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A jam submission

TEROView game page

Simple in design, difficult to master. Can you beat the game with a full board of tiles?
Submitted by fake_dante — 7 hours, 43 minutes before the deadline
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TERO's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Creativity#3624.2774.277
Enjoyment#23243.4263.426
Audio#33273.0213.021
Artwork#63112.6602.660
Narrative#82521.7871.787

Ranked from 47 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?
Each letter tile counts down when a round starts. You have to press a corresponding letter when count down timer reaches 0.

(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
See description for full credits.

(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
fake_dante

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Comments

Viewing comments 37 to 21 of 37 · Next page · Last page
Submitted

Great game! I loved the main mechanic, it was so fun and creative. The frozen letters were a good addition as well, since it forces you to adapt in the moment to whatever was chosen randomly, disrupting any strategy you were building. It was difficult, but I managed to win it second try without losing a life. I really enjoyed it! Also loved the music, and while I would've liked it to have sounds, it's a game that works perfectly fine without them.

As for feedback, there's a couple things I'd like to say: 1. the rounds became easier as they went on, making it boring to have to wait for one or two letters with a countdown of 12 and 4 repetitions, and 2. the abilities of the letters didn't really affect how I played the rounds, as the only thing I really looked at was the white outline indicating how much input window time was left. I ended up only caring about them to avoid the X ability at all costs (it seems nasty, but I didn't have to face it) and to speed up a bit whatever letters would be left alone at the very end. I see the same solution for both of these: make the abilities trigger when the letter is turned green. That would disrupt the order in which the player has been pressing the letters, while also making it harder as it goes on, as long as the abilities are annoying enough (in the good way).

Anyway, I loved it, it was one of the few that I got really close to beating on my first try and still wanted to play a second time. Good job!

PS: One last thing, that probably doesn't bother anyone since it's okay for a game made in 96 hours, but at first I was confused as to why the game didn't end, then just realised that it was impossible to continue since I couldn't place more letters on the grid.


Developer(+1)

Wow, thank you so much for such detailed feedback!

Well, the idea for the frozen letters was to build around their abilities as you are able to see what the frozen tile's ability will be once it comes into play, maybe it wasn't as apparent as I originally thought.

Congratulations on beating it! I believe you are the second person ever to beat it! At least to my knowledge. I'm still yet to beat it myself :D

I probably would have added some small sound effects for navigating UI, but I ran out of time. The game wasn't properly finished until 24 hours before the deadline and then I spent the rest of the time fixing bugs and adding some small elements I was advised to add by my play testers and that was it.

I did also notice that sometimes you're stuck waiting on a tile or two for the round to finish. I couldn't come up with a way to not let that happen. Having the abilities trigger when the letter has already turned green would work in theory, but it wouldn't have worked for me because of the way I setup my state machines. I wouldn't have had time to fix it.

It makes me very happy to hear that you loved it!

It's possible the game end screen isn't working as intended, I didn't do much testing on it which is definitely an oversight on my part.

Submitted (1 edit)

Oh, I didn't even know there was supposed to be an end screen! Also, yeah I did notice you can see the letters' abilities before they unfreeze, however as I said before I didn't exactly care about the abilities, so I had no reason to check. The only thing I was thinking about was memorizing the order in which letters enter the input window and just have quick enough reaction time. And that's what I meant with disrupting: the order simply changes. Well, either way, it seems to me like you did most things correctly except time management, so this experience will help you improve. You did a very good job!

Submitted

Very creative game - I enjoyed playing! 😎

I failed before the board was full. It was those question marks that got me!  I had no recollection of what the original letters were. haha

Developer(+1)

Thank you! :)

I also never completed it... As far as I know there's only one person so far that beat a full board :D

Submitted

I really like this concept. I can see how the game can become hectic really fast and it's got a decent skill curve to it to. There are a lot of mechanics and details to keep track of, so I really appreciate the tutorial and the countdown timer around the letters also helps a lot. I think in a full version, if you ease the player into it and introduce mechanics one at a time, it can become addictive very quickly.

Developer

Thank you! :)

In a full game, the board would either expand, or player would have abilities to amend what's currently on the board, but I'm not sure if I want to take it in that direction. Thank you for playing! 

Submitted

Idea is very oryginal, it feels like rythm game, but you build rythm by yourself. Special abilities of the tiles change the flow of the game constatly causing that player have to adjust per each round. With some move juice game can be a very playable.

I would add posibility to unlock some new abilities for the letters, or skills for the player to gather new highscores.

Developer

Thank you for playing :)

Unlocking new abilities, or skills would have been out of scope for me for the jam, but definitely something on the radar if I were to take this further!

Submitted

Its a neat idea but I think you need a bit more juiceyness.

Developer

Thank you for playing! :)

Any suggestions? I didn't want to overwhelm the screen with too many moving parts as to not distract the player from pressing the correct keys.

Submitted

I think its pretty hard to overwhelm the player with juicyness. My first thoughts would be:
- Adding in tweens when you hit the key so they shake or jiggle
- Sound effects when you hit a key (Both for success and fail timings)
- Maybe some particle effects but this is not always the right call
- Flashing green on a successful hit of the key.

Submitted

Really cool concept! I liked how the board slowly became more chaotic as more tiles were added, and choosing which letter to place next added a nice layer of strategy. It took me a couple of rounds before everything clicked, but after that I kept saying “one more run”. Nice work!

Developer

Thank you for playing!

Seeing someone say "One more run" on one of my game is an insane compliment, thank you so much! :)

Submitted

That's a creative concept, i like itt

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing! :)

Submitted

Wow. What a creative idea. I really enjoyed the puzzle of placing the tiles and the rhythm-esque game of pressing them was very zen. The music really helped cue me and the timing was generous, which I appreciated as things got more hectic. The only design choice I wish you had made differently would be the choice of font - the Y and V as well as a few other letters tripped me up multiple times. Unfortunately that caused me to die 2 tiles away from the full board of 25, which was a little frustrating. But definitely impressed by the novelty of the mechanic, very far away from anything I've played before and it was really fun!

Developer

Thank you so much!

I did increase the input window last minute as it was half of what it currently is, and I'm really glad I did :)

Font issue is pretty universal. Lesson learned.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)

Submitted

Really nice mechanic and incredibly fun! I really like the music and how it's synced to the timer, really helps with keeping track of things! overall really good, well done!!

Developer

Thank you! :) 

The music actually desyncs after about 30-35 seconds of play time and I have no idea why... Thank you for playing!

Submitted

interesting game and really recommend! so creative its a bit hard for me but worth trying! Bravo

Developer

Thank you for playing! :)

Submitted

Very fun game, the design and visuals are very good and the concept itself is unique, though I needed some time to get used to gameplay but i can see this as a good full game in the future. Keep up the good work!

Developer

Thank you for playing and the kind words! :)

Submitted

Really interesting concept ! But I had some trouble playing with an AZERTY keyboard. Would have been nice to link the keys to their physical location (since I do not have a QWERTY keyboard unfortunately and changing language settings didn't work)

Developer

Thank you for playing! :)

I had no idea this could be an issue, but as others pointed out, it is something to keep in mind. Apologies!

Submitted

Really cool concept! The difficulty curve feels smooth and picking tiles adds a nice layer of strategy. A few letters were tricky to read with the font, but placing nearby keys together made it super satisfying to play. Awesome job!

Developer

Thank you so much for playing! :)

Yeah, the font opinion is universal

Submitted

It took me some time to figure out the mechanics, but I can definitely say it's a fun game.

Developer

Thank you for playing! :)

Submitted

So if you have some free time, feel free to take a look at my game. TY!

Submitted

I beat it :D, awesome work. Realizing I should plan to add keys close together on the keyboard was cool. 

Developer

Congratulations! I think you're the first one to beat it!

As I said below to someone else, I hadn't even considered placing keyboard keys next to each other, that's such a cool strategy :)

Submitted (1 edit)

I really like the explanation about the Kashubian language connection and yes, very clever to use only Control nodes! The tutorial could work better if you have separate text instructions that are located near the UI element which they are describing, e.g. description about the countdown with a label located on the bottom right. Personally, the game default font is a little hard to read without using color emphasis on words, particularly with the similarities between the numbers used for counting down and the letters, but I understand that it keeps in theme with the rest of the game. When selecting letter tiles to add to the board, it would be nice if the explanation is shown beneath each time instead of having to mouse over each letter tile. It somehow became a fun touch typing game where I would place letters that are near each other on the keyboard near each other on the grid. Had a lot of fun playing this


Developer(+1)

Thank you! :)

One of my long term projects also uses Control only nodes, but it's sadly a little bit more complex than this...

Thank you. I'll definitely play around with tutorial ideas to get it right next time :)

I also never considered the strategy of placing keyboard keys next to each other, I solely focused on the ability aspect so it's really cool to see others are finding strategies I haven't even considered!

Submitted

Interesting concept :) The difficulty ramps up when you have more tiles on the board. I love how you can choose which tile to add! I do have to agree with the others here, the font can be a bit hard to read. And the tutorial could be more visual than wordy I think.

Developer

Thank you for playing and for the feedback! :)

Viewing comments 37 to 21 of 37 · Next page · Last page