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SQRZ's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #56 | 4.328 | 4.328 |
| Enjoyment | #151 | 4.203 | 4.203 |
| Artwork | #1410 | 3.797 | 3.797 |
| Creativity | #3359 | 3.406 | 3.406 |
| Narrative | #6761 | 1.797 | 1.797 |
Ranked from 64 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 player tries to maintain the loop for as long as possible, by quickly collecting matches before the timer runs out!
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
All me!
For those interested, I used the FluidR3_GM sound font for synthesizing the midi to ogg to sound like a kalimba. I did this via bash in the terminal using fluidsynth and oggenc.
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Comments
This looked so polished! It took me a little to understand the rules but after the AMAZING! rules page where I could click on them, I understood. And I misunderstood the counter as well but got it when reading how the game fit the theme.
Great entry!
After a brilliant first run I struggled to clear the first 30 seconds for the next several
dozen>w<A really fun game, nice work~
There's a bug where it doesn't properly reset in the jam version. You can either play the post-jam version or refresh your screen if you want to keep playing!
Thank you!
Yeah just realised that, was about to edit my comment >w>
(managed 35061 after that so not too bad!)
That's such a simple and effective concept. I love it. But my brain hurts now, I can't go past 3.5k points and don't think I'll go over it any time soon. The polish is really good, and I love the fact you can play without starting a game for training or just chilling!
Super polished game, very addicitive and challenging, well done!
Relaxing and polished gameplay :D
It is great, love the puzzlle, style and audio :) Btw, I think there is a bug, as the target number at the bottom does not reset when you press play again.
Yes sorry about that bug. Noticed it shortly after submissions closed. It's fixed over on https://sqrz.app along with many other improvements.
Thanks for the kind words!
I love it!!! It's kinda like Tetris: very simple concept, but flawless execution that makes for an addicting high-score minigame. Because of this kind of games, I sometimes wonder if Narrative should be in the score, since it would have a perfect grade without it...
The whole design feels smooth and bouncy, the three Ding-ding-ding! sound cues are really rewarding, they make you want to find more matches.
Also, the interactive tutorial is a great idea! I would have added that matches were exclusive (Ex: Same color, but different shape/style), but the fact you made it so the player can click and show different matches of the same kind kinda helps to understand that.
If I really had to find a flaw somewhere: I sometimes had a bit of trouble telling blue and purple (pink?) apart because of my colourblindness, mainly with the line-style shapes, but that's honestly nitpicking, you colour choices were mostly great.
Nothing to say, excellent submission! =D
I worried a lot about accessibility- as color is so important (but didn't solve the problem). Happy to add a colorblind mode. What would be better do you think in terms of color distribution? Could I shift the purple hue or should it be like green?
I rewrote the tutorial in the post-jam version over at https://sqrz.app - let me know if that's an improvement.
I'm really glad you enjoyed the game!
Thank you for all the kind words.
Ahah, don't worry, during jams accessibility often has to be put aside, you are far from the only game with colour issues, and yours is really minor ^^
But if you want to make a complete version, since colour is one of the major parts of the gameplay, you're right to think about accessibility, and I'm glad to be able to help!
The best Colourblind Mode is a careful design
By carefully picking the main colours, you can prevent the need for any CM! Introducing the colour wheel: try to get as far as possible between the selections in order to minimize overlap. You did a great job with the red, yellow and blue (see screeshot), but the purple is close to both blue and red (for obvious reasons ^^).
Since the purple is closer to red than blue (let's say around 2 reds for 1 blue), people with red-type deficiency like me will be mostly ok telling blue apart from purple (2 red + 1 blue - 1 red = still purple), but for blue-type ones it could be a lot harder (2 red + 1 blue - 1 blue = 2 red).
Of course, don't throw away all your design choices in order to pick the furthest colours possible, sometimes the "right" choice is far from a pretty one, and your game has its identity with the colours you chose.
If you want to keep the same ones, what you can try is to shift the brightness: a dark purple and a bright blue/red will be much easier to tell apart! And you don't even have to go all the way to black/white, even a slightly brighter/darker shade can make a lot of difference. ^^
Also, it helps to know the source of the confusion: the only blocks I really had "trouble" with were the line-style ones, since they don't have a lot of surface and the game needs you to act fast. Increasing the line thickness by a little could work too!
Colourblind mode
Even though an excellent design can be its own CM, when colour is a central game mechanic, it could be a good idea to add accessibility options, just in case.
Depending on the game, a CM can differ a lot. Here, since you need the player to tell blocks apart at a glance as soon as they appear, adding stripes or a letter to describe the colour could work! To activate the stripes, you just need a simple toggle switch in the options.
But if you don't want anything else than a plain colour on the block for design reasons, the best solution would be, if you have the time to implement it, to let the player choose its own lot of 4: you preselect let's say 6~7 colour (including the 4 ones you already have) and in the options, the player selects the four ones he's the most comfortable with! Something like:
(the two additionnal colours are only here for the example, feel free to change them for anything that fits in your current palette of course ^^)
------------------------------
And, voilà! All the advices for accessibility I have, tailored for your case! Feel free to pick and tweak whatever works best, these are just suggestions. Hope it helps if ou ever decide to work on accessibility! =D
Thank you so much for taking the time to teach me.
Could I trouble you to take a look at the new settings menu over at https://sqrz.app and tell me what you think?
With everything enabled...
Of course, feel free to ask anything! I really like your game and it would be a pleasure to help you polish it! ^^
That's perfect! Unique pattern for every colour, player chooses which one(s) to toggle. To me, with purple enabled, I have no trouble left at all telling it apart from blue, thank you for the setting! =D
You should just make it more clear that the toggles in the settings are clickable since they are only lines of text.
For the tutorial: it is better! But I think the three lines with "Unique colors/shapes/styles" is a bit confusing since the top 3 already explain the same thing, personally I would have arranged the screen differently and underlined the important rules so that the player is sure to understand what is allowed or not, plus forcing some line breaks in order to put 1 clear rule per line:
This way, the three possible combinations are clearly visible, the special case of "All unique" is shown, and then you can put some random example to let the player get a feel of what works or not.
But still, I maintain that an interactive tutorial like yours is a genius idea, it already works very well even without a clearer display! ^^
Your game is so good, pleasing to the eye, simple but very relaxing and addictive! The sound design is very effective too. I want his on my phone to play in the subway haha
Are you Android or iOS? I could make you a native build- or do a progressive web app so you could install it in your home screen.
(Thank you!)
It actually works great as it is on mobile, but I meant that you could totally release it on google/apple app stores :)
your project is really cool
This is so good, what the heck.
Reminds me of the board game Quarto. The simplicity of the concept and how it's replicated in the visual design is astonishing. And the sound, the soooooound. We have been thinking of implementing harmonic notes as player feedback in our games for a while now, will try to push it more next time hahaha.
The other thing I enjoyed a lot was the "negative" exploration of the mechanic by introducing the "unique" concept of the match 3. And the fact that it's still very restrictive because it forces you to match the other two aspects makes it so that it doesn't make the game easy by any means.
The only feedback I could possible give is making that bit of the rules more clear (altho the rules being interactive made the point across, so amazing work with that as well). And maybe make the border of the screen work as a clockwise indicator of how much time you have left, perhaps? As an extra visual element that's easier to parse than numbers.
Honestly, one of my favorite entries this jam so far. Looking forward to seeing this as a full release!
Thank you so much!
You should play the updated version at https://sqrz.app - if you want light mode back you can just click the SQRZ logo.
Let me know if the updates to the tutorial help with clarity! Also adding speed running splits.
I shared this in a speedrunning discord and someone hit 30M. Crazy. I've been trying to keep up and finally broke 1M today.
The sound effects are literally amazing. Great submission keep it up 🙌
I love this game. Super fun concept, intuitive gameplay, amazing sound design. This is an all-rounder!
The sound design is satisfying.
A very well polished simplistic game. Everything seems complete really, and that's impressive for such a short game jam. The visuals are perfect, and the distinct shapes and colors enables the gameplay. The UI is incorporated nicely too, and I like the fact that the main menu and tutorial are interactable previews. The sound effects are very satisfying and clear. The difficulty ramping is done well with the level system. I can imagine this would make for a fantastic mobile game. Well done!
Thank you! I really appreciate all your kind words. I have a really hard time finishing games, so I'm happy this one got to a place where I feel comfortable with strangers playing.
I don't generally like this type of game.
But this one is very well done.
Great work!
Great simple game. I really liked the sounds of the tiles.
Very nice polish! like the sounds as well, very addictive
Such an addictive game!
Super polished!
I really liked your sound design and aesthetic. Well put together and delivered.
So addicting! My best is 23576. I like the sound effects!