars are **really hard** to get :laughing:
Graphics are very cute.
The only thing is that I am not sure how the theme fits. I have an idea but oh well. It was fun in any case, so thanks for the experience.
Simple and intresting
Good job!
Best game I tested so far. Feels a bit disorienting but once you get it it's actually quite fun !
Some questions, is there any music / sound to the game ? I find it a bit tricky that you can't see one of the faces and sometimes have to guess which direction is hidden.
GG !
However, once you get the mechanic into your brain the puzzles become kind of too easy, even if you throw stuff like the face hiding rocks at me, and it doesn't quite feel related to the theme to me. Still, I had fun and this is a solid puzzle game overall.
Would love to see some cute music and sound from the dice in the future :D Good luck!
It is so polished I wish there was audio.
Also the gameplay is original, it took me a moment for my brain to adapt ahah
A "How to play" in the game itself would be a nice extra that shows visually how to control that darn cube :smile:
After I got the controls it was quite fun.
(Going into full screen and then exiting out did seem to crash my laptop though.)
The visual polish is amazing, and I really loved the level select, super creative with so much attention to detail! The artwork and overall aesthetic is very pleasing, and suitable for a puzzle game.
Great work overall, I might come back to it when I have some more time to wrap my head around the puzzle mechanic.
I think if you added a couple more mechanics, and some sound effects, this could feel like a very complete puzzler, not just a jam entry. Some mechanics ideas off the top of my head:
- tiles that permanently modify the cube (these could add a strategy element so you can craft ideal dice for timed runs)
- tiles that temporarily reveal the transformation of "?" tiles (these could add a memorization aspect)
- puzzles with 2 (or multiple) dice, where the same keys control both
- step-based timers
But already as it is, this is one of my top picks this jam in multiple categories, bravo!