Idol Hands by MatthewDrake

[raw]
made by MatthewDrake for Ludum Dare 54 (JAM)

In Idol Hands you play as an Acolyte who is destined for greatness! The only thing standing in your way from getting into one of the limited spaces of the inner circle are some idols that need to go on platforms. Push your way to ascension!

Controls:

WASD or Arrow Keys to move

R to Reset Level

Esc to go back to Main Menu

Ratings

Overall 387th 3.759⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 316th 3.741⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1079th 2.466⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 555th 3.655⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 394th 3.897⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Audio 240th 3.731⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Humor 121th 3.891⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 97th 4.125⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 37🗨️

Feedback

Sir Rail Of Gun
02. Oct 2023 · 21:41 UTC
The void really do be quite strange
Teme
02. Oct 2023 · 21:44 UTC
Fun classic block pushing puzzle game. Can't go wrong with that. Did notice a possible bug(?) in some places you seemingly are able to walk on the stone areas.

![bug.PNG](///raw/2f1/b5/z/5e108.png)
🎤 MatthewDrake
02. Oct 2023 · 22:30 UTC
@Teme Oh dang, thought I got all of those! Sorry. Had a bit of a Tilemap error early on that left me with two versions of the same tile - One with collisions, one without. Looks like I used the wrong brush in that spot...

Thanks for letting me know! Going to fix it for the itch.io version soon. Thanks for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
herman6006
03. Oct 2023 · 09:23 UTC
Simple but fun, it really got me thinking lol. Also minor thing it would be nice if you could hold a direction so you keep moving.
Stefan B.
03. Oct 2023 · 09:27 UTC
yay, reminds be of the good old sokoban, which was definitely lacking the cool character creator!
Matt Barnfield
03. Oct 2023 · 09:29 UTC
The character select screen genuinely made me giggle to myself when I got the joke- nice one :joy:

Overall a solid game, well done! If I were to suggest one thing, it would be nice if I could hold down a direction rather than having to press it for every tile, which is a bit annoying for the larger levels
LucidWraithh
03. Oct 2023 · 09:29 UTC
Fun little block push game! Heavily enjoyed some of the puzzles (especially the one right before the end) and would've loved to see you play around more with some of the mechanics given you had extra time. I also don't know if this was something intentionally done or not but my music changed based on button press and that is a really clever concept, but also could've just been my browser messing up.

As for any bugs, on occasion if I moved too quickly my character would get lodged in the block. I would also have a music loop glitch if I just held one direction (Once again might just have been my browser).

All in all fun little game with cute pixel are done in short time keep up the amazing work!
jukepoks1
03. Oct 2023 · 09:43 UTC
lol the character customization!

music is bit low, hard to turn up my speakers.

good puzzle game.

maybe add number of restarts as "tries".

also showing how many moves you needed to take could be extra challenge to minimize them.

maybe show the author's amount of moves and try to beat that or get same.

visuals are nice, very detailed. Maybe add little bit more graphics on top of the tilemap level textures, so it wouldn't look so repeating.

when moving, could make a step sound.

nice little game. If you wanna work on it more, add more storyline, extra juice(particle effects, sound effects) and more different types of cubes to move that you need to match them places.

maybe keep the character moving if holding down keys for direction.

spoilers: I like breaking reality. :smile:

when the animation started running I thought we were just getting started. I wish it were longer. :heart:
Pax Lefay
03. Oct 2023 · 11:00 UTC
Creative puzzles, good ambience and humour. One of the puzzles required me to walk on a wall block, not sure if that was intentional - I couldn't find a floor-only solution. Love the reality-breaking puzzle at the end.
NinjaDuckie
03. Oct 2023 · 12:50 UTC
@herman6006 @jukepoks1 @matt-barnfield - yeah, we had 'hold to move' on our list of 'nice-to-haves' but getting the list of essentials + bug fixes finished had us pretty much down to the wire for submitting in time.

@stefan-b - when I saw the theme I knew we had to try a riff on Sokoban. Considering the simplicity of the game, it's hard to come up with an original twist on the design!

@pax-lefay - there definitely is a floor-only solution for every puzzle. We'll be fixing the wall bug for Itch - there's only supposed to be one reality break, maybe two... so far, anyway :sweat_smile:

@lucidwraithh - I would love to know which browser & version you're running so we can try and reproduce that; music changing on keyboard press definitely wasn't intentional but now I want to make it intentional, damn

@jukepoks1 - this is all good feedback. I think we're going to continue working on it for more levels and might incorporate some of your suggestions. The one thing I will say is that the music was previously louder; we turned it down because it started getting excruciating if you were playing too long, but then we added a mute button on the main menu! we might think about turning it up again.

Thanks all for your feedback! Glad you enjoyed our little block-pusher.
Jordan Weatherby
03. Oct 2023 · 13:29 UTC
Simple premise executed pretty flawlessly, I liked the twist at the end and the cutscene looked great

It says a lot that my only comments are pretty nitpicky like the stereo audio feels a bit odd and that holding down a direction would be nice as mentioned by others (I ended up spamming arrow keys and wasd simultaneously and that worked though)

Really stellar job
NikaZ
03. Oct 2023 · 13:51 UTC
An interesting use of the classic puzzles with boxes in the limited space theme. I liked how on one of the levels you need to go beyond the level.
I noticed that nothing happened on the character customization screen when I switched the parameters.
The game is fun and I enjoyed it.
Aesaire
03. Oct 2023 · 15:48 UTC
Classic puzzle game with a reality bending twist. There was a good variety of puzzles for a three day jam. Some of the puzzles maps felt either too large or the movement cooldown felt too high; I often solved the puzzles and found myself waiting my character to walk from from one one end of the map to the next.

The graphics were well made and audio matched the environment well. The premise of the story gave me a chuckle at the start. Solid overall jam entry, nice work.
Thomas Volpato
03. Oct 2023 · 18:46 UTC
nice game, I just miss a button to undo previous action =x
stevenjmiller
04. Oct 2023 · 11:41 UTC
Fun game, I loved the sense of humor and the little mechanical twist at the end.
Jens G
04. Oct 2023 · 17:07 UTC
Classic mechanic but executed in some fun ways. Would have loved to see what other reality breaking mechanics could be explored.
PhoenixStroh
04. Oct 2023 · 17:42 UTC
cute game! loved the character creator gag and i liked the idea of pushing yourself outside the bounds. good work!
Adam Gallina
04. Oct 2023 · 18:25 UTC
Nice job! The art style was nice and cohesive, but I definitely agree with the other comments that the movement could use some polish.
LucaVazz
04. Oct 2023 · 20:07 UTC
Cute sprite art and I'm always a fun of puzzle games ^^
The block puzzle fits the theme well for sure

I'm not sure if it is a bug or if I'm overlooking something... How is my little Acolyte supposed to use the left idol block...?
![Screenshot 2023-10-04 220556.png](///raw/f77/c2/z/5fa5a.png)
LucidWraithh
05. Oct 2023 · 13:31 UTC
@ninjaduckie I am using Chrome with hardware acceleration turned off (I know that can sometimes change outcomes) If there are some more specifics of it you would like feel free to let me know!
robobarbie
05. Oct 2023 · 16:04 UTC
Loved the art and ambience of this one!
Wouter52
05. Oct 2023 · 18:20 UTC
Cool! I loved the level where you needed to think outside the box (@LucaVazz, investigate the right side of the level). Took me a while until I figured that one out ^^

The controls felt a bit spongy, maybe those could have been smoother by allowing the player to hold a key down. Now I needed to press the arrows multiple times to go to another side of the room.

I love the end cinematic! How much time did that take? :grin:

The music really fits to the theme of the game. And the character creator was fun :laughing: First I thought it was broken, but then I was like "nooooo they did not", and then the ok button gave it away :rofl:
AdrianGray
14. Oct 2023 · 13:46 UTC
Cute game, the mood and graphics looks great, the puzzles are nice, not sure if I solved them correctly as seems like you can pass through walls, not sure if it's a bug or a feature.
Cookie_CHR
17. Oct 2023 · 22:10 UTC
Really solid entry! Good graphics, good music and entertaining puzzles. Acolyte Biscuit was the most good-looking in the whole inner circle, no doubt!
KingClaw
19. Oct 2023 · 19:59 UTC
It was an excellent game! The mood was very fun and the character creation scene actually got me quite good. Being able to hold down a direction to move would be really useful, especially in some of the longer stages where it was required to go a long way without even a block.