LudumData

Lucky Lefty Lost In A Labyrinth by TheBookSnail

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made by TheBookSnail for Ludum Dare 51 (JAM)

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Lucky Lefty is lost in a labyrinth! Will you be the light that helps lead Lucky in looking to leave the labyrinth?

To progress to the next level of the labyrinth, Lucky needs to touch all the solid tiles to unlock the exit. The exit will be trapped if you don't touch all the needed tiles. Thankfully you have hints on how many safe tiles are in each row and column. Incorrect paths are traps, so choose wisely. A solid tile you touch will still fall every 10 seconds, so don't dally too long. Can you make it out of the Labyrinth with the least number of retries?

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Controls - Left click on adjacent tiles to move to them - Right-click on any tile to add an X or checkmark to help keep notes on which tiles are safe

Options - You can turn off the breaking tiles for a more relaxed play - You can turn off auto updating hint numbers if you find it confusing - You can turn on hard mode that means if you fall you go back to the previous level

Scoring - Each level is rated with stars. The fewer retries on the level gives you more stars. No retries gets you 3 stars.

Known bugs - Turning off breaking tiles in the middle of a stage can result in looping breaking tiles that never break. - Stage score at end of stage will always show best score for that stage (really just a missing feature of showing current score and best score) - Mobile can be scaled down which makes the game/text look grungy

TheBookSnail - Code/SFX/Music

ElysiaGriffin - Art

Link https://thebooksnail.itch.io/lucky-lefty-lost-in-a-labyrinth
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/lucky-lefty-lost-in-a-labyrinth

Ratings

Overall 565th 3.535⭐ 73🧑‍⚖️
Fun 450th 3.528⭐ 73🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 349th 3.592⭐ 73🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1035th 3.042⭐ 73🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 839th 3.204⭐ 73🧑‍⚖️
Audio 507th 3.282⭐ 73🧑‍⚖️
Given 60🗳️ 99🗨️

Feedback

AJ Studio
03. Oct 2022 · 20:43 UTC
hmm, interesting, You got my 5 star rating
ChillerTyp
03. Oct 2022 · 20:43 UTC
If you like snails or labyrinths, then this is for you! :-D
Alex Covert
03. Oct 2022 · 20:47 UTC
Thought it was pretty fun, I was a little confused reading the instructions at first but it wasn't too hard to get the hang of when actually playing. It felt like it clicked pretty easily and the levels scaled well in difficulty. Interesting idea for a puzzle game. Nice job!
LDJam user 258850
03. Oct 2022 · 21:01 UTC
I love these kinds of puzzles ^^ :snail: :snail: :snail: :snail:

I got every star up to level 13, I only stopped because when I complete level 14 I get a black screen and nothing else :( did it 3 or 4 times and got black screen every time. If it's a bug I'll come back when you fix it and finish though, I like it a lot ^^ and the art work is ok I guess :wink:
🎤 TheBookSnail
03. Oct 2022 · 21:23 UTC
@rickylee Thank you so much for pointing this out. Some last minute change must have broke it. I'll tag you when a fix is deployed.
🎤 TheBookSnail
03. Oct 2022 · 22:08 UTC
@rickylee Crash fix deployed. I had some backward index sizes in the win condition check that worked fine as long as the stages had the same width and height, but the first stage with different sizes broke on html5.
Helzinko
04. Oct 2022 · 10:24 UTC
Spend way too much time playing this. The game is really fun and the puzzles are really polished. Great job!
pepnou
04. Oct 2022 · 11:18 UTC
Great game!
gameplay is fun, music goes well with the game, art is fine, there is a menu with level selection & a save system. What more do you want?

Great entry, goo job!
Flaterectomy
04. Oct 2022 · 11:42 UTC
A fun little puzzle game! I had to check the settings to find out that the tiles decay after 10 seconds, I was wondering whether that was the tie-in to the theme. I managed to make it through all 20 stages, but I think the last stage took me like 13 tries. :laughing:

The art tugs at a pet peeve of mine when I see differently scaled sprites in a game. Big chonky pixels in the numbers, fine rescaled pixels in the snail. I think the size of the snail is divided by something other than 2, 4, etc, because I see some doubled pixel clusters which you get after imperfectly scaling sprites. It's a personal dislike of mine, but a consistent style will just look better in the end.

I also wish the movement was a little more snappy. I get it's a snail, and they're slow, but the slow rotation and crawl started to get to me on the more complex stages where I ended up restarting a few times.

All that critical feedback aside, I absolutely enjoyed the game and happily finished the final stage! Nice work!
AndideBob
04. Oct 2022 · 12:08 UTC
An interesting take on the theme, the urgency of the 10 seconds feels a bit lost though since the game overall feels a bit slow. The puzzles are interesting though, in general a very round concept that I could see me playing on my phone on a long train ride or something!
Cowgummiboy
04. Oct 2022 · 13:39 UTC
I really like puzzles like this, so naturally i liked this game aswell, it has nice music and graphics aswell. What i kind of bothered me is, that you only have 10 seconds to decide what your first move is, so i ended up standing at the start of the level, trying to find the right first move just to die before doing anything. So maybe starting the timer only when the player did his first move would have made it a bit more enyoable for me. But even so the puzzles were fun. Cool Game :)
robin_schmitz
04. Oct 2022 · 16:27 UTC
Completely agree with @cowgummiboy :) Very fun puzzle game, it's rare to find a game in which you are a snail. I really enjoyed it. I could easily see this as an App. Awesome result, keep it up :)
PhoenixofForce
04. Oct 2022 · 18:49 UTC
I love the combination of picross with the theme. Well done!
tharky
04. Oct 2022 · 19:03 UTC
I've had fun. A cool idea and a fun puzzle game :)
Heho
04. Oct 2022 · 19:10 UTC
interesting take on the box thingy puzzle, a bit slow for my preference, but you are a snail after all :smile:
DzejPi
04. Oct 2022 · 19:51 UTC
Thank you for featuring me on your stream! This is a very interesting take on the theme and interesting mechanics. I don’t think I have seen these before, very clever! I think the artstyle could be a little bit clearer. Plus I would perhaps let the user think of the first move; and start counting down afterwards. I wanted to say that the movement could be more fluid, but you are snail after all. :) And I bet I know how the falling sound was made. :) Nice entry!
nyxkn
04. Oct 2022 · 20:53 UTC
Very interesting game! Good music, nice mood and good puzzles. I wished the first tile wouldn't break so you could have time to plan the level ahead. It's always a bit jolting when you're thrown into a random puzzle without time to figure it out. I also didn't like the retry count determining the score/stars, as some of the levels were seemingly impossible to figure out on the first run unless you'd try a couple of the initial tiles first. I also wished the snail wasn't so slow to move :D Anyway, well made game and great amount of polish. Gameplay is quite fun and with a few quality of life improvements it could be very entertaining!
LDJam user 272447
04. Oct 2022 · 21:13 UTC
I'm a big fan of puzzle games so I had to play this one all the way through. The basic mechanic was a neat idea which I hadn't seen before and some of the puzzle designs were satisfying to solve. This may be personal preference, but I thought the 10-second tile breaking element actually detracted from the enjoyment of the game so I turned it off after a few levels (thanks for giving me the option!). Tune and art are quite nice too, overall a good game! Thanks!
borgi
04. Oct 2022 · 21:39 UTC
I really like this picross variant! Theme fit is quite well too! Graphics were also cute and fit the game thematically. Unfortunately the snail felt a bit too slow, but I understand that was needed to make tiles be destroyed in 10sec fit the LD theme. Really fells like a finished game which in such a short time very impressive! Nice work!
JoeDev
04. Oct 2022 · 21:40 UTC
Interesting puzzle game, I didn't understand what to do at first but then it clicked and I really enjoyed figuring out the path to take. Love a good snail!
Kuboxxxxx
04. Oct 2022 · 22:24 UTC
That's a really fun take on a classic puzzle game it was so much fun to figure out what's waiting in the next level! Music made it also really enjoyable time! Would make a great mobile puzzle game!
Tanner Shelton
05. Oct 2022 · 02:27 UTC
This was surprisingly fun! I liked the simple art and the simple gameplay. The puzzles were fun and intuitive. I got stuck a couple times but never more then just a time or so. I think you have some heavy aliasing on the text in the tutorial. I think you could try removing aliasing from that or something or try a different type that’ll work better with small text.
cassowary
05. Oct 2022 · 02:28 UTC
It's a fun puzzle! I wish the snail moved a little faster, because sometimes executing on the solutions is a little tedious. I really appreciate that you gave the option to turn off the destroying tiles to purely focus on the puzzles, very nice.
Cha5m
05. Oct 2022 · 02:29 UTC
Cool idea but I think it would work better without the emphasis on time, just focusing on harder and harder puzzles, because once you know the solution time isn't really an issue, which makes the time element a little tedious.
LangiT
05. Oct 2022 · 02:45 UTC
Took me a while to figure out, but once I did, I had a lot of fun!
spacey3d
05. Oct 2022 · 10:23 UTC
![Screenshot_20221005-062008.png](///raw/547/92/z/524a6.png)

I saved Lucky Lefty from the comfort of my bed! I liked the challenge of the time limit to figure out where to go. Beautiful lock 10/10
wormius
05. Oct 2022 · 13:51 UTC
Great idea for a puzzle game. I think the theme made you do a time constraint here which doesn't help the game because it's a puzzle. After the jam, maybe you can keep developping this and drop the 10 seconds thing.
spacecadet
05. Oct 2022 · 16:19 UTC
By far my favorite from the games I have played here. Simple idea but the puzzles are great and they kept me engaged till the end. In my opinion it worked better without the timer and the falling tiles. Great job!
David Stevenson
05. Oct 2022 · 19:13 UTC
Great casual puzzle game! Add some tweaks and release it as a mobile app!
Aurel300
05. Oct 2022 · 21:09 UTC
Interesting twist on a classic pen and paper puzzle ([train tracks](https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/tracks.html))? The challenge is a bit unevenly distributed: the first ten seconds matter the most, to try to figure out the solutions, the rest of it didn't really matter. For that matter the snail/UI also felt a little bit slow once actually playing.
cottontshirtz
05. Oct 2022 · 22:40 UTC
My brain is too smooth to be on a timer...
gwenckatz
06. Oct 2022 · 03:10 UTC
A fun and well-implemented, interesting take on a classic puzzle type. It was relaxing and not stressfully fast, which I really appreciate, and I was having fun working out the answers. I would have preferred it without the timer, but hey, we're all shackled to the theme.
etrealjunior
06. Oct 2022 · 03:30 UTC
Congrats to the team, I love puzzles they always remind us that we should always learn more lol, I really liked the idea, I'm grateful to have the honor to play your game, a big hug to all.
Chase of Bass
06. Oct 2022 · 04:08 UTC
Really cool unique sort of picross style game! Loved it -the tiles breaking after 10 seconds was a great use of the theme and the art and music was great too -awesome job! :D
Paul Avallone
06. Oct 2022 · 04:30 UTC
It's ironic because it's a snail but I wish the game was a little faster. Solid puzzle game. It would be great if you added music in the future. Good job.
ruruie
06. Oct 2022 · 16:22 UTC
Cute puzzle game. I too agree it'd be nicer if the game moved faster in terms of inputs and the snail. How a snail reaches such speeds would be best left to the imagination.
Sarizard
06. Oct 2022 · 17:25 UTC
That's my kind of game, i enjoyed it! A bit too slow for me, but i mean... It's a snail! Good job :)
Kongo
06. Oct 2022 · 18:36 UTC
Nice relaxing game :)
almost
07. Oct 2022 · 00:14 UTC
It's a neat puzzle game, but sadly I think it is better without the 10 second timer so that you can take time to think and take notes instead of being rushed to make a move and just remember which moves killed you on the previous attempt. It would also be nice if the snail was a bit more speedy.
vidarn
07. Oct 2022 · 09:28 UTC
I really liked this puzzle! It reminded me of picross, and I'm on board with that! The levels were well designed with a nice difficulty ramp. I liked the 10 second mechanic adding a sense of urgency to the game, but I also think it was a great idea to have the option to disable it.

I liked the audio, the music was groovy and the sound effects were very charming
Artyom Volkov
07. Oct 2022 · 15:20 UTC
An extremely clever puzzle game. I really like the base mechanics, you should try to make a full version of the game with better visuals and sounds. Great job.
Honest Dan
07. Oct 2022 · 23:10 UTC
solid game! the combo of picross with the falling tile fallguys puzzle was a great mash up and worked really well together. the ten second timer made it too - as you couldn't just sit and plan, there was always a sense of urgency. A lot of accessibility actions too, which is a nice touch.
Nash
08. Oct 2022 · 12:04 UTC
It is a cute little puzzle game! I have not seen this mechanic before so it is pretty original.

I think the 10 second timer does not feel too natural here. It feels more like that the game was designed without it and then it was added to make the game fit the theme. Having a strict timer does not really mix well with puzzle games where the player has to calculate their path in advance.

It is impressive that you have managed to craft 20 levels for a jam game. I found most of the levels a bit too easy though. The mechanic makes it so that there are only so many ways to traverse through the grid so level start to feel a bit repetitive. If the this game would be expanded after the jam, possibly you would need to add more mechanics and/or obstacles to make the game more varied.

The music, sound effects and art are fine. It is always a merit when you manage to create all assets for a jam game by yourself.

Overall, a solid entry. Great work!
xCarl
09. Oct 2022 · 06:42 UTC
Cool puzzle game!
ColeSlaughter
17. Oct 2022 · 19:38 UTC
https://youtu.be/Yp7YCi13v_k?t=12151

Thanks for submitting your game to stream!

Sorry we couldn't coordinate a time to have y'all there, but hopefully this VOD is useful. :slight_smile:

I actually really enjoyed figuring this one out! I could almost feel a third eye opening the more I played and I could see past the grid to solve the puzzle, lol. Very nice job! It seems like based on the aspect ratio you chose, you have aspirations to port this to mobile. I think that'd be an awesome idea!
Ava Skoog
18. Oct 2022 · 14:58 UTC
That's a neat twist on the minesweeper concept 😊 I was never very good at that either, so maybe it's just me, but it does feel like there's a bit of trial and error more than thinking sometimes—maybe that's the point? It's funny to theme it around a snail even if it does make movement, of course, feel quite slow 😅 The music is nice and the lock click and button feedback feel quite good; I do think the fall noise was too loud compared to the rest. Having to get at locks from the right angle after the first few levels was a nice twist on the mechanic but it would've been nice if it was indicated graphically somehow, perhaps by rotating the lock sprite. Overall enjoyable, just a bit rough around the edges. Nice job on getting so many levels in!
Euler Moises
19. Oct 2022 · 17:36 UTC
I really liked the idea. Mix a drop platform with pictionary.

This game can easily be sold on game service platforms.

Really very good.

Congratulations!
Suchista
20. Oct 2022 · 23:26 UTC
Cool idea, nice execution. I would like the snail to be a bit faster and also keyboard support would be nice. Still, good job!