Imperfection by Wertle

[raw]
made by Wertle for LD35 (JAM)
鈥婽his game legit gave me anxiety as a child - how could it possibly get more stressful?

Try and get all the pieces into their slots - use one hand to grab a piece and distract the board so you can sneak the other one in before the hole changes shape.

Keep your distance, though, the board does not like hands loitering right over the holes!

UPDATE: Fixed the bug where it would shift into an already slotted shape, stopping progression

Supports Gamepad or Mouse/Keyboard (gamepad is slightly easier)

Tips:
- If you loiter over the board for too long it will close up all its slots and not open them again until you back off
- Picking up pieces gets the board's attention really quickly, but lots of movement also distracts him


Lisa Brown - Game Design/Code
WIll White - Art
Tony Manfredonia - Sound/Music

Ratings

Coolness 37% 1626
Overall(Jam) 4.00 44
Audio(Jam) 4.22 22
Fun(Jam) 3.71 117
Graphics(Jam) 4.08 150
Humor(Jam) 3.72 79
Innovation(Jam) 4.03 47
Mood(Jam) 3.63 181
Theme(Jam) 4.00 91

Feedback

SkullPixel
19. Apr 2016 路 00:33 UTC
A little more instruction would be great.
EthanBierlein
19. Apr 2016 路 00:47 UTC
It's an interesting idea, but I'm somewhat confused as to what I'm actually supposed to do here.
馃帳 Wertle
19. Apr 2016 路 01:29 UTC
Updated with additional instructions: Try and get all the pieces into their slots - use one hand to grab a piece and distract the board so you can sneak the other one in before the hole changes shape.
roaringcatgames
19. Apr 2016 路 01:51 UTC
This definitely conveys that feeling of intensity that many of us had with the board game. There are so many nice little polish things in this game that make it feel great. The "you don't have to hold..." message is so simple, but immediately makes me feel like the game wants me to succeed. (then immediately crushes you :)) Great work.
silkworm_sweatshop
19. Apr 2016 路 02:58 UTC
It takes some getting used to but once you do it's surprisingly fun and really satisfying when you beat that stupid game. The game does cheat though, I couple of times I've been down to one piece and it wouldn't change to any of my remaining ones whatever I did. Great audio and visuals as well.
Wefiends
19. Apr 2016 路 03:00 UTC
Ha wow, once I figured it out it was actually really fun. Actually felt like I was fighting against this creature and trying to trick it. I love that the eyes convey almost everything you need to know, and there are little details that make it really satisfying to succeed.
KhaoTom
19. Apr 2016 路 04:48 UTC
It's so cool! That aggro system really worked out :)
APantaloni
19. Apr 2016 路 07:48 UTC
Really polished and enjoyable game. One of my favourites so far!
emmelineprufrock
19. Apr 2016 路 19:00 UTC
Pretty great. SOO Stressful though!
Arvydas
20. Apr 2016 路 22:49 UTC
nice idea, maybe this needs some polishing and some clearification on what you are supposed to do, btw nice graphics and outstanding audio and mood!
TheMeorch
20. Apr 2016 路 23:28 UTC
It took a while for me to figure out that I should focus on the board's eyes in order to get a sense of what it's thinking -- once I got the hang of that, it was super fun to try to read and manipulate the AI. The presentation is really charming too!
Fakirgnome
20. Apr 2016 路 23:41 UTC
First of all: the art is really cute and well done.
The game itself is fun and is a great take on the theme. Yet I do find it hard to get to that sweet spot and be faster than the board. A little tweaking and I could see this work great on its own.
Avon
21. Apr 2016 路 01:14 UTC
Fun game, very interesting mechanics with the distraction. Great art, music and sfx.

My only critisism is that controlls could be more responsive, the hands accelerate very slowly so they lag behind, this makes the timing very difficult, which makes the overall difficulty a bit harder than it needed to be.
馃帳 Wertle
21. Apr 2016 路 02:23 UTC
Hi Avon! The controls thing was tricky to solve - originally when the mouse movement was one-to-one, it was too precise and no challenge at all, thus pretty boring. I also tried double keyboard controls, which was extremely difficult. Ultimately I picked having the hand follow the mouse position instead of mapped to it because it was the best happy medium we could find in the time frame, though I could probably make it feel better by addressing its sluggish acceleration. Ultimately, I think the easiest way to play is with a game pad, so I may call that out in the description
Avon
21. Apr 2016 路 03:09 UTC
I've had a similar challenge with the mouse controls before, what I'd recommend is using a constant acceleration towards the mouse position combined with a deceleration that depends on the velocity(using the square of the velocity usually works well). You can then tweak the numbers until it feels right. Higher acceleration and deceleration makes the movement more responsive, lower more sluggish.
馃帳 Wertle
21. Apr 2016 路 04:42 UTC
I will give that a try! Though that might be enough of a feature change that I'm not sure if I'd be able to update the build. Does tuning controls count as a bug fix?
jordgubben
21. Apr 2016 路 17:54 UTC
Brilliant, this idea is just brilliant (even with touch pad and keyboard)!
Avant-Marde
21. Apr 2016 路 18:09 UTC
This was hilarious!

Didn't read the description before jumping in, so at first I just put in the shapes and then I thought that was it... AND SUDDENLY! And then it became difficult as heck, especially since I decided to start on medium.

Had to roll back to easy after that and finally won after way too much ticking of the clock.

Basically everything was great, so I don't even really need to go into the details. Even telling me I didn't need to hold the mouse button. You thought of everything, didn't you?!

Amazing entry.
McFunkypants
21. Apr 2016 路 18:32 UTC
So incredibly polished! The boss music! Everything really added to the tension. Nice work!
josemwarrior
21. Apr 2016 路 21:35 UTC
I tried to grab the eyes but I could not lol Good humor!
Avon
21. Apr 2016 路 23:38 UTC
"Does tuning controls count as a bug fix?"

The rules are very diffuse about this, what you could do is post a link to a post-jam version, explain what is different, and people could decide themselves which one they wanna judge.
TheMeorch
22. Apr 2016 路 01:30 UTC
I forgot to mention this in my previous comment, but I think this game would really lend itself to gamepad controls -- each analog stick moving a hand and triggers to pick up/drop pieces.
馃帳 Wertle
22. Apr 2016 路 03:49 UTC
TheMeorch - it already supports gamepad in the exact way you describe :D
TheMeorch
22. Apr 2016 路 04:03 UTC
Let me adjust the tense of my previous comment:

This game DOES really lend itself to gamepad controls -- each analog stick moving a hand and triggers to pick up/drop pieces.

:-)
aeveis
22. Apr 2016 路 05:54 UTC
so stressful! The game wouldn't detect my xbox controller (windows 8 64bit), I would try pressing a, and then after that didn't work if I clicked with the mouse it would think I was using the controller controls (maybe still detecting somewhat?), so I just used mouse.

I was able to beat the easy version after some effort, really love the pacing and the zooming in at the end (gahh basically). The box is pretty hard to distract!
SecondDimension
22. Apr 2016 路 22:53 UTC
It's quite a simple focused game, and that has meant you can really polish what you have - the whole thing seems pretty flawless in its presentation. At first I thought I was impossible but got the hang of it with a controller and enjoyed it. Actually the controller support was great, really tactile way to play
Brightstar
23. Apr 2016 路 00:38 UTC
Stick the pieces into the slot, make the right selection but be quick you're racing the clock! WOW! RRAAARRR!! Goes Imperfection!
馃帳 Wertle
23. Apr 2016 路 03:44 UTC
Brightstar - Love it! :D
UltraRat
23. Apr 2016 路 04:24 UTC
Fun, all the elements came together really well to set up feels.
Easy mode is still hard for me though.
I haven't wanted two mouses so much since Big Kahuna Reef Party mode.
Franklin's Ghost
23. Apr 2016 路 11:35 UTC
Such a fun little game to play on a gamepad. Liked the way you would have to distract with one hand while controlling the other to get the shape in place. Nice touch and great use of the theme.
local minimum
24. Apr 2016 路 13:51 UTC
That easy mode was really hard. I did manage to get 2/3 in at least. Fun game, but quite challenging and I didn't really figure out any obvious way to confuse and/or trick the monster to make it easier to drop the pieces. The way I "solved" it was by swiftly moving in from the closest edge.
knason
24. Apr 2016 路 20:35 UTC
Great game, Really challenging but I liked it, nice graphics as well good job!
Nolocality
30. Apr 2016 路 17:17 UTC
Haha awesome job guys, I really got thrown for a loop wen things got 'real'.
Graphics, theme, humor...it's all there in spades. Hard as hell and it stresses you out properly as the clock runs down.
Also there's Tony killing it on audio as he tends to do heh.

Badass entry guys.
General
30. Apr 2016 路 17:36 UTC
Video: https://youtu.be/OC2Isnqi0nY
This is the greatest game of those which I've seen today :)
medidog
01. May 2016 路 05:12 UTC
I like the flexibility of using the second hand as a distraction, or actually play with 2-players (which we did and it was quite fun)! Really nice entry!
馃帳 Wertle
02. May 2016 路 01:07 UTC
Ooo, playing it as a 2-player thing is brilliant!
Jupiter_Hadley
02. May 2016 路 16:10 UTC
Lovely game! I included it in my video compilation series of Ludum Dare games, if you鈥檇 like to check them out :) https://youtu.be/CILyMGd9ZnE
legavroche
05. May 2016 路 05:47 UTC
A bit of a learning curve, only beat the easy level but it was so satisfying by the end of it..
puppetmaster
05. May 2016 路 18:46 UTC
Wow! What a great game!
Really like the surprise change! :-)
Keep up the good work!
luvShape
05. May 2016 路 19:10 UTC
great controls and sound effects! also simple but very clean graphics!
I had a hard time even on easy but once i cleared that it was much easier :D
Omiya Games
07. May 2016 路 04:24 UTC
I certainly appreciate the unusual interpretation of the theme. Thought the game had its interesting perks. I was really confused by the distraction mechanic. I couldn't tell which hand the board was focused on, and why. Knowing this would have drastically improved the experience.
NickZangus
09. May 2016 路 20:53 UTC
Wow that's great! Surely one of the most innovative entry I've found so far. The monster-table animation is really nice. Good job!
Marius
10. May 2016 路 11:02 UTC
Hi, nice game and congratulations ! We're realizing a video with several winners of the Ludum Dare #35.
Can you add your game on indiexpo.net ? (it's free)
So we can include also your game in the video ;)
p.s. write #LDJAM in the game's description