LudumData

Light Box by Apace

[raw]
made by Apace for LD 39 (JAM)

About

This game is a recreation of the classic "Lights Out" puzzle game! You'll face a board of 5x5 light bulbs which you need to turn off in order to regain some energy as well as advance to the next level. But be aware: toggling one lamp will toggle all adjacent ones as well as every lamp that is connected via a cable!

Screenshot.png

This is my first solo LD entry and my goal was to get something to a finished state. I think I managed quite well, though I had to cut some features I wanted to implemented and also horribly failed at creating music.

Stuff Used

The font used is called "Bradley Gratis" and is available on 1001fonts.com.

Tools used: Unity Personal, Blender, Bosca Ceoil, Audacity.

How to play

You click a light to toggle its state. However doing that will also toggle the state of adjacent lights (all 8 neighbors). Your goal is to turn off all lights before your battery (shown at the bottom) runs out of power. Whenever your click turns off all lights, the box immediately turns on new lights for you to turn off but grants you additional battery charge for 5 more seconds! Good luck!

You can play in your browser on itch.io. (I originally wanted to create an Android build as well, but didn't have the module downloaded!)

Misc

The project folder can be downloaded below! Be warned, the project is really, really messy and none of the code is documented. Sorry!

Also I just wanna say thanks to everybody who participates in these game jams. This is a wonderful thing and the community is truly great. You guys rock!

HTML5 (web) https://apace.itch.io/light-box-ld39
Source code https://www.dropbox.com/s/sg8urlpz6eoktwe/light-box-project.zip?dl=1
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/light-box

Ratings

Overall 520th 3.208⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 503th 3⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 598th 2.75⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 226th 3.792⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 319th 3.792⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Audio 497th 2.625⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Humor 537th 2.05⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 645th 2.762⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 27🗨️

Feedback

kamikaziuk
31. Jul 2017 · 07:28 UTC
Love the artstyle and gameplay. I think it's quiet buggy though as sometimes it would do something different, if i done the same tasks. I pressed top right corner and loads lit up and hitting first light in center turned on loads of random ones. Very hard game but could be addictive when you figure out patterns.
🎤 Apace
01. Aug 2017 · 10:40 UTC
Hey there, thanks for playing! The thing that probably confused you is that once you click the light that would turn off all lights (i.e. the first light in the center) it will instantly load up the next level (i.e. turn on random lights!). Probably should have made that more obvious by leaving all lights off for a few seconds.

Thanks for the feedback!
AlexanderTeaH
01. Aug 2017 · 11:24 UTC
I liked it, but I feel as though I'd need quite a bit more practice to even pass the first round! :D
Mr.Houdini
01. Aug 2017 · 11:25 UTC
Ooh, i thought I din't reached the second level. I'll give it a second try: Quite better, ass you say, give feedback to the player.Add some music and you'll have a nice game! I liked it: dinamic, easy to understand, clear. Well done.
galacticglum
01. Aug 2017 · 11:27 UTC
I really liked the connection with the theme but (as others have stated), it would have been great if you expanded and explained (through some in-game demo) how turning off one light affects the board.
JemSmith
01. Aug 2017 · 11:32 UTC
I like the presentation of the light box and its relation to the theme. I think as you mentioned, some sort of indicator of the next level would be good. It took me a while to figure out that just clicking the center bulb of the first level solves it. When I did that at first, I got the next level, which made me think there was something wrong with how the light logic was working. So a brief break and some audio/visual indication of the level being complete would be good.
Anyway, good job!
Qu4k
01. Aug 2017 · 11:38 UTC
The game is pretty good but it took me awhile to understand what to do
Qu4k
01. Aug 2017 · 11:38 UTC
The game is pretty good but it took me awhile to understand what to do
ohmaigawd
01. Aug 2017 · 11:42 UTC
I like the visuals :)
The gameplay for me was that I really needed some time to get how to even play and I'm still not sure if I was doing it right. I passed the 1 level tho haha.
ohmaigawd
01. Aug 2017 · 11:42 UTC
I like the visuals :)
The gameplay for me was that I really needed some time to get how to even play and I'm still not sure if I was doing it right. I passed the 1 level tho haha.
ohmaigawd
01. Aug 2017 · 11:42 UTC
I like the visuals :)
The gameplay for me was that I really needed some time to get how to even play and I'm still not sure if I was doing it right. I passed the 1 level tho haha.
ohmaigawd
01. Aug 2017 · 11:42 UTC
Omg man, I'm sorry for the spam, the website bugged and I litterally can't delete my comments.
🎤 Apace
01. Aug 2017 · 12:05 UTC
Thanks for the feedback everyone! I probably should've let someone else play the game before submitting, then I would've probably noticed the problem with switching levels immediately! Note to self: give game to others for playtesting.
I've added a note under "how to play" for new players to clear up the confusion.
prettylucky
01. Aug 2017 · 16:11 UTC
The game had the look and feel of a toy, which was nice!

I'd scale the difficulty differently, because it felt like I was getting freebies and then like total stumpers (alternating). I really liked Lights Out as a kid and this was a good take on it.
ijona
01. Aug 2017 · 21:24 UTC
It was an unexpected idea - to combine this classical game with the theme of ludum dare. Also, i liked sounds, they made me feel i'm touching the box with the game in reality.
ijona
01. Aug 2017 · 21:24 UTC
It was an unexpected idea - to combine this classical game with the theme of ludum dare. Also, i liked sounds, they made me feel i'm touching the box with the game in reality.
JOrbits
01. Aug 2017 · 23:57 UTC
The box was a good design idea. I felt like the game was a bit hard. Never played a "lights out" puzzle before. I have some problems with those lamps, when there is only one left, then I don't know what to do. And I had to restart the website, because the first time it was not counting how many levels I have solved. I don't know if the game works like that, but it would be cool, if the power would go down slower, when there are less lamps glowing.

I have no idea what a good score in this game is, here is my highscore:
![overcharged8.JPG](///raw/964/1/z/8494.jpg)
3mpty
02. Aug 2017 · 13:22 UTC
Visuals of the level and menu are really nice and the fact that the game is incorporated into the menu is super cool.
Nice little game
Mathiouza
02. Aug 2017 · 14:01 UTC
Cool little puzzle game, but my score did not appear well :( The game always said that I wompleted only one level ... Anyway, the game is cool :) Great job :)
rightangel
02. Aug 2017 · 14:30 UTC
Nice puzzle game, nice graphics and feeling. A tad difficult, as a decent puzzle.
JoshBurleson
02. Aug 2017 · 15:34 UTC
I LOVE the 3D UI that's part of the board. Very creative. Games way too hard for a ding dong like me though lol.
randomphantom
02. Aug 2017 · 15:42 UTC
Nice puzzle, but it felt like the level transitions were kind of abrupt and the random puzzles make it somewhat variable in difficulty each time round. Don't think that this light's out puzzle works well with a timed element, as it is really challenging to solve it within the time limit. Cool SFX and nice graphics round out this elegant entry!
incobalt
02. Aug 2017 · 23:12 UTC
I am terrible at these kinds of puzzles, and the time limit is very harsh. The idea of the connected lights adds to the original game, but it still requires a lot of knowledge of the original idea as well. I noted that it hits all surrounding lights, rather than just the adjacent ones, which is a bit different than I'm used to for the lights-out style game. The game looked good, though my computer chugged a bit with trying to display the game, which I thought odd for such simple graphics. There was a slider on the front of the box that I didn't know what it was for, and didn't seem to do anything.
🎤 Apace
03. Aug 2017 · 00:18 UTC
Thanks for all the new feedback!

@incobalt, the game is poorly optimized, I'm very sorry. It actually runs faster on my phone than on my laptop, haha.

The slider on the front of the box controls the volume. Should have made that visible somehow, probably.

I'll try to incorporate all of your feedback for a post-jam version! Either way, I'm learning a lot through your comments, so thank you all!
Relinke
03. Aug 2017 · 02:55 UTC
I like puzzle game but most puzzle games seem too hard for me.
But it's really great!
Sebastian-M
03. Aug 2017 · 05:12 UTC
The game is really well made. The graphic style is impressive and all the animations and details are really nice. The puzzle itself can be really hard and really simple sometimes. I don't know how random it was in the code.

Good job overall!!!
Gengi
03. Aug 2017 · 05:13 UTC
I like these kind of logic games! But was a bit disappoint when I learned the 'power' was just an awful fast timer that took away my fun. I'm not sure how I could suggest a better design. But I did notice on the board you had some type of circuit which could have been an interesting addition.
ProdigalSon
16. Aug 2017 · 19:45 UTC
Solid first entry, polished, and easy to understand but hard to master. It is satisfying when I solve the puzzle correctly but it took me a bit to realize I had moved to the next level because it made it feel like I made a mistake and turned a bunch of other bulbs on. lol :P Well done