Long Tail by HitchH1k3r
The Broodmother is missing, without her the Long Tail dragons find themselves...
Taking Lava Baths
Playing With Magic Runes
Hatching Eggs
Tying Knots
...but they better make sure the egg delivery is on time.
:video_game: Controls
- Move - Arrows / WASD / ZQSD / WHTG
- Reset Room - R
- Undo - X
- Redo - C
:question: Hints
- The dragon can cross over itself, but it can not travel along it's own back.
- Try to unlock the 100% Ending.
- If there is only one door to a room, you will have to go back out the way you came in.
:beetle: Known Bugs
- ~~"Broodmother" is spelled "Broodmoter" in the intro~~
- There are no potatoes in the game
:timer: Version History
Apr. 30, 2023 :: v1.0 - Compo. release
May 1, 2023 :: v1.0.1 - Fixed misspelling on the first screen - Rebalanced audio levels so the music can be heard
May 2, 2023 :: v1.0.1-web - Ported the game to web/mobile
:books: Walkthrough
http://youtu.be/59DnIb6WZok
If you got stuck, or maybe just hate playing games ^_^
:two_hearts: Comment Karma
Thank you for playing my game and providing feedback. I've prepared a list of questions for you to answer about the game. If you take the time to answer one question, I will give your comment a heart :gift_heart: as a sign of appreciation.
:heart: Difficulty I expect there is at least one room that asks the player to learn a bit too much at once. - If you stopped playing at a puzzle that was too difficult; Could you share a picture of the room (or otherwise describe it), and explain your last thoughts / why you were stuck?
:heart: Visual Quality The dragon's graphic design was a reference to the first Ludum Dare game I worked on (not as the artist). - The rest of the graphics were built around the style of the dragon; which other graphics fit best and worse with the style of the dragon, and how cohesive was the graphics style overall?
:heart: Audio Quality The sound effects were a rush job, and I'm not sure how I got the background "music" done at all. - I have a feeling that some of the sound effects detract from the overall feel of the game, and the quality of the audio as a whole; which sound effect(s) did not match the style of the other sounds / music / visuals / theme, how distracting were they, and would the game have been better off with no sound effect rather than the one I had made?
| Itch.io (HTML5 + Win64) | https://hitchh1k3r.itch.io/long-tail |
| Walkthrough (Video) | http://youtu.be/59DnIb6WZok |
| Link | https://github.com/hitchh1k3r/LD53-Long_Tail |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/long-tail |
Ratings
| Overall | 55th | 3.981⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 57th | 3.944⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 18th | 4.222⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 341th | 3.204⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 93th | 3.963⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 120th | 3.58⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 264th | 2.525⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 98th | 3.705⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 29🗨️ |
This was a great idea for a fun puzzle game.
The one I had the most trouble with was the one with the egg in between the two runes.
I got stuck here:
I got to the secret room, though it wasn't obviously 'the secret room' until I played it through again and realised you can miss it.
Leaving some eggs to come back to later from another door was a great mechanic. I was stumped at first before I realised you could do that. Seeing the broken eggs made me think I failed somehow the previous time I was in that room, until I realised they were being marked as hatched. Probably because their position is reset.
The only puzzles I found a bit tricky were because I was forgetting I could cross over my tail.
### Difficulty
I found the game easy to get into, and for the most part I managed to solve the puzzles. The two last rooms, however, (at 1:50 and forward in your video) I could not figure out. Thanks for posting the solution so I could still get to the end. I think I hadn't fully grasped the mechanics of overlapping yourself. Watching your solution, I'm not sure I would ever have figured that out, so I'm glad I looked it up :laughing:
### Visual Quality
I think it looks great! The style is consitent and the colors are well chosen. Most things are easy to read but if I was to nitpick on anything I would say that the walls could have been another shade, to differentiate them more from the ground. As it were, I did not read the "pillars" or interior walls as such, but rather as dark pits. Looking at the screenshots now I get it, but I had to many puzzles to think about when playing the game ;)
### Audio Quality
The background music is great, and the sound effects are nice. Again, if I'm trying to find something to critique I would say that the movement sound is a bit "harsh" perhaps. But that's again nitpicking, and I think it works fine as is. It's definitely better than no sound!
By the way, your description page is the best one I've seen this Ludum Dare. It shows a lot of care for the game and for your players. I'll be sure to take inspiration from it next time!
@vidarn Thank you so much for your detailed feedback, I wish I had more hearts to give your comment. -- I was not too happy with the walls/ceilings, I pushed making a graphic for them until the very end, the walls should definitely be much brighter.
The "don't pass through a tile twice" puzzle is familiar (see Pokemon ice puzzles, etc.) but you definitely brought some freshness to it, especially with the ability to cross your own path and intersect corners! The other mechanics like pushing eggs and barriers you had to open also spiced things up.
I think my biggest quibble with the overall game direction is the way it handled navigation and backtracking. Usually with puzzle games, each room is self-contained and represents a unique problem the player has to solve. However, some of the levels in this game are impossible at first; then you have to come back the other direction to solve them. This is potentially frustrating for players since it makes the problem space much larger and adds some ambiguity over whether the puzzle is actually possible or not. (Side note: backtracking is pretty common in Metroidvanias and some RPGs --- but it's usually very obvious that an extra path or secret is not available the first time, whereas with a puzzle like this you might just be missing the solution).
The graphics are very clear and cohesive. I liked that all the switches and barriers had matching symbols and that the egg barriers showed how many eggs you were missing to get through. Some animations (like bubbling lava) would have brought thins to the next level - but also Compo games are very tight for time so it's understandable to scope this out.
I added your long snake to the pixel fan art compilation on [my profile.](https://ldjam.com/users/jeremy-ryan/)
Thanks for making this, and good luck during the rest of play and rate!
