Clean Line by Jesús González

[raw]
made by Jesús González for Ludum Dare 58 (COMPO)

2025-10-24_00-54.png

Build railroads, collect garbage, and take it to the recycling centers.

Fill all recycling centers to win.

  • Mouse controls to build: left click to place a track, right click to remove it.
  • Space to start/stop your train.
  • R to reset the current level.
  • H for in-game help.

Features: - Puzzles. - Train. - Chill gameplay.

Missing or incomplete: - Better sound. - Full UI.

Tools used: - Rust. - Macroquad. - Helix editor. - Claude Code. - Bitwig. - Audacity. - LibreSprite. - Gimp.

Ratings

Overall 61th 3.649⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Fun 98th 3.378⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 75th 3.486⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Theme 26th 4.068⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 60th 3.824⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Audio 44th 3.694⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Humor 117th 2.714⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Mood 80th 3.486⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Given 59🗳️ 37🗨️

Feedback

Tim Eriksen
Oct 06th · 00:20 UTC
Fun game, and you made quite a few levels as well, nice! I love the sounds and the music starting whenever the train moves made me smile :) I wish there was some hotkeys or something to reduce the amount of clicking. And it was a bit impractical to find the tile I wanted from the selection of tiles on the left. Maybe that's just because I'm tired from just finishing a game jam... anyway, good job!
Threeli
Oct 06th · 00:23 UTC
First of all, I thought, I had to play - another train game haha. This feels like a really solid prototype for a full on experience. The music only playing when the game is in motion is pretty inspired, and the first time the screen transition I was hooked. This is a cool idea, and it didnt take all that long to load on my end. Great stuff!
Thoastbot
Oct 06th · 00:26 UTC
Love the Artstyle, also well made game, fells solid - also love it that there is another trash collection game o7
bad_fetus
Oct 06th · 05:26 UTC
This is surprisingly complete for a compo game - the UI is clean and works like a charm, the mechanics could be expanded upon but are perfectly sufficient, the tutorials are there, the sound and art fit perfect and there are a ton of levels. ~~The only "problem" I could find is that you get softlocked if you place every single block since the only way to get them back is to put another block on top, but this required me deliberately acting stupid to find.~~ Very impressive amount of work, fantastic job!
🎤 Jesús González
Oct 06th · 05:28 UTC
@bad-fetus Oh you can right-click to remove tracks. I completely forgot to put that in the in-game help! Thanks for playing!
av_shustov
Oct 06th · 10:06 UTC
A very interesting idea, but the need to select the rail type is a bit annoying (it would be awesome to switch them with the mouse wheel).
Alex Mulkerrin
Oct 06th · 16:51 UTC
Impressive functionality for a compo entry. I liked the art style and the little tune that played when the train was moving. Interesting gameplay mechanic to have you change the track whilst the train is moving. I did find one bug where if you go back through the tunnel you start the first level from you end up stuck in a rock. Otherwise great entry!
sebbernery
Oct 06th · 16:52 UTC
During the jam, scrolling on the main page I saw a screenshot of your game and I subscribed to play to it (I like trains !)
The game is very interesting, I like the pixel art graphics and the general mood. As said before, the rail selection is pretty harsh, I wish having a key to switch each rail type. Or maybe something automatic to lay rails with the mouse "in continue", but it would have mean more work.
I'm very happy to see someone using Rust :), Congratulations for your entry !
🎤 Jesús González
Oct 06th · 16:57 UTC
@alex-mulkerrin that's one way to do it (changing while train is running). But cool that you found about it. The going back in level 1-1 and finding a rock instead of an open path was a missed opportunity to add a skip for explorer types in hindsight.
🎤 Jesús González
Oct 06th · 17:00 UTC
@sebbernery Yes for sure! Allowing for holding the mouse down and dragging, and also hotkeys for the tracks would have been easy additions and would have massively improved the experience. Future improvements for sure.
mdotedot
Oct 06th · 18:22 UTC
Great entry! I love these kinds of games!! Although this can benefit in a bit of a small tutorial or at least starting with an even simpeler level. I dig the mechanic and overall game play! Job well done!
Void4
Oct 06th · 22:00 UTC
Great game, had a lot of fun trying to create the perfect loop that visits every bin and recycling centre.
Tkap1
Oct 07th · 01:36 UTC
The game needed one of these 3:
- Keybinds for selecting rails (1 through 5)
- A key to rotate rails
- Dragging the mouse automatically figures out the proper path

Placing rails was way too annoying, it took way more time than actually figuring out what to do
Faithcaio
Oct 07th · 13:27 UTC
Nice complete puzzler. As others mentioned already controls could be improved.
IndigoWolf
Oct 07th · 14:24 UTC
This felt very complete and well polished. Has a lot of potential for additional mechanics and challenges if you were to ever expand on it. Great work!
NBumgardner
Oct 08th · 02:52 UTC
Thank you for bringing your game to the stream! The variety of houses and music train loops were cute to admire as part of the background while thinking up the next set of tracks to lay down.

I like your UI ideas of adding keybinds and looking into UI updates. Being able to place rails faster would pick up the pace and let players try to race their own train too. I am also glad we noticed and avoided the one softlock near the end of the game.

The surprise halfway through my game wowed me, I thought I had seen it all. Good job surprising your players with that special gameplay reward. Moving through 2 rooms in a row made me laugh out loud with joy.
JoaoG
Oct 08th · 06:28 UTC
I spent some time playing and I really loved it. The art is really beautiful, I also liked the sound feedback. Great job! 🚂
OldDog
Oct 08th · 14:15 UTC
A very interesting and deep game. I’ve spent a lot of time solving each level’s puzzles, and the pixel details and sound effects are perfect. It’s a highly promising piece of work.
graebor
Oct 08th · 20:45 UTC
Cute! As others have said, some tweaks to make placing tracks a bit more comfortable would go a long way, but this is already a solid and complete feeling little experience. Well done!
Baluj
Oct 08th · 23:51 UTC
Interesting idea. I really liked it. I managed to complete it while collecting all the tracks.

![Captura de pantalla 2025-10-09 015039.png](///raw/397/d5/z/6f074.png)
vidarn
Oct 09th · 06:04 UTC
Very fun and satisfying! The music when running the train was perfect and gave the whole experience such a great vibe.

I really enjoyed the puzzles, they were well designed and I felt they were on a good difficulty curve.

This is a great compo entry, congratulations!
🎤 Jesús González
Oct 09th · 23:23 UTC
@baluj Amazing to see these extra self-imposed challenges. Thanks for playing the game! I'm still not sure how you did it, let me try it myself.
sslees
Oct 10th · 05:24 UTC
You did a really nice job on the artwork and the animations. When I completed the first level, I was so excited when the whole thing slid down to reveal the level above. The level design was great too, the rocks where exactly where I wanted to put track, which made me plan around them. Can't wait to try the post-jam version too!
Adam Konig
Oct 11th · 00:57 UTC
Besides the interface for placing and changing tracks being a little tedious, it was a very fun puzzle game and strong polished entry for the compo! I found the puzzles to be interesting and fun and I loved at the end going back through to collect all the final bits. I thought the loop of the game was tight, smooth, and a great time!
leparlon
Oct 11th · 21:31 UTC
Nice game, and impressive how complete it feels for a compo! The art and sound fit well, and the music playing when the train moves was a cool idea. I got a bit confused with the tunnel at first and didn’t realize I had to drive the train into it, but once I did, that level transition animation was great! Really good entry, congrats!
grid96
Oct 15th · 21:27 UTC
This game looks awesome and feels so polished! Only the track placement felt quite tedious. Why are the tracks limited at all though when you can pick them back up while you go? All in all a very cool entry though! :)
🎤 Jesús González
Oct 15th · 22:29 UTC
@grid96 It was part of the game design. I watched people play and before they realize they can abuse the track pickup mechanic, they play the puzzles in a very different way.

Pretty cool to see people make the discovery and adjust their gameplay. Of course some people make the connection right away like you did. And that was expected too.
BryceLTaylor
Oct 16th · 23:53 UTC
This was super fun! I like the puzzles, which were actually tricky but solvable. Hard to do in a short time. I really enjoyed going back and filling up all of the recycling centers at the end. It was a different kind of puzzle.

Not a requirement, but I had fun making myself a loop that went to all of the screens, which took a little doing. It's nice that there is a sort of free play mode at the end. I like the music, it was really catchy.

It might be nice to have some quality of life features, like a way to make it faster to delete tracks and I wanted a way to go back to the start of a level without resetting all of the garbage when I was revisiting a level I had cleared it once. I could work around it, though.

Overall, really fun. I played it for a long time.
tanis
Oct 18th · 09:43 UTC
Nice puzzles! The music fits the game perfectly. Just like someone else before me I was wondering why you have the limits on the number of pieces when you can actually pick them up while you go, but you already answered that :wink:
Macron
Oct 22nd · 17:58 UTC
I really liked that, along with the 'pick up your pieces and move around freely' twist to the puzzle game! (I am a fan of the 'puzzle with a twist' genre)
Unfortunately I did get softlocked at 14 out of 16 recycling centers, but won't take it against the game - I really liked it, and what felt weird and lackluster at the first couple minutes of the game (e.g. "Huh, I don't need to fill all the centers? Okay....), suddenly in the end made perfect sense and I really liked it.
One addition I'd like to see is a world minimap (even without trash/centers marked, unlocked after unlocking the tunnels), to better visualize where I need to go/where may be things I'm missing.
YellowKamel
Oct 22nd · 18:22 UTC
Liked the art, the smooth camera transitions while entering a new level and the concept. Kinda reminds me of a specific Professor Layton minigame that also required you to lay tracks. In comparision to that minigame I found the interface kinda clunky in this, there has to be a better way to switch between the different track types. I liked that there were many possible solutions to the puzzles I played.
Sarah
Oct 23rd · 01:56 UTC
Wow, this was really well done! I always love puzzle games and I love the art, it's super cute and cozy. It wasn't immediately clear that you could deconstruct tracks while the train was running, but it felt good when I realized! Overall, really great job!
Euler Moises
Oct 24th · 23:44 UTC
It's great when such a simple game is so much fun. I couldn't stop until I finished everything!

Congratulations!

![LD58.png](///raw/23f/f1/z/6f9b5.png)