Postal puzzle by Thinkofname

[raw]
made by Thinkofname for Ludum Dare 53 (COMPO)

A simple puzzle game built in C++ and compiled with emscripten to the web, only library used was flecs (https://github.com/SanderMertens/flecs) for the ECS.

Controls: * WASD to move * F to fire the held mail item, if any * R to restart the current level.

I aimed to build as much as the game from scratch without any engine and as few libraries as possible. This tends leave very little time to build the actual game though :smile: Still had fun building it even if its very barebones.

Post compo bug fixes: * Fixed an issue that caused stacked mail to be all picked up at once, deleting all but one of the mail

Ratings

Overall 227th 3.452⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 157th 3.548⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 138th 3.548⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 64th 4.238⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 231th 3.429⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 338th 1.308⭐ 15🧑‍⚖️
Humor 325th 2.105⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 368th 2.452⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 12🗳️ 13🗨️

Feedback

RandomPickle13
01. May 2023 · 08:58 UTC
Fun puzzles, not to difficult. Simple but good looking art.
Emily-TTG
01. May 2023 · 11:07 UTC
Really great work! Intuitive but fun puzzle design, looks good - pretty satisfying. My only issue would be that the character controller feels a little too locked in with the animations, either speeding them up or detaching the character from the grid and adding some leeway on the throwing/pushing would have improved the experience on that front. Otherwise, I had fun!
haselkern
01. May 2023 · 11:08 UTC
Nice game! The puzzles are fun, but could be a little harder. But then again, making puzzles is really hard, so you did a good job at creating an entertaining game! I'm missing a little background music and some sounds for clicky buttons and swooshes for flying letters though.
joaosilva22
01. May 2023 · 11:10 UTC
I think I found a bug that forces you to restart the level. If you stack letters, there doesn't seem to be a way to de-stack them -- you'll always pick up all of them at once. Despite this small issue, I had a great time playing the game!
burnedkirby
01. May 2023 · 11:10 UTC
Neat puzzler! Could use some audio though. I have in the past, written games from scratch including the engine for some submissions, and it really does take a significant chunk of the time. The only "bug" I could find is that if you stack envelopes on top of each other, and pick it up, all but one disappear. Good work!
ellaris
01. May 2023 · 11:19 UTC
I feel like the character moves a bit slow, once you figure out what you have to do you have to wait quite a while for it to move to where he needs to go.
There was one stage where there were 3 letters and I stacked them up on each other and turned them into one letter, so possibly have them collide or bounce back to an empty square.
I enjoyed throwing the letters over infinite distances.
teadrinker
01. May 2023 · 21:25 UTC
I felt like one of the very early levels was unsolvable, but it turned out I was assuming I had to mail all the letters even if there's just one mailbox, but luckily only one mail need to be put into the box!
I like the throwing as well, very nice minimal puzzler design!

For me, I would want undo, or at least checkpoints each time a door is opened. now I spend to much time on repeating things, then forgetting or just messing up the input...
Stingby12
02. May 2023 · 10:42 UTC
I like the throwing letters mechanic and the art, but that's the only praises I going to give here.

There is no sound, so it makes the game really awkward. So I used Soundodger 2 soundtrack.
LDJam user 250825
03. May 2023 · 22:33 UTC
Huge respect for using non-engine C++, I should really do that again one day! The larger levels were a bit intimidating, but overall a nice experience!
rhewid
04. May 2023 · 16:02 UTC
Very basic puzzle game and it gets it job done. Cool mechanic with the letters, would have loved more mechanics introduced later on.
Gonzo13
05. May 2023 · 19:23 UTC
Nice puzzle game! Good work!
Firespike33
07. May 2023 · 23:06 UTC
The basic puzzle mechanics are solid enough. But it takes too long to do anything due to the large, open level layouts and slow grid-aligned movement. The puzzles themselves are incredibly easy to figure out (probably too easy), but it feels bad to screw something up, like pushing a box into a corner, and have to go through the level again. This was my most tragic mistake: ![firefox_dTpjNB8VAM.png](///raw/cf8/3/z/5b94a.png)
jk5000
08. May 2023 · 17:26 UTC
Sweet, fun and pretty well made little puzzle game. Some music and sound effects would have been great, but it is a small issue. Overall a pretty good jam game. Well done.
vidarn
08. May 2023 · 18:58 UTC
This was very fun! Great puzzle design, I found the difficulty perfect! Throwing the letters were very satisfying :laughing:
ThomasLebel
09. May 2023 · 12:07 UTC
Great job ! It's a nice idea having those letters act as blocks !
silvio
09. May 2023 · 16:44 UTC
solid puzzle game :)
Kazzymodus
09. May 2023 · 19:45 UTC
Pretty impressive considering you built everything from scratch. You may not have that many levels, but the ones you do have are well designed. Quality over quantity always wins me over.

My main critique would be that the movement - especially on WASD - feels a bit sluggish and inflexible, because you intuitively want to be moving diagonally, which the game doesn't allow (most likely for technical reasons, I assume). This lead me to at one time accidentally pushing a box into a corner and forcing me to reset.
ZungryWare
16. May 2023 · 17:00 UTC
Like others have said, the sluggish controls make it tedious to execute attempts, especially if you make a mistake and have to restart. It's probably a good thing that this game is easy because otherwise it would just be too frustrating.

That level with the four switches gave me a lot of pause because I thought I had to mail all three letters. I figured it was solvable if I only mailed one, but I was afraid to try it in case I was wrong and would have to restart.

Congrats on building the game with no engine. That sounds very time-consuming!

The game has some fun mechanics that can create interesting puzzles. Nice work!