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A jam submission

Limited Space, in Space!View game page

A 3D Suika style game made for the GoedWare Shape Game Jam
Submitted by Acurna
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Limited Space, in Space!'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Gameplay / Fun / Engagement#213.3473.500
Overall#243.3173.469
Theme#253.7653.938
Art Style / Visuals#303.2873.438
Audio / Sound Design#322.8693.000

Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Game Engine / Tools
Unity, Blender

How does your game fit the theme?
It's a 3D Suika/Tetris style game where you have to carefully manage the limited play space to beat the game and get as many points as possible.

Anything else you'd like to share about your game or development process?
I had the idea for a 3D Suika game with planets two years ago and made a simpler prototype in November 2023 in Godot. I had no better idea for this jam and it fit both the theme and the shape rules so I reused that game idea in better and in Unity.

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Comments

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

A fun and addictive high-score game with a clever theme execution and well-thought-out mechanics! It’s a strong entry overall, though the visuals can feel a bit overloaded at times, and the audio could use more variety to keep things fresh. Here is what I thought in more detail:

Game play / Fun / Engagement ●●●●●
The game play is very engaging and executed really well. Merging planets is satisfying and addictive, making you want to push for a higher score. The only issue I found is that holding down the left mouse button drops too many planets too quickly, which can be frustrating... Needed to get used to the mechanic. Also: The "next Piece" does not work all the times? But maybe this is due to the quick dropping of planets... It forces players to carefully tap instead, which slightly interrupts the flow. Still, this is a minor issue in an otherwise excellent game play loop! A strong 5/5. This was my high score:
 

Theme ●●●●●
Perfect use of the theme "limited space"... and in space! The title itself is funny, and the design makes the limitation feel central to the game play... you literally have limited space for the spheres. Easy 5/5.

Art Style / Visuals ●●●●○
You used the given shapes well and the planets fit the concept nicely. However, the visuals feel somewhat overloaded. The combination of glows, outlines, and a busy background can make the screen overwhelming at times. I’d suggest either leaning into distinctive textures for the planets (cartoony styles could work well) or simplifying to clean colored spheres without as many effects. That polish would take the visuals to the next level. Thus, 4/5.

Audio / Sound Design ●●●○○
The music fits the space theme well, but the sound effects are quite basic and repetitive. Adding different merge sounds depending on planet size would add a lot of depth, and menu/UI sounds would help polish the experience further. 3/5 here.

Developer

Thanks!

The only issue I found is that holding down the left mouse button drops too many planets too quickly, which can be frustrating... Needed to get used to the mechanic. Also: The "next Piece" does not work all the times? But maybe this is due to the quick dropping of planets... It forces players to carefully tap instead, which slightly interrupts the flow.

At first I had drop only on click but I often wanted to just spam planets especially at the start of a run so I made them drop every 0.3 seconds while holding the mouse button. Maybe it should have been a longer cooldown or be adjustable. Someone else complained about that as well. It actually was only 0.25s before and I already increased it. 

The "next piece" is maybe badly worded and should be "current piece". Someone else mentioned that there is a bit of a confusion. Both the piece in the spawner bubble and the one in the "next piece" UI area are the piece that gets dropped when you press the mouse button.

There have been some complains about pieces being hard to distinguish and I noticed that as well during development and added those outlines and making them thicker and more distinct multiple times. They are all planets from our solar system minus Earth, plus Pluto, plus our moon and plus a white dwarf so making random artificial planets would have deviated from that idea but maybe I should have done that.

I removed Earth because the hard transition between blue water and the land masses created various random shapes so jam rule wise it would have been tricky. I replaced it with a green tinted Mars for a bit but for gameplay reasons decided to remove one piece and picked the questionable Earth / random planet.

I also thought about reducing the sun piece brightness and even did so a bit. Maybe it should have been more but I also would have had to separate materials which would have eaten some time and I just focused on other things first. I thought that not everything in a game has to be super clearly visible and having some overblown brightness might be fine. A bit like other games make it intentionally hard to see in dark or foggy areas.

I actually thought about UI sounds but wasn't sure how long that would take, how to implement that and such. I prioritized other things and this idea as well just didn't make it.

(+1)

A nice relaxing game. Never seen a Sukia game with the planets before. That was a fun twist.

Submitted(+1)

A Suika game in 3d is interesting... i like that i could push the spheres around in a 3d space to try and combine them, that adds another level of depth. I also appreciate you outlining the colours, otherwise i would have no idea aahha. In the game i noticed the 'next piece' didnt really show the next piece, it showed the current one. this made me mess up a few times because i thought i would have 2 of the same in a row TT (muscle memory). Also at the start, it was hard for me to see the 'play container', but i suppose we learn as we go along. I think there was a slight bug where if a piece lands on 2 of the same piece, one of them is miscounted (atleast it wasnt a fusion reaction though ahha). Other than this, it is a fun game. Gg

Submitted(+1)

This was really beautifully made! Not just the art but the gameplay, music and integration of the theme felt very natural and polished. Well done! I was following your updates on discord, so I was a bit curious to see how the game turns out, and its really good! I know you have 2 more game modes planned, but i think this itself has quite a lot of game time in it.. can be treated as a puzzle game and also a relaxing chill experience. The satisfaction when 2 pieces combine to form a new one and free up more space is really awesome, and just highlights how well youve managed to integrate the theme!

The only minor issue i faced (and maybe this is just me, i havent read the other feedback) was in recognizing the different spheres. There were some i could very clearly distinguish between, but some were too close together for me. Again this did not take much away from the fun factor, since 'messing up' is not punished too much. But maybe you could look into that.

But overall superbly done, congrats!

Submitted(+1)

Yeah! I really like my panets and played a lot of suika. Fun to see it used in a 3D space. Nice art also!😊

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Great and polished suika game! The legenda and the setup for the game make the game feel complete. I also disagree with some comments, as dropping the balls randomly did not seem to get anywhere near the tally I would get if I placed the balls strategically. So that seems to be really well balanced.

The graphics are great, but it gets quite hard to distinguish the spheres from another and it gets harder to understand which spheres match. Especially ones the sun is dropped.

Apart from the polished suika game, I do have some issue with the limited shapes constraint. There are definitely only pentagons and circles used, but the actual gameplay is all build around a cube, where the spheres fall into. The UI and everything else works great with the limited shapes, but somehow having the pentagons in this particular setup feels like avoiding the actual limitations of the shapes for the gameplay. 

I was going to suggest having the bases of the pentagons hollow, so that balls can fit into the spaces. I do realise that that might cause the start of the suika game to be repetitive, as all the balls will slide into the pentagon, rather than a sturdy base.

Developer

Thanks!

You mean pyramid instead of pentagon πŸ˜‰

Yeah I also thought about the five pyramids basically forming a box container like in the classical Suika game and thought about replacing that with one of the ideas for the other two game modes which sadly didn't make it. In the devlog you can see pictures of the second game mode where you would have had pyramid pieces in a sphere container and the third container which would have been both sphere and pyramid pieces in an upside down pyramid container.

(1 edit) (+1)

One of the best implementations of the theme with the perfect compliance of the shape restrictions. I liked the art, and the ambience is greatβ€”made me want to linger.

Submitted(+1)

6595 points! Feel like that's a good score :)

I've played your previous games in other jams, this one is a bit different, but I think in a good way. This one is simpler, but at the same time more polished. It feels like by having a less robust main mechanic you had more time to focus on every element of this game. The effect is great! I was genuinely happy, when the game allowed you to play after getting the last piece to go for the high score. Thanks to the indicator, you know exactly where the planets are going to be placed. Thanks to the instructions you know what's the order of the planets. Gameplay was clear from the beginning, and really enjoyable.

Graphics are also great, but I have two gripes- I don't know if the planet textures count as "forbidden" shapes (not gonna subtract points for that, though). The other is- the color of the first and sixth planet looked too similar to me. I dropped a wrong planet a couple of times thanks to this :) Again, not a huge issue.

Audio is there, and it's not annoying, but could be more. You could partner up with someone who makes music or use some that you can use for free for non commercial use. Check out https://mobygratis.com/, maybe you'll find something you like ;)

The use of theme is on point. The space is limited and it affects the gameplay in an interesting way. Cool :)

Over all- I really enjoyed your game. I think it's one of the best ones I've played in this jam! Keep it up!

Developer

Thanks!

6595 points sounds like a lot. I never played it that long. I was too busy trying to get two more game modes in... The highscore I go turing testing and posted was 4886 and would have been higher if I wouldn't have tried clicking something in the Unity editor which accidentally dropped a piece at a bad position πŸ˜…

One of the reasons for going for a smaller scale game was actually to focus more on polishing but I don't feel I spent that much time on it and tried rushing at least one more game mode in... See the devlog for the two modes that didn't make it. Usually I try learning more things or making or improving systems and pick somewhat ambitious projects but this time I had no time and motivation to do much.

I asked on Discord about textures and textures that don't contain clear shapes are apparently allowed. Originally I had Earth as a planet in it which maybe has some shapes or at least hard transitions between land and water. I replaced it  with a Mars texture with a green tint at some point but for gameplay reasons I ended up removing one piece and picked the potentially problematic Earth.

I tried a lot of different outline colors to try making them as distinct as possible. One big issue is that dark or desaturated ones are super hard to see and finding 9 distinct bright and saturated colors was quite difficult. Maybe I could have picked even better ones or did something else different. More distinct planet textures like Earth would have helped... Ah maybe I should have focused more on distinct colors for otherwise similar looking planets... Sometimes solutions are obvious but you think of them rather late.

Submitted(+1)

Merge games work really well for this theme, and I love the concept - but I think the VFX really took away from the experience. The yellow sun in particular was quite difficult to look at, and it was on the screen for aaaages! The lighting also made some colours quite difficult to see, which made it a little frustrating to match things at times. I liked the quality of life features like the indicator for where it will drop, and the ability to rotate the play space. It felt like a good twist on the genre :) physics felt a little strange though, it wasn't particularly consistent and some interactions felt strange. I assume you used unity's built-in physics for it, but off-the-shelf solutions like that don't really work great when the game relies on physics so much!

Developer(+1)

Thanks!

Yeah I also thought about making the sun pieces less bright and had already made it a bit darker. Maybe it should have been reduced more. I also improved piece visibility multiple times by adding those outlines, making them more distinct and thicker several times.

What exactly was weird about the physics? Seemed fine in my testing. Some things can be tuned of course. I just activated interpolation and increased linear and angular damping.

Submitted(+1)

There were a few too many jitters, I lost once because a planet popped out randomly, and sometimes collisions were a bit less accurate than I expected - two things that were clearly touching didn't merge

Developer

I didn't notice any jitters or popping in my testing, maybe there would be settings to fix that.

Did only the outlines touch? Those are actually outside the collider, only the actual planet accurately represents the collider. I should have changed that. I added the outlines later and didn't even think about the colliders not being accurate anymore.

Submitted(+1)

really nice game! felt very satisfying, i did one run where i was careful about my placements and another where i just held click and placed randomly and ended up with a score of about the same each time, but i think that's just in the nature of suika. both runs were great fun :)

a few minor feedback points:

  • would be nice if the game captured the mouse, i played non-fullscreen and the mouse would go outside the screen whenever i tried to rotate too far
  • some of the smaller shapes felt a bit tricky to distinguish between, but honestly given the jam restrictions its hard to do that

overall its a fantastic submission and i really enjoyed it. great work!!

Developer

Thanks!

The game does capture the mouse but I also noticed that it doesn't seem to work properly on a windowed web version. Maybe another weird Unity 6.2 bug, I encountered several...

I already improved piece visibility multiple times by adding those outlines, making them more distinct and thicker several times. It's rather hard to have nice glowing outlines with distinct colors for 9 pieces (the emissive sun and white dwarf don't have one). I tried a lot of different colors.

Submitted(+1)

I also made a suika game ! Your graphs are better than mine, but I need a pair of sunglasses to play yours ^^'. Also, I think if you add some bounce, it can be more fun.

Developer

Thanks!

Bounce can easily lead to pieces bouncing out of the container and make you loose the game... Maybe a bit would have been fine to have some more dynamic movement.

Submitted(+1)

It reminds me a little bit of my game but much prettier!

Submitted(+1)

Good game