This is a lovely well done game!

It appears I've hit a bug on the mac version where I can only play the first level.

Font is slightly hard to read, but sound and graphics and even retro text is really cute. Lovely game!

Edit: I've played a bit more after the bug fix, and it's still an awesome game. I got to level 8 or 10 or something before realizing it's midnight on a day before work.

Good job! Sorry I haven't gotten to the end yet though.

Lovely one indeed, great polish and vibes

Very well done. The writing is very atmospheric, the visual style cohesive. The music fits into the theme well.

The puzzles feel quite a lot like block sliders, only with a lot more freedom to move. I know I've seen this mechanics set in previous LDs and I've really enjoyed it every time I've seen it.

One quick complaints: in the level select, X both closes the dialogue and lands on the planet. This means that to get between levels I have to hit X twice, and this has thrown me off almost every time: I'd reach the planet, hit X, not land, overshoot, grumble, move back, hit X.

The game has a lot of levels for a compo, and I do applaud that each has its own dialogue and varied mechanics. But the impression I got after some 14 levels is that the mechanics aren't varied enough to warrant this many levels. Certainly, each new race adds something new to the puzzle, but because the levels up until where I played are all just 4x4 you're limited in the patterns you can use, and a lot of the puzzles (to where I've played) just come down to blocking off tribbles then sliding everyone into the largely obvious right position. I don't feel particularly challenged playing through the levels, and the game's aesthetic doesn't *quite* lend itself to a zen state of mindless clicking like you'd get in, say, hexcells.

The above is obviously a highly subjective criticism, but I would have loved to be able to skip ahead in levels. With the warp drive system, you had a perfect opportunity for that. You'd just need to unlock the first stage in each quadrant and a player who's not feeling engaged with the current set of levels could jump ahead in difficulty to where they're more comfortable.

I can't fault the game on any objective measures. The design is solid all around, and the execution is spotless. It just feels a bit too long. Keep up the good work.

I made the whole world a happy place!
Great game! Impressive variety, and cool narration!
Took me a while (one hour if I trust itch app...)!
Congratulations!

Great game with fun graphics, keep it up! It matches the theme quite well too.

Lovely concept! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation [video series](https://youtu.be/OjTiHp24xjs), if you’d like to take a look :)

Everything about this game is amazing. Fun parody, great art, excellent music, and an amount of compelling gameplay that would be impressive for a jam entry, never mind a compo one. :thumbsup::thumbsup:

my feedback:
* the graphics are minimalistic 8bit sprites but look really nice and the minimalism helps the puzzle mechanics of the game. All of the aliens have their own personalities and are unique in their own way, which is also cool.
* the music is great and fitting, nice job there, @impbox
* my only negative criticism, is not really negative criticism but a suggestion: @impbox, it would be nice if there was an "undo" button so I could just go back to some of my previous turns instead of restarting the whole level if I accidentally screw up something.
Awesome game though. :clap:

yeeah this was pretty great!

really good gameplay and good progression of getting gradually more complex.

perfect sound, graphics and animation.

if you're going to work on the game further, an 'action puzzle' mode a la tetris or tetris attack/panel de pon could be cool - in my experience it is pretty hard to take these very elegant small puzzle games much further without everything just getting too complex for most people's attention spans. it does work amazingly as the lovable bite-sized puzzle game it is now though!

One of the best LD entries I've seen. The puzzles are difficult and fun. The art and sound are cute. I would definitely play more of this in the future.

I can't think of enough good things to say here. Love the music, art style, writing, overworld, gameplay, just… damn. Incredible work. Agreed that an "undo" button could be nice.

Fun puzzle game wrapped in polished visuals and served with a geeky attitude. I love it :)

Gave it a good spin and didn't find any bugs or grievances to report. This would play well on devices with limited resolution, I'd love to see it as a mobile game.

Suggestions: undo button. Since it can get a tad complicated, it really would be a welcome feature.

And now I'll just leave my rating, and congratulate on a job well done :)

Loved the game. The art is great and right up my alley. It matches the game perfectly and is beatifully done with all the effects. I could imagine playing such a game on my smartphone. The controls are responsive and well done too.

However, I do not think that the game is very innovative or has a cool twist on the theme.

Very fine! Played for a long time. Mouse click on Linux crashes the game and the music is a bit repetitive, but overall extremely well done!

I'm incredibly impressed that this game was created in a single weekend. The polish put into is very impressive, there are sound effects, mood indicators, warp effects, level transitions, a little level win cinematic, a mini ship game to navigate with levels, text story, and more.

The most enjoyable piece of this experience was how intuitive it was to figure out what the new types of aliens wanted to be happy. I only actually needed to use the scan feature once to determine what aliens wanted except for the one who wanted 3 friends from other species. The levels were put together in such a way that I could either recognize the new elements in the puzzle or run a quick experiment.

I love the take on the theme in this entry. It manages to include a small, cramped world in a meaningful way but also touches on the social connotations of the "A Small World" too. Overall, this is a great and well polished entry!

This is definitely one of the best games I've seen. The art and music are both great! There is a lot of content too. I'm currently on level 21. ^_^

The visual effects also look great. You got a lot done in 48 hours. :P

One bug I noticed is that the ship seems to go under everything when leaving.

I had a little difficulty figuring out what to do at first. I think a little more feedback that you really can't move inanimate objects (perhaps a refusal to enable "pick up" on them at all, with a buzzer sound?) might help with that.

The variety of aliens and their workings (the Chrysornax and their ability to chain / hatred of cuddles especially) offer great variety. The puzzles are short but challenging, and there are a bunch of them!

It's amazingly good for 48 hour compo! Really impressive!

It could maybe use a "par" or something to improve the challenge. And earned stars based on how close to par? I suppose you'd have to add a game element that needs those stars...

Couldn't stop playing... they WARP DRIVE IS THE SHIT!

I really love this entry. The levels are like sliding puzzles taken to the extreme with lots of fun twists to keep them challenging. The little touches like the sound effects, the different poses to visually distinguish between happy and sad aliens, the way you have to physically execute the warp drive. It's all really satisfying! Great work!

This is awesome! Puzzles are fun, the general style of game is really cool. Reminds me vaguely of 24 puzzles. Implementation was really great too, and fit the theme nicely. Great job!

Really good job. Seen some other implementations of the same play/mechanics for games similar to this, but the art and immersion created in this game were really impressive. Also cute pixel art, I had a blast!

Great game! Though, I think, the font is hard to read. Also, I think, you could have implemented normal level selection, and used the time making the core gameplay better...

The fact that you coded it using SDL is impressive. Had some base code?

@tanay I used this basecode https://github.com/ftsf/nico-ldbase I made on top of SDL2 for pixel drawing and input. Yes I wasted too much time of the level selection and not enough on level design.

Really really nice puzzles! so well designed. And soo many of them too! I can't believe how much content you've finished in 48 hours. nice job!

Lots of puzzles and really solid play throughout. Top notch!

Oh my god this is sooo goooooood!!! As a big fan of puzzle games, I really love this! The music is good and the sfx work so well. The art is cute and consistent as well. One nitpick is the levels are a bit hard to enter -- once I replayed a level by accident because it was so close to the new level. I would say that most levels are designed really well, but some feel very brute-forcey. All in all, an excellent entry! One of the best. Great job!

I really want to see this become a full game! Ha, it's already pretty damn full already, though.

Such a meaty game! This is really a well rounded game all over.Perhaps one of the best.Had a blast playing this!

Fantastic little puzzle game! I really liked the pico8 style, and totally have to check out nim. Music is solid, graphics are fun, and the mechanics are great!

First things first: I'm hooked.

I'm also astounded that this is a compo entry. It's so well polished and well thought out. The puzzles were challenging and followed a smooth curve, too. The graphics were gorgeous and the audio fit perfectly. I was constantly surprised by how much content there was, and I definitely see this as something that could be scaled even larger.

The only thing that sticks out as a negative to me is that as far as puzzlers go, this one isn't particularly innovative. You can find plenty of other games out there that follow a nearly identical pattern in terms of level design. Despite this, I really enjoyed seeing the twists that you put on this weathered formula.

Excellent work.

Wow!

The game feels impressively polished, especially considering that it is a compo game! The amount of detail is staggering; All the details - the little animations, the lovely music, the fun introduction text in between levels, and even the visual effects for the scanner and level transitions, combine into an excellent game!

I found the level progression to be very good. The basic puzzle mechanic variations are introduced at a good pace. And just as the player has them mastered, the change where the cute cuddly creatures start in their expansion mode, provides a change of pace that really revitalizes the game mechanics for the rest of the levels. You managed to stretch a relatively simple set of mechanics to good effect, and the variety of the different rules was well balanced.

The controls felt a bit imprecise at times - I tended to overshoot my target, both when selecting a level, and when warping to the next sector. Other than that, my only "complaint" is that I was supposed to have time to play and rate a handful of games today, not spend all evening on playing this one...

All in all, it was a very enjoyable game!


> Planet in uproar!
> Obey the wise commander.
> Tribbles... everywhere!

Game is great! Had a lot of fun playing it! I found a bug though - given enough time, the level select screen will end up like this


I've played it a long while, then idle it for a bit, and i came back and it crashed...

I'll play it later but I've seen enough to vote for it...

Really, really nice puzzle game! :)

If you ask me, this one could be a winner.

Okay, that's a great puzzle game you got there! I found everything to be really good. I'm impressed that you managed to make so many levels and add so much variety. WELL DONE!

Sir. You are a genious! This is just too good. Awesome art. Awesome writting. awesome music. And mindblowing level design, mechanics and game concept.

Please make an app out of this. The world needs to see this!

I'm truly amazed. Keep it up! I suscribed to your youtube. I'll be waiting for more of your stuff!

Btw, did you use any engine for this?

Really amazing game! It feels very thought out. the puzzles are challenging and versatile.
There are so many mechanics and animations in the "overworld" and in the puzzles.
The visuals and the sound were spot on. Great work!

I love it - this feels like a complete, polished, fun game! The only piece of feedback I can give you is that the 'launching' sound when you complete a level feels a bit loud compared to the rest of the sound effects. Great work!!

Really excellent polish, fun puzzles, and a great job evoking your chosen theme. Everything came together extremely well.

Really professional, full of content, challenging, entry. Amazing for just 48 hours work!

An excellent little game! I was particularly impressed with how non-violent it was, but then I wound up in Gamma Sector >_<

Amazing work! The only complaint I have is that screen transitions are a bit too long.

Woaw, just amazing this amount of work in only 2 days! First thing first: the theme is very well respected, and all these little dialogs really add a ton to the credibility of this little universe.
The graphics are simple but really coherent and clear, and the stage selection really feels like a cherry on the cake at this point (for a compo). Also this warp drive is reaaaally good. Every feedbacks of this game are top notch!

The puzzle system is also pretty simple but there's a good variety of situations with all these different races. A really clever idea and well executed. It only gets a little repetitive after a dozen of levels though it's already enough enjoyement for a jam really, it's the game I've played the most so far.

As for the sound design: the effects are good and the music fits perfectly the overall mood. Only complaint is that it loops pretty quicly and it's maybe a bit too agressive for a puzzle game. A more zen-ish theme would be nice to put our brains to rest.

Anyway.. a huge congrats to you! It's a great and polished entry, and surely one of the gems of this edition.

@rockhoppergames haha yes, I had intended for the game to be entirely non-violent, but then I needed a new mechanic for the last levels so I threw that out the airlock.

very well made game love it!

The amount of content and polish here is very impressive! Music, graphics, gameplay all solid. An undo button would have been nice on some levels. And it did get a little repetitive, I stopped at episode 18. I could for sure see this as a fully-realized game, you should definitely do more to this post-jam.

One of the best I've played so far. Great work!

This is the best compo entry I've played so far. It was a bit tough to get started but once I understood what to do it was a lot of fun. I loved it when those reproducing cute things were introduced.

One of the greatest entry I've played on this LD!
Cute graphics, nice soundtrack and well designed puzzles.
I've spend the whole evening resolving this small conflicts, thank you so much! :)

I spent way too long playing this, but I beat it! Amazing game and great mechanics. Everything about this is wonderfully done, and the amount of content is impressive.

For a simple sliding puzzle game, I had a lot more fun than I expected. I really thought the ship as part of the puzzle was a smart decision. And the rules on each alien compliments the gameplay really well. The writing is pretty adorable, too.

It would have been nice if the description of the Diversity-loving alien was clarified a little more. It didn't strike to me until later that in reality, they need at least 3 sides of them surrounded by some sort of creature.

Overall, great work!

@omiya-games yes I was worried about not clarifying that much, I figured people would work it out from the early puzzles involving that alien, but after watching some playthroughs i decided it should have explained it more. thanks for the feedback!

Sooo many levels its awesome :O
Reaaally good and amazingly clever
The puzzles are brilliant

Clearly in my top 5 of the jam!

lovely art. it was nice to save the universe without having to shoot anyone for a change :). Too many levels for me to finish yet but I'll definitely come back to this one. Cool game!

Very high quality entry! This is probably the best puzzle game in LD38. I've never heard of the Nim programming language before, but it's cool that the game doesn't need Nim installed to play.

This is a nice puzzle game :)

Very rare to see a game made with Nim :O

Game crashes if I click it, I get the following error:
```
./smalltrek.x86_64: symbol lookup error: ./smalltrek.x86_64: undefined symbol: SDL_CaptureMouse
```
Running Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS (64 bit)

Game runs fine if I don't click it though, and thankfully it saves my progress.

Beyond that, the game looks really nice, plays very well and has good music. Surprising amount of content for an LD entry, and the warp drive looks really cool. Trying to land on the right planet when they're swaying around is kinda annoying though.

Wow, this is really a fantastic game. A lot of puzzles that find the right level challenge. The graphics are very cute and communicate the puzzle state very well. The music and sound effects are also great and support the game's mood. The controls are a bit annoying sometimes, especially on the world map it can be hard to access the right planet. As you have already said, our games are very similar, but yours has more depth in its mechanics and more levels. Very impressive work for such a short time! I could also see this work well on mobile, with the small size for each level. I think this is one of my favorite games this LD.

Awesome!
music x graph = fantastic.
Story & characters - great.
little puzzle - simple fun, beatiful.
Please release this on android.
I want to play it on the trip.

This Game is really adorable, really fun and a great compo entry here indeed, one of the best games a found so far now!
Really love this kind of puzzle games and this one shows you are really creative with this kind of ideas!
Great job and keep it up!

Great game, it has a perfect learning curve for me, the art and sounds are so cute, inmersive ambience and good theming and history! Congrats!

Beautiful puzzle entry with cute pixel art.
The theme was very good implemented.
When you grab something which can not be moved it should automatically be released after a visual feedback.
The music was good, but for me to repetitive. Excellent, keep up the great work!

Just curious what did you make this game in? The idea of the game is great, and the puzzles are surprisingly very enjoyable. I found them to be at the perfect equilibrium of difficulty and satisfaction. The art is great, the music is great, the sound is great, what can else can I say the whole game is executed very well. I could really see this as a fully published game, that I myself would put some time into. A lot of games I have seen(mine included tbh) lack in the gameplay department, but your submission did not. Overall a very strong entry, especially for going solo.

@teammonumental thanks very much! I made this game in Vim for code/Aseprite for graphics/Pico8 for SFX/LSDJ on GameBoy for Music, programming in Nim using some basecode I made and used for my last LD entry. https://github.com/ftsf/nico

Definitely one of the best of this LD! Solid puzzle game, lots of content, great sprites, it's even pretty fun to just fly around the snazzy level select!

Some criticisms:
- first time I ran the web version it booted in a weird state where I just had the ship floating around the sun in a black void with no sound or text. It took me a minute to figure out that it wasn't just the game's intro and refresh.
- the level complete sequence is a bit harsh on the ears
- I would have appreciated a simple level skip due to getting stuck a couple times. Something along the lines of always being able to land up to one planet ahead of the current one would have made that a bit less frustrating.

@sean-s-leblanc

Thanks for the feedback!

Mmm I did encounter that bug once, It think it's related to stuff starting before all assets are loaded hence why refresh fixes it. Bad porting on my part.

Understandable about the launching audio, that was a bit rushed.

You can levelskip a bit! unfortunately it's not mentioned, but for each level you complete it unlocks 1.25 levels.

Couldn't finish all the levels in time, but it's pretty fun. Feels very polished. Big ups for technical achievement too!

Incredibly well polished game. Simple to understand and the puzzles are challenging. I loved the added gameplay along with the narrative when travelling between worlds. However I got a bit frustrated after completing the first world as I kept accidently entering the level again while trying to skip the text. Great game overall :slight_smile:

I can't really add anything that hasn't been said in the other comments, mearly iterate on the fact that you have produced an awesomely fun game! I loved the simple core mechanic that was clear but challenging. Enjoyed the way you delivered the visuals (great job loved it!).

Congrats on an awesome game!

Wow, impressive. That a pretty solid game! Game Feel is awesome, just as the gameplay. I had fun playing this game.

I would recommend you to keep on with this project!

Fantastic game, really like the style and art. Game mechanics were fun and well thought out. A really polished entry. :alien:

Really awesome. Starts off easy and gradually becomes more and more challenging. The way you introduced the new mechanics felt really natural and made the whole experience really fun and not overwhelming with information.
Congratulations!

Hey, thanks for the feedback on spider collider. Pulling the ball to the spider is a fantastic idea, I'll try that out if I continue. Thanks for coming back to share!

I played for over an hour, and there was more content. WTF
Amazing game, not just for a game jam, this could be a full release and still would be amazing. No wonder it won.

Wow. Just, wow.

Congratulations, @impbox! I love every part of this game.

I tried to complete it, but got a glitch on level 21. I did a record of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JGJ-djNWh8

@icxon thanks! good find on that bug! you won the level but immediately moved into a non-winning position and I guess you couldn't move after that? I'll have to get that fixed. Your progress should be saved however so if you restart the game it should remember you were up to the start of that level.

I'm completely amazed that you were able to do this in 48 hours... alone... amazing. So much fun, and so well done. You deserved this win.

Block sliders are certainly not a new concept, in fact I think I run into them at least once each round of LD. But when you add in a very solid theme like parody of Star Trek then it adds a whole new depth. In this case SmallTrek is literally distilling the Star Trek experience down into its most basic form. Explore the galaxy and try to keep other aliens from killing each other. Which means each alien species behaves differently with everything around it, in some cases destroying the environment, which turns it from a block slider into a Strategy Puzzle Game.

Nice stuff. Well earned Score.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o2hyhKgsUw

This is a rock solid game with a shocking amount of content for an LD entry, I can see why it took the number 1 spot in the compo! My only critique is that the game would have been very well served with an undo, especially in the later levels where a mistaken move can result in a tribble-pocalypse that floods the board.

I also included your game in an article of my favorites here: http://fireside.gamejolt.com/post/jam-favorites-ludum-dare-38-vepwgamy