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A jam submission

Loopy CarView game page

Make the car go vroom vroom in this loopy puzzle game
Submitted by Josep Valls — 5 hours, 57 minutes before the deadline
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Loopy Car's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Creativity#13153.9213.921
Enjoyment#22773.3163.316
Audio#36202.8422.842
Artwork#36303.1053.105
Narrative#47532.1582.158

Ranked from 38 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
The goal of the game is to create loops for the little car to be able to go around.

(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
There is a full list in the game description.
All the external assets are either CC0 or other CC licenses.

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Comments

Viewing comments 22 to 3 of 22 · Next page · Last page
Submitted

What a clever puzzle game, really enjoyed this one although the shear number of tiles to turn proved a little overwhelming eventually

Developer (1 edit)

For a post-jam update I am already working on a few more hand-authored puzzles and on the PCG to generate smaller puzzles before moving into the larger ones. Thanks for playing.

Submitted (3 edits)

Hey ! I saw on Discord that you were looking for some feedback.
First of all your game is really good and people have already mentioned a lot of things you do very well
I will mainly focus Juice and visual feedbacks because that is what I am most comfortable with, can't really help with the game loop.

Also take everything I say with a grain of salt, I am just a random dude that doesn't know much about anything.
(Also disclaimer, English is not my first language, feel free to ask if I am not clear)

Sounds - Too loud :

- Music is nice and the option to switch it off is great but the volume should be waaay lower when I start the game in my opinion, a volume slider would be amazing if players want to then increase the volume. You can take the code you used to make your Menu, clean it up if needed and make it generic, add a volume slider, and save it somewhere to reuse it as a template to quickly setup your next game jam project. (I suspect you already do this but still worth mentioning I guess) (I really need to make mine)
- Same thing for the car sounds, way too loud in my opinion
- Now that the music and the car's volume are lower you can add some sounds to the UI buttons and when interacting with the tiles.


Juice - What are actually my Player's action ? How can I give more feedback to the Player :

- The game is about a car that must spin in a loop and honestly I have no feedback on that part, its clean and juicy, you did great. But the actual player actions are : Looking at the tracks to figure out a solution, clicking the ground tiles to rotate them,  clicking the UI to pause the car or to validate his "answer".  Those actions could have more juice and better readability in my opinion.

- Menu and UI are great, but the buttons could have more juice (when hovering the cursor, maybe a bounce or a squash and stretch when clicking)

- Same thing when interacting with the ground tiles, juice it up with a shake or a bounce or a squash and stretch when hovering / clicking) (Also a sound) (also maybe some dust particles when it rotate ?)


Readability - What does the Player need to focus on :

- The tiles that are clickable on the ground are probably the most important part of your game but they are not "displayed" until I hover my mouse above.

- A great way to increase readability is through color, size and movement (maybe not in that order :D) I usually just look at what is really important to the player and how can I play with its color, size or maybe make it move.

- If I put myself in your shoes and I think "Ok, how could I increase the road's readability ? size and movement ? Hum... no, can't really change the size or move the roads... But color ! I could change the color of the dotted line on the roads that are not connected to one another, this could help Player visually parse the puzzle a bit better"
- Then of course you can add some juice to the color transitions and everything ;)


More Polish - When you want that professional look :

- I heard somewhere that a good definition for polish is of adding transitions in-between states.
If you have an object or a button that goes from state A to B, polish it by adding a transition A -> C -> B. 
Want more polish , add transitions to the transitions :  A -> D -> C -> E -> B
But make those transitions very fast, that is how you make it look good.

- Examples of transitions in your game :
- When you open the settings menu, the dark screen could fade in instead of instantly appearing. The difference between making it appear and fading it in 0.1s is bigger than one would think.

- The Settings menu could appear from the Top or be Faded in, it could have a bounce.

- When the stars appear on the tracks at the end of a level, they could appear with particles and a bounce or something.

If you don't have one, get or code your own Tweening library, this helps a lot.

I will stop myself now because I think that is already way too much, sorry If that is not what you were looking for :)

Congrats on the game, its really really good, especially if you made it in 24 hours.

Cya !

Edit : also sorry that I take a whole page in your comments XD, if you want to delete it, no hard feelings ;)

Developer(+1)

Thanks, this is really appreciated.

The sound and menu/ui fixes should be easy on a post-jam update. I have to admit that when it comes to the juice and polish, I need to up my game because it’s something I do not pay enough attention to while I’m obsessing about some other mechanic and then I run out of time; I’ll definitely look at adding some particles and animations here and there.

The bit that I am most interested in is on readability of the player actions. I had a bunch of ideas in mind but tweaking the centerline color is definitely something I want to explore.

After playing your game I’m surprised you didn’t mention anything about adding some environmental storytelling; I really liked the comment popups on your little guys and loved the one who said “is this commentary on consumism” or something like that. I think these little details are also important and I also tend to forget them.

Developer

Looks like GMTK already closed the channels to non-patrons. I remembered our conversation and I realized we never connected. I wanted to ask you if you submitted anything to Brakeys and maybe exchange some feedback. Either way, if you’d like to connect now or in the future my Discord is @josepvalls

Submitted(+1)

Quite a simple game, but effective and fun !

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks for playing

Submitted (1 edit)

The game has nice juice to it. Both the visual and the audio components are simple but nice and effective and fits the game. I found the audio to be of better quality.

The main mechanic is interesting in theory I think, but in practice it's kinda not very engaging. It's not engaging like a hand-crafted puzzle is, where you try to figure it out piece by piece. In this game I feel like  what you mostly do is just clicking randomly on the random intersections, hoping to find a valid solution and call it a day, A global leaderboard maybe enticing to some people, but personally for such a simple game, it's not enough as a drawing point. I can see there's a lot of technical accomplishments you were able to do in this entry, but as a game, it feels a bit too boring.

Developer(+1)

Already discussed offline. Thanks again for playing!

Developer

Copying from discord so I don’t forget this:

Right here there is already something I can work with. You feel like you were clicking randomly. That was not my goal. Now I’ll think about how I can make it so the player has some incentive to think before clicking (and provide some help to visualize what may happen, like what the nitro button was meant to be) or penalize random clicks somehow.

Submitted (1 edit)

as asked for in the discord, i'll give feedback as unfiltered, blunt, and honest as possible.
i think this game is technically quite competent. the presentation feels like a mobile game in a lot of ways. the sound design is also pretty good and appropriate for a puzzle game like this.

the main issue with this game (and why I think it falls short of being a great "infinite loop" game) is that the solutions always feel either too linear or are too overwhelming and lead to a linear result. the game literally tells you when you found a solution via the check box at the bottom right of the screen. oftentimes, it doesn't feel like I got to a solution on merit of really thinking about it, and more that i clicked a few hexagons a couple of time until the game told me "you did it, you found the loop".

the later levels are nearly impossible to comprehend as well, and it feels frustrating when the solution is a small loop that's like 1% of the map.

while i find the aesthetics of the game to be serviceable, I think that from a "i saw this game on the grid for 0.5 seconds" angle, it looks kinda generic. I've played a lot of these types of games. you REALLY have to convince me there's something special for me to play it. this didn't exceed my expectations, it just kinda met it. this was exactly the type of game I was expecting form the thumbnail (for better or worse).

i think other infinite loop games stood out to me much more. if you want an example, I would check out "Infinite Energy" by LightPotato. the premise of that game stuck out to me immediately, I thought the puzzle solutions were very clever, and there were a good set of mechanics added in as the game progressed and got harder. i really don't think this game is a bad effort at all, but I think i understood why it whiffed for me. your other games on your profile look REALLY awesome, creative, and appealing to me (Blooming Together, One Seed, etc) so I think maybe this just missed in terms of my own taste.

Developer

Looks like GMTK already closed the channels to non-patrons. I remembered our conversation and I realized we never connected. I wanted to ask you if you submitted anything to Brakeys and maybe exchange some feedback. Either way, if you’d like to connect now or in the future my Discord is @josepvalls

Submitted

Simple but really funny!

Submitted

Great game! Its like a puzzle where you have to put/switch the right piece. Sound and music fit well together.

Submitted

Incorporating a procedurally generated looping design is quite an achievement, even more so within 24 hours! The hexagonal motif is visually stunning and the animating car going off the tracks is extremely satisfying! Great job!

Submitted

the difficulty really scaled up fast which I like! very cool puzzle concept at its core. liked it!

Developer (1 edit)

The steep scale was not really intended and I’ll try to ramp up nicely in a post jam update but given your feedback I may add an option to skip it. Thanks for playing.

Submitted

This was very fun but oh boy when it started getting bigger and bigger it made my brain hurt but thats just me, the game was really good the idea is great! Good job!

Developer

I’ve gotten some feedback around that. I’ll try to update the game after the jam to ramp up the difficulty slowly and add some other visual aids. Thanks for playing.

Submitted

Surprisingly fun concept

Submitted

This is actually such a creative idea, and so well executed at that! Great job!

Submitted

I love your game ! This idea of solving puzzles by creating loops is so smart, and the game in the end is so fun to play. Good job !

Submitted

Awesome idea, great game. The later levels do get overwhelming though and it’s easy to brute force a solution. Maybe different colors/tiles or landmarks along the track would make it less overwhelming.

Developer

A solution is usually easy, specially if you just pause the car. A good solution is where the challenge is. Landmarks is a great idea. Thanks for your feedback.

Submitted

Great game, great ideas. I loved playing it.

Submitted

This was super fun and well polished. The only thing is that the levels get wayyy to complicated down the line so i just end up randomly rotating until something works. 

Submitted

Super cool game an unique concept. I have yet to see anything like it and it perfectly fits the theme. love it!

Submitted

A fun puzzle style game.  I wish it would auto complete levels though once i solve them.  Just to keep things snappier

Developer

That decision was intentional. There are multiple ways to solve a level (after the introductory ones) and I even added a button to go back in case anyone wanted to get some better scoring. Maybe I will add it for the initial levels.

Submitted

This is a very creative idea! I would love to see some more levels and mechanics.

Developer

I am planning to. I just ran out of time.

Submitted

 Awesome game! I love trying to untangle the crazy mess of knots and trace out paths in my head or with the car. I think I could pour a lot of time into this if it had some easier navigation between levels and the Zachtronics-style comparison you mentioned.

Developer(+1)

I am planning on adding it. For now, I am collecting the scores and the percentiles shown are already computed from actual players; I just realized someone (all data is collected anonymously) already obliterated some of my own scores ;)

Viewing comments 22 to 3 of 22 · Next page · Last page