Tower of Thoughts by Erukolindo

[raw]
made by Erukolindo for Ludum Dare 49 (JAM)

A small creature wakes up in an ancient tower, its task to repair it, using it's own thoughts, creating rather unstable constructions.

Screenshot1.png Screenshot2.png

Controls: A, D - move left and right Space - jump Mouse - point at a letter, hold the left mouse button to carry it around, press the right mouse button to rotate it to its default state

LD 49<em>004</em>Trim.gif The objective of the game is to repair holes in the tower - the holes are places where the walls turn dark red, and you patch them by connecting the wall below the hole with the wall above it using a tower of letters. The letters turn gold when a hole is successfully patched. Once all the holes are fixed you can climb to the top (often using letters to build platforms and stairs) and proceed to the next level.

The third level may seem impossible, but it can be beaten, though it requires thinking outside the box.

As usual, I had to frantically rebuild the project during submission hour to make it actually work in the browser. And it still has no sound, so I'm now frantically building a Windows version to attach it as well.

Ratings

Overall 1098th 3.241⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1173th 3⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 458th 3.586⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 855th 3.426⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1073th 3.232⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Audio 888th 2.842⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 987th 2.54⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Mood 957th 3.22⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 18🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

ALAN001
05. Oct 2021 · 08:11 UTC
cool
cyangmou
05. Oct 2021 · 08:12 UTC
Really liked the idea, but couldn' tmake anything spawn from the letters. I was capapble to reach the top of the firs tlevel by just building osme kind of platforms withthe letters, but also did not know why some where turning gold at the holes or how to fix the holes.
SO I was confused, but I think the mechanics could lead to a lot of interesting ideas further down the road.
Majadroid
05. Oct 2021 · 08:13 UTC
A good take on the theme! I had the problem, that I found it a bit to hard to play and that my letters somettimes got stuck in the walls.
![Unbenannt.PNG](///raw/546/22/z/46d8f.png)
euske
05. Oct 2021 · 08:13 UTC
This is a neat concept! But I didn't quite understand the "patching the hole" part. I tried to reach at the top but that turned out not to be enough.
TopperVideoGames
05. Oct 2021 · 08:15 UTC
I really like the idea, but how to do it properly confused me. I jumbled all the letters in the STAIRS? section together and that let me jump up them, but they never turned gold so I am unsure if that is the intended way to solve that puzzle. The rest of the puzzles confused me even more so on where I was supposed to put the letters as well, as I could jump quite a few platforms anyways. Then I got stuck at a point where it would not scroll up anymore, so I had to stop there.

I did find a funny exploit, where you could balance a letter on another letter and ride that anywhere. It was very easy to do with a Y inside a U. I did like the platforming controls, and the graphics are clear. Were the letters supposed to lock into place somehow? I never got anything to work besides piles of letters here and there.

I'll like to see more work done with this idea, I really like unique puzzles and this looked like a cool idea!
zakaria
05. Oct 2021 · 08:19 UTC
Really good game design and concept i love it good work!
Rocketcat241
05. Oct 2021 · 08:22 UTC
Interesting idea, but patching the holes seemed really inconsistent and the letters seemed to get stuck inside each other a lot. Maybe if right click respawned the entire word that could help?
🎤 Erukolindo
05. Oct 2021 · 09:09 UTC
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
@cyangmou @euske I updated the description to hopefully explain the goal of the game better.
@rocketcat241 @majadroid Good point, there definitely should be a mechanic to reset the position of letters, but I simply ran out of time to include it.
@toppervideogames the purpose of "Stairs" is to just use them as a platform, so they won't turn gold if used in that way. The place where it stops scrolling up is the end of the level, which becomes active once all the holes are fixed. And believe it or not, flying on a pair of letters is an exploit I was well aware of, and incorporated it into the design of one of the levels.
Wuppos
06. Oct 2021 · 19:52 UTC
The idea of this game was great! You had to think about which letters to use to patch holes, and which letters to use as stepping stones to get higher up. This was sometimes a bit tricky, and some letters where definitely better at certain things than others. I really liked the "I" to cover up holes, but it was basically useless to get higher up. However, something like a "W" is amazing as a stepping stone to get higher. Really clever, and really interesting idea!

I think the biggest issue is already highlighted by the other people. It is very unclear what you have to do and what 'repairing walls' means. After playing for a bit I figures out that you had to connect the blue bricks with letters such that the red brick was covered, but I dont think this was very intuitive. It also felt a bit unfair sometimes, because you must be quite exact. Perhaps it would feel better if the game was a bit more lenient, and would allow for a small gap to exist.

Other than that it was really cool! Everything worked very nicely, controlling the character felt good and responsive, and the sound effects were really fitting! This 'njah' kind of sound is exactly the sound I would make if I tried to fit something somewhere and it did not qute fit, haha XD

I thought this was very interesting and very enjoyable! Great job ^_^
🎤 Erukolindo
06. Oct 2021 · 20:38 UTC
@wuppos Thanks for the feedback. I admit, the objective should be clearer - and I had plans to make it so, but I simply ran out of time, since I wanted to focus on making this a more complete experience (even if I didn't think that anyone is going to actually bother completing the game).
I'm glad you liked the sounds. This was the first time I made my own music and sound effects for the game, and I have to say that it was an interesting experience. It surprised me that I could actually do it, since I only had access to the mic in my laptop, and it was capturing the noise of the fan. But Audacity can apparently remove it perfectly.
Wuppos
06. Oct 2021 · 20:44 UTC
@erukolindo That is pretty cool! I actually also made my own music for the first time this jam, so I kind of understand what you mean. It is very different from the other stuff, but I liked it a lot

For sounds I always use bfxr, do you know it? It is a kind of random sound generator, but with some useful preset buttons. Really useful to get some quick sounds during game jams! :)

And yeah, I fully understand that you ran out of time! It happens to all of us I guess >.<
T R E F E T H E N
07. Oct 2021 · 04:01 UTC
Could be really cool, but the patching holes idea wasn't clear enough. The sound effects were pretty goofy (good stuff). Music wasn't bad, just a bit repetitive.
tomer_cool
08. Oct 2021 · 17:40 UTC
Fun game to play around with, but I can't get to the next level for some reason so I've only seen the first one. I also found that rather than placing the blocks it's more fun for me to hover on top of them and get to where I want that way, tho I know it kinda breaks the game lol. Overall good job but needs a bit of bug fixing and instructions
ChuChuGeralt
08. Oct 2021 · 22:21 UTC
I really like the concept overall, but sometimes you could cheat if two letters were stuck together, so that you can stand on one of them and push the other up - like an elevator.
The concept was great and i really did like the creature.
Great game!
leggy
09. Oct 2021 · 22:10 UTC
I reached the top of level 1 but nothing happened. trying to jump over the screen butnothing happened.
By the way the game was quite ckear, a bit too hard and a bit to exploitable. Could not really find a match with the game jam theme. Anyway, I enjoyed my time exploring it.
Blue Pin Studio
10. Oct 2021 · 02:13 UTC
I reached the top of level 1, came here to write a review and realised that my goal was supposed to be to fix holes? I saw the letters turning gold, but didn't make the connection. Aww well! I really like how robust the letter's physics were, great job!
aAtala
15. Oct 2021 · 21:52 UTC
I liked the idea of the game, but the mouse controls seems to not work half of the time, also i didn't get the letters turning into gold and what i was supposed to do with them?
messmerd
18. Oct 2021 · 01:12 UTC
Interesting game, though it can be a little frustrating and a bit buggy at times
LDJam user 261242
21. Oct 2021 · 17:41 UTC
Cool! It's fun and a little hard. But it's cool and i like the idea!