Writespace by blinry

[raw]
made by blinry for LD 42 (JAM)

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A puzzle game with simple mechanics, but interesting implications.

You're exploring a haunted house and find a strange parchment scroll. When you touch it, something terrible happens: You're turned into a typewriter! Use your surroundings and find the magic words to lift the curse! Oh, and you can’t type spaces, of course.

Type letters and backspace to move. Collect all *, then go to >.

Made with LÖVE. To run the Linux and macOS versions, install LÖVE 11.1.

Thanks to Lena and rohieb for some last-minute help with the graphics! The music is “Darkest Child” by Kevin MacLeod and the poem in the background is by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. :)

Ratings

Overall 2th 4.489⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Fun 3th 4.391⭐ 48🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1th 4.745⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Theme 43th 4.277⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 108th 4.287⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Humor 253th 3.286⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Mood 20th 4.244⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Given 25🗳️ 28🗨️

Feedback

Jamie Reed
14. Aug 2018 · 16:08 UTC
Wow, really nice game. Clever, and challenging, fits the theme, but also forgiving. I didn't notice that backspace worked at first and had to restart my first game, but once I figured that out I'm loving it.
Shess
14. Aug 2018 · 16:09 UTC
This is an aesthetic bomb. I absolutely love the visuals you chose, and the theme is implemented beautifully. Extra points for the sound design, the gentle typewriter clicks and dings did it for me!
SnoopSySpoonS
14. Aug 2018 · 16:16 UTC
Just wow. I love this game so much! You did a great job.
Florian van Strien
14. Aug 2018 · 16:19 UTC
The game looks and sounds absolutely amazing, and the idea is great. The puzzles are quite good too and it is fun for a while. After that though, I found the gameplay becoming just a little bit boring. Most of the levels were not too hard to figure out before playing and after that it was mainly counting characters to type the direction in the right place. Maybe a few new mechanics (like other magic words to type) would've helped. I quit before the end though (in a level where I would've had to redo a large part of the level just because I forgot to place the right characters somewhere), so maybe they are there. Still really nicely done overall and a great entry to the jam!
Rammy294
14. Aug 2018 · 16:19 UTC
Good game you nailed the whole typewriter aesthetic in my opinion and it was a cool use of mechanics. My main suggestion would be it wasn't as relevant to the theme as I would like I see what you were going for but it always felt like there was plenty of space to the point I wasn't running out maybe shrink the levels so its always a tight fit when it comes to spacing your words and at the end of the level little blank space is left. Overall though I loved the game well done on a fantastic job.
AGsilverAG
14. Aug 2018 · 16:20 UTC
wow it starts slow but once you get to some of the more complicated mechanics this becomes a brilliant puzzle game. Great aesthetic and interpretation of the theme too
panurge
14. Aug 2018 · 16:21 UTC
Beautiful! Lovely innovative mechanic and great presentation. I've so far got up to the level 'knot' but I'm going to dip back in later this evening and try to complete it. The learning curve is just right and it's really satisfying to figure out new techniques like going back on yourself. Almost full marks all round for this one, I really loved it!
Anthony Dunlap
14. Aug 2018 · 16:32 UTC
I love this game, couldn't stop playing until I got stuck on level 14. Great game!
Dumivid
14. Aug 2018 · 17:00 UTC
Lol, i am dumb af, i managed to screw up tutorial several times. Overall, game feels very atmospheric with original gameplay, good sound and artstyle. Hovewer, my main concern its the game dynamic, it feels very slow when you got stuck or dont understand what is happend and all narrative driven motives to play just evaporize. Overall, very nice piece of work.
kbjwes77
14. Aug 2018 · 17:37 UTC
What a beautiful interpretation of the theme! The puzzles were great, just the right difficulty. Very clever with the overwrite mechanic, well executed. Typewriter sounds were a nice touch!
Local Minimum
14. Aug 2018 · 20:30 UTC
What a brilliant puzzle. It started to get really interesting after a while but the uneven cross that perhaps is called "Dead End" was too much for me. I hope the name means it was impossible to beat, but it was still a bit evil in that case. Maybe there was some rule I hadn't figured out. Or maybe I just wasn't smart. Great fun and challenging. It would of course be even better if there was a wordlist or something so that you weren't allowed to type nonsense. The sounds for the typewriter and the graphics/music set a great mood. In general very well made and nice game.
🎤 blinry
14. Aug 2018 · 21:10 UTC
@local-minimum: Thanks for your review! All levels can be beat, including "dead end"! But that one requires you to do something you never needed to do until that point. We encourage you to give it another try! :)
Local Minimum
14. Aug 2018 · 21:36 UTC
@blinry I made it!
Flammchen
15. Aug 2018 · 14:16 UTC
Hey Blinry, your game looks so nice and polished! The idea is very unique, but I was a bit frustrated that there is no grid to better see how much letters are left until a certain point is reached. Also I did not realize that letters could be deleted with backspace... I mean a typewriter can not do this :O
Overall very nice!
josehzz
15. Aug 2018 · 21:34 UTC
Most creative entry I've seen so far, love this kind of puzzles. The only nitpick I have is to include an arrow than indicates where are you gonna type next, regardless 5/5 Overall.
oskarOlausson
16. Aug 2018 · 10:22 UTC
Wow, this game blew my mind, supernice, this is incredible 5/5
0nironauta
16. Aug 2018 · 12:26 UTC
The idea for thisis very neat. And the narrative is fun. I would like to check lua, I dnd't know LÖVE engine. Thanks for made this game and congratulations :)
Shapkofil
16. Aug 2018 · 12:59 UTC
Amazing game i dont know how you still havent got enought rating
im keeping it on my computer for sure
good job guys
jackyjjc
16. Aug 2018 · 13:55 UTC
Brilliant game. I spent the last 40 minutes playing this game and enjoying myself with puzzles and the beautiful aesthetics. Love the seemly simple mechanics can actually generate4 so many interesting puzzle especially the later ones involving finding out clever ways of getting around tight spaces and dead ends. The only nitpick i have is the music gets a bit repetitive after a while. Otherwise it is just a perfect game. One of the best i have played and enjoyed so far.

Really well done!!
Treizive
16. Aug 2018 · 22:15 UTC
The game background and esthetic is really creative, remind me, of course, Harry Potter Marauders map. I played quite a long time on this one. Good job guys!
velvetlobster
17. Aug 2018 · 00:47 UTC
THIS IS GENIUS OMFG
mike_inPrinciple
17. Aug 2018 · 02:26 UTC
I'm sure many people say this, but this is my very first straight 5. And I evaluated every category carefully. Thank you for this experience. I hope you win the contest.
caeonosphere
17. Aug 2018 · 08:12 UTC
Very, very clever. Great level design, especially in the last level. Took me a good five minutes to architect a solution -- something that can only be said for the rare LD game. The presentation is a little plain, but the gem of an idea shines through. Thanks for the reco, @mike-inprinciple!
Sidnoea
18. Aug 2018 · 00:48 UTC
This isn't just a great jam entry, this is a great game, period. So creative, so original, really tight level design... I really really loved it. Amazing job.
Victor C
18. Aug 2018 · 13:07 UTC
Now you can play our game, CUBICAT leave a 5 STAR humor rating please!
Also I 5STARRED your FACE! :smile:
![Sketch (2).png](///raw/874/81/z/1a304.png)
Matank
19. Aug 2018 · 04:41 UTC
Awesome game! Brilliant puzzles, couldn't put it down :)
Le Slo
19. Aug 2018 · 13:58 UTC
Wow, this is great you really squeezed this wonderful idea, difficult but beautifully constructed. In my top 3 of this LD. Congratulations.
erebus
20. Aug 2018 · 21:15 UTC
Really neat game idea! Very well executed well done!
saoi-games
21. Aug 2018 · 05:55 UTC
This was unlike any game I've seen before. I think the only thing that would have made it better is if it would let you type from a dictionary instead of anything.

Great Submission!
amkingTRP
24. Aug 2018 · 14:07 UTC
excellent game, brilliantly designed and gave a brain a real workout. Got a bit easier when I realised you could doubleback on yourself by typing the needed steps in reverse. Again, excellent design.
g12345
24. Aug 2018 · 18:53 UTC
A real gem. So simple idea but so well executed. I haven't finished the game yet (other games need to be done too) but I've seen the later levels to know what you have designed. Clever.

Nice old parchment look too.

I'll finish the game later. ^_^
Karai17
27. Aug 2018 · 05:09 UTC
This game made me angry, but on the merits of the game itself, it's pretty cool. Just not my style. :)
mrjoshuamclean
02. Sep 2018 · 14:48 UTC
This was an amazing use of typing as a puzzle mechanic. Loved the aesthetic of the backgrounds and music, very well put together. One of my favorites of the jam. :)

Here's a video of my play and feedback: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/303323172
DDRKirbyISQ
03. Sep 2018 · 19:43 UTC
Brilliant. Just amazing. These puzzle games are blowing me away. I loved all of this!
ursagames
04. Sep 2018 · 13:37 UTC
This was a really noteworthy entry! Very original game design! Some really great puzzles too. Thanks for sharing your game with my stream awhile back. Your game was played around 3:41 into this vod: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/299925225
nervous-composers
05. Sep 2018 · 01:24 UTC
One issue I had was lack of save. I accidentally closed the game, and had to start over when I restarted :(

But fix this issue, add a few mechanics, story, some polish, and I'd absolutely buy it if it were a Steam game.

By the way, are there any easter eggs on the final screen? I keep trying to get the < in the <3 :p

![capture_001_05092018_092108.jpg](///raw/e04/1/z/1aad9.jpg)
Flauschzelle
06. Sep 2018 · 18:25 UTC
@nervous-composers: you can skip directly to any level via the menu, so you don't have to play through from the first level every time.
We will probably make that more obvious in the next version, it seems that a lot of people didn't notice the menu at all.

The <3 on the final screen is just highlighted because we thought it looked nice to highlight the little heart, and we didn't realize that it looks so confusingly similar to the > level exit points.
So there are no easter eggs yet, but maybe we'll include some in a future version ^^
whitenight
25. Sep 2018 · 15:24 UTC
I love this game,especially when I find the way to pass the dead end!