The Signal by OddballDave

[raw]
made by OddballDave for Ludum Dare 54 (COMPO)

:warning: WARNING This game contains flickering lights

The Signal is a retro inspired adventure puzzler. The Universe has been destroyed. Luckily you have been caught in a 33 second time loop. Can you use this to your advantage and save The Universe.

Use WASD and Mouse to traverse the puzzles. Press M to mute the radio until the next level.

:bulb: NOTE If the radio becomes annoying, press M to mute it. Don't worry it will unmute at the start of the next level so you won't miss any critical information.

Created using Unity, Blender, and Audacity. :8ball:

Screenshot 2023-09-30 232823.png

Ratings

Overall 156th 3.62⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 284th 3.042⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 253th 3.152⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Theme 329th 2.783⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 33th 4.26⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 126th 3.438⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Humor 42th 3.636⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 27th 3.978⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 27🗳️ 27🗨️

Feedback

Stronf
01. Oct 2023 · 20:41 UTC
Wow, it is amazing it was done in two days, impressive, great game, nice voice acting, interesting levels, overall positive impressions.

sometimes I got stuck too much in some levels (magnets and last level), it took many loops for which the voice recordings became irritating a bit
Ace17
02. Oct 2023 · 19:55 UTC
The GNU/Linux build segfaults :-/

![segfault.png](///raw/cf9/z/5da29.png)

Too bad, the screenshots looked really great and I was eager to play!
🎤 OddballDave
03. Oct 2023 · 08:29 UTC
@ace17 Sorry about that. Thanks for the heads up.
Bredera
03. Oct 2023 · 09:28 UTC
Impressed by how much game here is in this short amount of time. Loved the overall simple glow/neon vibe! (we did something similar this jam)

The voice acting was great! Although it could sometimes be a bit annoying especially when dying/resetting multiple times. The controls worked great for most of the levels, however in the maze section it was a real pain and really janky.

Fantastic little game with a lot of soul and thought put into it!

Great job.
LDJam user 242054
03. Oct 2023 · 09:31 UTC
hate puzzles)
sound design is cool and menacing
Favoured Fool
03. Oct 2023 · 09:33 UTC
Wow, this game is *drenched* in charisma and fun. The vibe is just right. Unfortunately the vibe gets duller the more often you have to repeat a level, so decreasing the difficulty would probably add to the experience.
Anper
03. Oct 2023 · 13:59 UTC
The weirdest control with very slow rotation, and annoying repeating voice memo, but the coolest graphics with this noise effects and neon lights!
Bongard22
03. Oct 2023 · 14:04 UTC
Love the vibe! I do wish that the controls allowed for strafing left and right. It's such a muscle memory for me and I think it would be very helpful for seeing some of the things you're trying to avoid.
Bastienre4
03. Oct 2023 · 14:28 UTC
Amazing graphics and mood!

I'm impressed by the amount of polish for a compo entry. Good job!
MonsieurDuck
03. Oct 2023 · 20:40 UTC
Wow that was such a cool experience, amazingly done for 48 hours. I liked the voice-overs and the graphics a lot, but the different controls for first person was very off putting for me at first. Overall, extremely cool game.
nathmate
04. Oct 2023 · 04:37 UTC
Linux build worked fine for me on Manjaro.

Very striking game. Was the fifth button in the laser room added last minute because you realised it wasn't solvable with the four in front, by any chance :stuck_out_tongue: ? I agree with others that the voice lines get a bit repetitive if you have to restart a level multiple times. Still an impressive entry, I'll certainly be checking out your shader code.
🎤 OddballDave
04. Oct 2023 · 08:21 UTC
@stronf @bredera @anper @nathmate

I realised the narration would get annoying, it did during testing, so there's an option to mute it until the next level. Guess I didn't make that clear enough. I did consider making the radio get quieter and quieter each death on a level, temperal degradation or something, but decided against it. Maybe I should have gone that route.
ThaProfesional
04. Oct 2023 · 11:27 UTC
Phenomenal graphics, cool puzzles, and a great job voice-acting. Felt incredibly polished. It was well worth getting stuck on the last level for so long just to experience that end screen / area.
happyglitch
04. Oct 2023 · 18:11 UTC
Really cool graphics and audio cues create quite a mood. These controls are often used in FPS games on Scratch. where mouse input is limited and for me they embrace the retro feel. I got confused multiple times why I couldn't interact with objects, when I was too far. I think that they should have a longer range. The laser puzzle was really fun, but it seems that you run out of ideas for the last level. Puzzles where you need to 'guess a secret code' remove the entire satisfaction from finishing them. However the game was clearly focused on the plot and it has done the job very well.
Endurion
04. Oct 2023 · 18:17 UTC
I had to give up in the rotating light room unfortunately, as I couldn't figure it out :)
Also, did I cheat? In the button puzzle room I set the laser to a single one on the bottom and then just ran over it to the door.

This oozes mood, and it's gripping. The maze was borderline annoying (although I did make it on my 2nd attempt).

Great job overall!
Hakro
04. Oct 2023 · 22:01 UTC
Really great entry, especially for compo.
The mood is spot on, and the puzzles are catchy.
Graphics are amazing as well.
Only issue is with the movements. It's a bit too rigid, and hard to move sometimes, especially given the time limit.

Overall, nice one. GG.
IDidGame
05. Oct 2023 · 06:27 UTC
great presentation, especially the graphics!
i liked the laser puzzle, the last one was a bit much
designernap
06. Oct 2023 · 17:56 UTC
Love that it is voiced and looks so stylish! Really great stuff.
Germdog53
07. Oct 2023 · 20:16 UTC
This was a fun little adventure. Really well done.
Ayxs
09. Oct 2023 · 15:35 UTC
The graphics are great! I had some trouble getting used to the control scheme of this game. Especially with the spinning blades I found it quite challenging to get past it. Eventually I did, but I did not get past the laser field before I had to stop. There probably was some more, so I'm sorry if I missed some things.

I really like the direction you went with the graphics and the sound interface, though for me the voice acting was incredibly loud. I had to turn my volume way down. The mute button is not a luxury in this game...

Anyway, great job overall!
Dan Str
17. Oct 2023 · 20:19 UTC
I found the game to be very engaging. The idea is excellent, and if you continue at this pace, you'll surely establish yourself as a professional
Ava Skoog
20. Oct 2023 · 19:30 UTC
Finally got around to this one, doesn't work on my new computer so had to get on the old one 😅 I'm glad I did! Really good entry. Only I got stuck for ages on the laser puzzle until I came back here and read @endurion's comment and cleared that room the same way. No matter how many times I tried to think it through—or just experiment by pressing buttons—it didn't seem possible to me to remove all beams, so either I'm thick or you're actually supposed to leave the one beam at floor level? 🥲

Loved the incorporation of the story through the radio and had a good laugh at the end when the engineer said they couldn't even make me look up or down, which, yeah, I think I would've preferred modern first-person controls, but it was a neat way to give a reason for the tank controls.

Besides my confusion at the laser one, the challenges were fun, if a bit easy, besides the last one, which was tough to do within the time limit even after you figured the order out!

Of course the audio is great and the graphics are gorgeous. Love what you did with light and dark at the end. Really cool stuff!