Little Beetle Saves The World by local minimum

[raw]
made by local minimum for LD30 (JAM)
The world has separated onto three planes. Scattered piecies of what once was a comforting and predictable whole have become a dangerous place to live in. Little beetle scurries between the emergent worlds. There still are a few connections between them.

Now it is up to you to help little beetle reach the beacons in a daring attempt to bring the worlds back together as one.

This is a fast arcade game with 20 quick levels, some of which are truely challenging.

Enjoy and have fun!

Edit
----

Remade Lvl3 to be much easier so people don't get stuck early. (9h berfore Jam timer is over so I think that change is fair).

Ratings

Coolness 85% 2
Overall(Jam) 3.04 500
Audio(Jam) 2.74 498
Fun(Jam) 2.94 435
Graphics(Jam) 2.77 621
Humor(Jam) 2.41 389
Innovation(Jam) 2.89 466
Mood(Jam) 2.72 577
Theme(Jam) 2.38 640

Feedback

joshbradbury52
25. Aug 2014 路 13:58 UTC
It was alright but on level 3 I couldn't get from the first line. Every route I tried just didn't work so I kept dying over and over again and got boring quickly.
馃帳 local minimum
25. Aug 2014 路 14:04 UTC
A pity, well those that have a different shade than the others are the ones that bridge the worlds. Maybe it got a little too hard too early.
(Not) Ivano
25. Aug 2014 路 14:43 UTC
A very challenging game, I keep dying! ^_^'
psydack
25. Aug 2014 路 15:33 UTC
That countdown... I just stack on level 5.
馃帳 local minimum
25. Aug 2014 路 15:41 UTC
Yeah lvl5 requires some daring, it is quite possible (just did it with 25 shards left)
FGM
25. Aug 2014 路 16:02 UTC
Cool concept. It's a little bit hard to know where the "crossover" tiles are. The colors seem too similar. Hard but fun.
yodamaster
25. Aug 2014 路 16:08 UTC
Funny game and quite tricky. The music is a bit annoying, but actually fits the game quite well.
43iscoding
25. Aug 2014 路 16:11 UTC
The game is way too easy. Your movements aren't synchronized with enemies, so you may move as much as you want per their 1 turn. That actually reduces the puzzle to simple clicking =(
馃帳 local minimum
25. Aug 2014 路 16:18 UTC
@43iscoding that was surprising to hear, most other players seem to be having a lot of issues with even the early levels and I know the later ones e.g. lvl15 I find quite hard myself.
mess110
25. Aug 2014 路 16:59 UTC
cool graphics, quite challenging
tiff
25. Aug 2014 路 17:01 UTC
Great concept!
xrm0
25. Aug 2014 路 17:20 UTC
Nice game
StrideWide
25. Aug 2014 路 17:22 UTC
Nice little puzzle game
BoaHeck_ArtGent
26. Aug 2014 路 13:36 UTC
I really enjoyed this the frustrating gameplay really got to me but it was also fun. The puzzles had great design. I started making a puzzle game a while back where you could only walk between certain colours like in this I cant believe I didn't remember it when I heard the theme >.< .
JaJ
27. Aug 2014 路 12:00 UTC
I agree that the crossover tiles are hard to spot, I also wasn't too fond of the sound, but the rest was really well done! Nice! :)
Ekilibr
27. Aug 2014 路 21:07 UTC
Nice mechanics ! The theme is well executed here. The music is...absolutely tetris-like (still got it in my mind and I played 5 min. ago).
Like the way you teach the mechanics, though :)
Raphy
27. Aug 2014 路 21:23 UTC
Interesting mechanics and kindda addictive game. It is quite challenging as well I have to say, but maybe because I suck! Restarts aren't that frustrating though so it did not bother me that much.
rogueNoodle
28. Aug 2014 路 10:39 UTC
Love this entry - haven't seen a maze/puzzle game quite like it. Unforgiving enemy placement gives it a bit of a dark souls feel (in a good way), and the timed aspect means patience won't always work. Great work on this!
Linusson
28. Aug 2014 路 18:15 UTC
The color of the tiles was a bit hard to distinguish but other than that it was a fun and challenging little arcade game. :)
Jishenaz
28. Aug 2014 路 19:17 UTC
Very fun arcade game. It's difficult, but that's expected. The connected platforms need some more distinguishment, perhaps connected lines.
Victory Garden
30. Aug 2014 路 05:55 UTC
Level nine SERIOUSLY kicked my ass. No trouble with platform connectors here, but I did kind of feel that one level was too hard--I sat there, memorized the patterns, and no matter how much I spammed the movement keys I couldn't get anywhere :< SFX-wise that one slide flute sound was both way too loud and, well, annoying. It was fun, though, and I thought playing as a beetle protagonist was a really cool idea. Thanks for the game!
synchingfeeling
30. Aug 2014 路 20:43 UTC
Love the hand drawn feel. Nicely paced and challenging puzzles.
H1S2
02. Sep 2014 路 11:57 UTC
Very addictive game. The later levels are pretty tough but thats a good thing ;)
Good job!
Jupiter_Hadley
05. Sep 2014 路 01:43 UTC
Cute little game! I included it in part 14 of my Ludum Dare 30 Compilation video series, if you鈥檇 like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/fQEfK1MQqVU
Cake&amp;Code
06. Sep 2014 路 18:22 UTC
The visuals were a bit jumpy when moving but the mechanics were good. I figured out that the light and dark panels could only be crossed through with a medium tinted block but it was still hard to see them when rushing through a level to avoid the enemies.

Hope you keep developing it! :)
馃帳 local minimum
06. Sep 2014 路 20:51 UTC
I've continued development in secret (hopefully) adhering to all those very true critiques so far gotten. The one thing that unfortunately is quite hard to do anything about given javascript is the smoothness of the game, I think I'd have to rewrite it somewhere more efficient.
OFF
06. Sep 2014 路 22:53 UTC
Disturbing, the mechanismis are really smart, with the path that could be activate at certain point, but i can't understand the link with beatle (but i'm french maybe did i miss something ;) )
Maybe having a more graph theme (computer, map).
The main issu is about understanding how it works, and why i die sometimes.
Actually there is an opposition, the hand made graphics create something poetic, and smooth, but the gameplay is really fast, time based, arcade.
Actually i think that with an other background, or maybe an other graphics, the game could have a more readable path for each level, and also be more consistent.

Actually i think that your game could be really better with an orthographic view, like Monument Valley. It could explain the lack of lisibility in your game path and could maybe became more poetic (if graphic like Monument Valley), or arcade oriented(like any retro aracde game but with beetle) :D

But it's still pretty fun, and easy to play.
Cake&amp;Code
07. Sep 2014 路 03:12 UTC
@local minimum: Having worked with javascript/web for years I can say that yes, it takes a bit of planning to make sure everything runs smoothly. But it is totally doable! Good luck :D
馃帳 local minimum
07. Sep 2014 路 06:30 UTC
@OFF: You have some new very valid points in the conflicts between different aspects of the game not working towards the same goal. If I decided to redo the game I would probably do it isometric (was thinking of it when I scribbled the tiles), smooth and more alive with low-key effects. But as always with LD, it was time that caused it to become what it became. The jumpyness from inefficient code hogging the computer resources, a little worked story and thus little coherence in the aesthetics.

@Cake&Code I guess I need check some benchmarking tools for since this little beetle almost requires an i7-cpu to run smooth. I'll google around some, but any tip is welcome.
Oddly Shaped Pixels
08. Sep 2014 路 06:51 UTC
Nice little game although level 4 was for me a bit of a downer. I didn't understand why I was dying, even when I didn't collide with the enemies. Maybe you should add more visual and audio feedback.
馃帳 local minimum
08. Sep 2014 路 09:23 UTC
@Oddly Shaped Pixels: I did some seriously bad feedback which made (almost) everyone miss that the shards in the lower right corner are ticking down and when you run out of them, you die. So the game is also a game of speed, not only to outrun the enemies. I have fixed that though in an updated version. But I'm not a fan of posting post-jams while voting is still going on, but I'll do that as soon as its over.
arhpositive
08. Sep 2014 路 18:00 UTC
Shard timer and the enemies give a hard time to the player, however the core concept is easy to understand and results in a fun to play reflex puzzle. Liked it.
Will Edwards
08. Sep 2014 路 20:17 UTC
A charming idea. Would have been nice with smooth movement; at the moment its rather jerky and distractingly flashing.

Took me a while to work out the way the colours worked and how to go from gray to brown tiles.