Monster Apparel by Cosmologicon

[raw]
made by Cosmologicon for LD33 (COMPO)
Mastermind-style logic game with monsters. Play in your browser on desktop or mobile. Drag and drop the letters in the T-shirt design, and rearrange them to find the one whose appearance matches the customer. You don't need to play very long: you'll get the gist of it after a minute or two.

This game is an homage to my favorite Sesame Street sketch, the Wonderful World of T-shirts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfXm5qFZnXQ

I always liked that the friendly, goofy-looking muppets in Sesame Street are "monsters", and the sketch raises all sorts of questions of what it means to be a monster in the world of Sesame Street. Are there other Gorfs besides Kermit the Gorf? If a gorf is a kind of monster, is a frog is a kind of monster? Why is it "Cookie Monster" and not "Cookie the Monster"? You won't get any answers from this game!

Hints/instructions: Each position in the word corresponds to a feature. So the first letter might determine the eyes, the second letter the height, etc. Which letter is in each slot determines the value of that feature. These relationships are randomized with each customer.

The fact that you have to swap letters means you can't just change one feature at a time: you're always changing at least two. Early stages (3 or 4 letters) you're probably better off just guessing, but you need to pay closer attention in the later stages (5 or 6 letters).

Sound effects: as3sfxr
Music: autotracker.py

Ratings

Coolness 39% 1668
Overall 3.09 502
Audio 3.43 155
Fun 3.04 453
Graphics 3.13 447
Humor 3.27 223
Innovation 3.57 140
Theme 2.96 715

Feedback

Suese
24. Aug 2015 · 03:48 UTC
Great music
MrDave
24. Aug 2015 · 22:04 UTC
I like the massive amount of customers you have, I assume you are procedurally generating them rather than having drawn them all.

I don’t know if I was missing something but I couldn’t work out if there was a better way than randomly swapping the letters until I found the right combination.
Matthew Rayfield
24. Aug 2015 · 22:06 UTC
I liked it!

I wasn't very good at it though.

I like the concept!

(hadn't seen that Sesame Street sketch, it was awesome, thanks)
Multiplexor
24. Aug 2015 · 22:10 UTC
Nice! I have never played mastermind so i was a bit confused at the beginning!

1 Good Thing: The music is very good
1 Bad thing: it would have been good to show the combinations you have tried, so you can keep visual track of the diferent changes. (Especially when you have more than 3 letters)


Good job and keep up the good work! ;)
Blobo
24. Aug 2015 · 22:18 UTC
Really well done. it gets crazy hard after having like, 6 or 7 variables to work with and remember. really nice entry!
mantis
24. Aug 2015 · 22:20 UTC
Catchy tune :)
Goutye
25. Aug 2015 · 04:06 UTC
I like the different puppets generated by the letters!
Good job for that!
VVD
26. Aug 2015 · 10:44 UTC
Nice music
ponk
26. Aug 2015 · 21:47 UTC
It's cool !
Daniel X. Moore
27. Aug 2015 · 03:59 UTC
A fun mastermind style monster dressing game :)
Avalanche Games
31. Aug 2015 · 11:37 UTC
Very different concept, I liked it though.
radmars
07. Sep 2015 · 18:47 UTC
Nice usage of procedurally generated content! The game has lots of replayability. Once I got the hang of it, I was able to start applying some strategy, paying attention to what changed and figuring out which letters applied to which traits. Some of the changes in the traits were a bit too subtle, though.
BlackQuiltro
07. Sep 2015 · 19:20 UTC
Liked it. Addictive and well polished game. Simple, but very well made.
The music is fantastic, sound effects were ok.
Graphics are nice and clean
Had fun with it!
Very good!
sikosis
08. Sep 2015 · 01:37 UTC
Not quite sure what I was doing but the music and graphics looked good.