Ok I did laugh while playing this game. I didn't manage at all to rebuild the button in the end but had a good time trying to do, excellent concept and take on the theme, well done!

this is really fun, managed to capture every letter except the Q, i imagine maybe i had to use the I abilitytocatch it. but in the end i quit the game... by pressing alt + f4. xD! great work

Thank you very much for your feedbacks. It's nice to know that you enjoyed playing it. I updated the game to make it easier to finish. The I is indeed the most important letter to achieve this!

This game is so much fun. I tried to speedrun putting all the letters in, and then I realize "how am I suppose to catch the Q" and turns out I need to use the other letter. Really nice idea, concept, and execution. Well done!

This is a really fun, slightly meta game! I really like the puzzle aspect of the game, where you had to figure out the interactions with the letter I. I ended up beating it in 300 seconds...
I would really like to see more interactions between letters, and many different ways to complete the game.
Had fun playing it, good work!

Amazing for a 72h dev game !

This feels kinda like The is No Game! :) I really like the premise and the presentation. It is also pretty clever to have have added different abilities to each letters, and strategies to catch them. The "tutorial" intro was a bit confusing, I spent a long time trying to figure out what to do, and when I did I had no idea what to accomplish. But the biggest grief I had was that the game is more hard than it needs to be. The letter escaping forces to repeat from scratch again and again, after a while it becomes more frustrating (even maddening) than anything. I think I won thanks to a glitch: there was one or two letters left, but the game still displayed the end screen with my time (I didn't have time to read it properly, I immediately clicked and the window closed itself). Still, it was a fun idea, and a neat puzzle to discover!

@itooh Thank you for playing and commenting! I tried to make the goal quite obvious by adding the small introduction with the "A" of PLAY that allows to activate the button, but I was afraid that it was not explicit enough... Visibly it will deserve to be clearer! The letters take time to detach but if you "miss-click" too close to them they wake up. That's probably why the game got frustrating and I'm sorry about that. Thank you also for informing me of this bug, I will try to fix it. =)

Really nice! You took the same approach to the theme as me :)
The art style and audio are spot on, and the puzzling aspect is really nice to discover. Great job!

Oh the absolute mayhem, it's pretty fun, love the screaming sound effects. Although I quit almost quit before starting the game, thinking that the impossibility to click play was the gag and that it was all there was to it

@lilianc "I almost quit the game" --> Phew... I narrowly escaped the bad rate ^^
Do you think it's not obvious enough to have to maintain the "A" of "PLAY"? Maybe I can create an effect around the letter to make it more understandable? Thanks for playing!

Yeah it wasn't obvious to me at least, when I took a look at the page and saw that there WAS an actual game and I tried to figure out how to play, the impact sound on the click made me think that I was somehow supposed to knock the A into place. Maybe you could have the A well out of the way instead of just a bit out of place, and make the player drag the A into its spot ?

@lilianc Ok, good idea, I'll do something like that! Thank you ;)

hi can you create mobile version?

@marvis Hello! It would be necessary to adapt the game accordingly and it will transform a lot of things because if the player no longer touches the screen the cursor can not move. In addition, the lifespan of a game of this style is a few seconds... I'm not sure it will interest players (outside of a game jam!). Thank you for playing! =)

A little bit confusing at the beginig but then it's realy funny.

Letter sounds fx are perfect.

Love the concept and very fitting for this ludum dare. Great game!

The menu with the clicking and camera shake is perfect! It took me a while to understand how to play the game, so maybe adding some small instruction over the letter would've helped. I really liked the stun mechanic and what it did to my cursor. Eventually, I managed to quit my first game, but it took me **582 sec...**

The thing is..

It started in pure chaos. All I could do is sit there and get stunned over and over again. I kept clicking everywhere in hope of actually catching a letter, but it was all for nothing, because even when I catched one, I would get stun a second after. It got really stressful, to a point where I wasn't even sure if I wanted to quit the game.

But then, something happened. I gave up, and I listened. It turned out that I was part of the chaos. Everytime I ~~screamed~~ clicked, the letters would start panicking and wouldn't listen to me anymore. And there, I was able to see it all. **The letters were like my children.**

**"E", "U", "A"**. My oldest one. They understood me. I thought they were weak, but they were simply calm. The only thing is, they're older now and they want to leave the house. I understand them, but part of me still needs them... I just need to scream less...
The **"G"s**. Always protecting each others, but once you can calm one down, all of the others just seems to.. disappear.

**"I"**. This is where I failed as a parent. **"I"** kept throwing temper tantrum and I would just put it in a corner until it would calm down. My mistake here was to think that it was acting out like the others, but in fact, if I had just listened, I would have understood that it was simply trying to calm the others.

**"T", "M".** Impossible to catch. They would simply not listen to me, but had I been a better parent, I would've realized quicker that they listened to **"I"**.

**"Q"**. The little monster. A real teenager. Always saying hurtful thing that would knock be down in place. Then again, **"I"** could calm it down, and so, I only had to make sure that **"I"** was close. I'm sure tho that **"Q"** and **"M"** would have a blast playing together.

Anyway, once I got to know them better, it actually took me **37 sec** to quit. You know, it's all about listening! Great entry, this was really unexpected! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

@marc-antoine-girard Wow... I really laughed when I read your comentary! Your interpretation is excellent. You took the time to analyze my game and especially you did not give up. It makes me extremely happy to know that my creation amused you (even if your role as a parent does not seem easy!). 37 seconds is really a very good score, congratulations to you! Thank you for playing, thank you for your involvement, and for that awesome comment that warmed my heart =)

Hello! I finally could leave the game haha! I LOVE the concept. Well done the SFX are great. The letter I is just a little too op but anyway. I did it after 480s. Your game is a creativity gem.

Two words, FIVE STARS.

Fun little and interesting game. I liked the take on the theme.

Extremely fun and cute!! Great entry!

This is a fantastic take on the theme. Instead of the player trying to delay the inevitable, the game is trying to delay the inevitability of the player exiting the game! Love it! Unfortunately, even with the edits I still found this way too hard to finish. The Q and I just stunlock you into helplessness, and the letters break free far too quickly after you place them, leaving you nowhere near enough time to catch the remaining letters. Reading the reviews above, apparently you're supposed to use the letters' powers against each other? It's never explained that you could do that, and I'm still not sure how you're even supposed to.

This is a good game with an imaginative concept, but sadly the Q and I alone make it far too difficult to actually complete.

@f1krazy It's true that the game is still difficult but I think that by taking the time everyone can get there!

It is necessary to be able to identify the behaviour of each letter.
For example, the Q causes a wave around it as soon as the mouse approaches it too closely. This will result in stun the other letters nearby as well as the cursor of your mouse. It can be useful for capturing the M that teleports as soon as the cursor is close to it.
The I is also very useful because its ball can stun any letter if it touches them. As it follows you, you can change its trajectory to bring it to a letter.
It must also be understood that if you hold or place a letter the ball of the I will only touch the letter and not your cursor.

But you're right all this is not explained anywhere! The game probably lacks legibility but by observing the letters act you can deduce their abilities. In addition, you have to be careful not to click in the void near the letters placed because it wakes them up (and if they are awakened it makes them go out).

In case all this is not understood I also shared tips on the itch.io page!

Thank you for playing and for your feedback! =)

I found the visuals of the game extremely well done, congratulations! Some lyrics are hard to come by, but it's completely acceptable considering the development time. The idea was very original, congratulations!

That's a very funny and very hard game, haha! Really love the idea, the visuals and sounds all fits together very well!

There were a couple of things that would take me a while to realize would you not have told me:
* punching background makes the pinned letters loose;
* Q can't be placed even once grabbed unless it's stunned

But these can easily be fixed with a tutorial, which I don't expect from a jam entry

Making it to the end was very emotional and cathartic though! Nicely done

Thanks for coming to my stream! Here's a recording in case you'd like to refer to it https://youtu.be/WudvDztkwdg

@caudatecoder Thank you very much, it was very rewarding for me to see someone I don't know play it! Thanks to you was able to identify issues that I will try to fix in an update! Thank you for playing and especially for not giving up ^^

It's a very fun and funny game, the theme of it is very fitting to the 'delay the inevitable' theme, and I liked that you thought out this kind of perspective, that not the player is delaying something, but the game is actively trying to keep itself running. I've got a score of 273, but I feel that if I tried once again, I could have done it in less than 60 because I learned the letters' abilities. Very good game, I hope I find these kind of well executed games that have great concepts and 'plot'.

Thanks for playing and congrat for your score =)
If you like this kind of concept I advise you to try this one if you haven't already:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/click-to-continue

Great and unique idea of a game, well done! Really well polished. I was not able to catch all the letters, but I had a lot of fun!

I really liked the stun effect on the mouse cursor! Very nice!

Hilarious, I love this. I am also not a smart man and took me a few minutes to figure out how to start the game. I love that they can attack the mouse to stop you from grabbing them.

A nice concept to be sure !
I had little trouble understanding what was going on though. I personally took some time to understand that you actually needed to hold on the letters on the right spot (I thought that just drag n dropping them would be enough). Also, there was so much stuff going on at the same time on the screen that I didn't noticed that the letters could attack the cursor at first. I think a little feedback on the letters to tell the player they are preparing an attack could help a lot (it would make the game less frustrating for the player without taking out too much challenge I think)
Anyway, it was still nice ! Good job~

Very creative. Very challenging. I like how each letter had its own personality. Music and sounds were very fitting. Great job!

It's funny, but the comedy is largely derived from the gameplay itself. I love that.

Simple, fun, challenging, I love it :slight_smile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2emvhagzJk0

@molpe Thank you so much for taking the time to play! It's a lot of fun to see your reactions! Congratulations for these honorable scores =)