Ministry of Synthesis by impbox
A Wave Synthesis Puzzle Game.
Connect components to match the waveform to the gate to open it. Use your oscilloscope to view the power waves and see how they differ from how they should look, you'll need to reroute power through the correct modules in order to open the protected gates and continue.

Story
You are entering an ancient reactor to reactivate it after a meltdown, all systems are now operating on backup power but there's only one hour left until everything shuts down. You'll have to navigate your way through many old security systems that haven't been updated in years.
Controls
Arrows = Move Z = Jump Z + Down to descend through platform X = Connect/Disconnect X + Down = Connect lower socket C = Toggle Oscilloscope
I would have liked more time to work on more and better levels and expand/explain the story.
| Windows | https://impbox.itch.io/minisyn |
| Linux | https://impbox.itch.io/minisyn |
| macOS | |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/ministry-of-synthesis |
Ratings
| Overall | 33th | 4.029⭐ | 142🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 228th | 3.367⭐ | 141🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 3th | 4.529⭐ | 142🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 535th | 3⭐ | 141🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 50th | 4.143⭐ | 142🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 57th | 3.734⭐ | 141🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 38th | 3.971⭐ | 139🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 18🗳️ | 21🗨️ |
I did find it a little tricky at first. I think it probably needs some more introductory levels demonstrating the affect that a wave has on another wave. I also wonder if the two-way connector blocks could have little monitors in them so that you can see what the result is (I realised that's why you have the Oscilloscope but I rarely used it).
I think it would be a very enjoyable game if you continue it post-jam.
You mentioned that one can lower the volume. Could you add the controls for this to the description?
And you're right that the platforming is kind of pointless in this game. I had planned to make platforming more important later on but ran out of time.
As far as the platforming element that other people have talked about, it doesn't really bug me. It adds a bit more immersion, and isn't that annoying. The only things I would have changed are the jumping physics (just tweak them a bit), and on the second level, it's a bit confusing how to get to the oscilloscope below you, especially since the instructions mention how to connect to things below you, but it's referring to something else.
Overall great job, and I'll definitely return if you add further instruction.
I haven't finished the game yet but I will hopefully. If the game would only save progress. :wink:
I found the game itself somewhat confusing, but when I started going by sound instead of doing it visually it got easier(I figured it out a bit late though). Overall, it was still enjoyable and well polished even with what I consider to be design flaws.
One more thing I'd like to point out is that I couldn't ever figure out what the different shades of gray in the background were for, although that could just be my problem. :P

Whew, that was very difficult.
As others mentioned the game gets hard fast once things get complicated. The three oscillator modulation puzzle was they first place I got really stuck at, and I'm still not really sure I have a conceptualization of what modulating a wave does. I had to restart once and pay more attention to what the early levels were trying to teach. It wasn't immediately obvious what that there were two blocks "X" and "+" or what they did, but the second time though I figured it all out. It was clear that you put a lot of effort into this game, it seems you tried to make things as accessible as possible (audio feedback to listen for frequency similarities, visual feedback to teach and show how close you are, and I really liked the green bits on the bottom that showed where the waves matched!), it's just that the game deal with a complex subject matter.
:star: The graphics were awesome!
:star: The background music reminded me of Myst, and layered well when an arbitrary wave was played over it. Even after an hour of playing, the music didn't get too repetitive, so very well done there!
:bee: A small platforming bug I think I found: As far as I could tell you are supposed to hang onto walls slightly, and fall when you move away from them. I noticed if you hang onto a wall, and slowly fall, but don't move, you will drift down even if there is no more wall to hang onto. ^_^
:point_right: In innovation this game really shined, I really loved the idea behind it. I feel like it falls behind in theme though. It felt a bit more like "Signal Lost" than "Running out of Power" (power signals I guess, but it feels like a stretch).
Overall amazing work for 48 hours, and I really enjoyed this. Thank you for making it!
Sadly I got stuck at the level with the 3 sine oscillators on top of each other and a splitter. (Reading the comments I wasn't the only one) Also, it didn't make sense for me that I got a different signal when connecting the oscillator directly to a phase and when I had a splitter in between.
Controls are fine and I think that actually jumping instead of just point-and-click around added a lot to the game feel. Would love to see a more polished version later!
Obviously the art is gorgeous!
The concept is very clever and interesting, but as other people already said it gets too hard too soon and you just try different combinations to see if it works.
Some tutorial levels would have been great, but you already did a huge work for 48 hours!
Maybe also a playground where you can experiment with all the oscillators and the effects to see what the result wave is would have been helpful.
Needless to say I'll be following the post compo developments!
The sounds you make dont blend well with the background, so that would be awesome to see as well.
Overall it looks great, the controls feel pretty good, and the idea is fun. Though only vaguely connected to the theme. Great job, will play the post-compo version now!
The game feels great to play and the puzzles are engaging.
I hope you continue working on this, it has great potential :)
Congrats on the entry!
But thank you for playing it all the way through.
I didn't realise that the + and x would be confused, but in future I'll make that more clear, and introduce each module individually before combining them.
That platforming bug sounds correct, well spotted, I only reset the wall touching flag when you move left or right!
A splitter should not change the signal at all, if it did that's a bug, I'll try and reproduce.
However I did test all levels are possible and have solutions before releasing.
Thanks, I like the platforming too, but I hope it make it a more important aspect of the game in the future rather than just a means of getting around.
Yes, it's definitely too difficult, I'll be redoing all the levels methinks.
I like the idea of a playground to experiment, I'll definitely include that in the final thing.
But the lack of detail on the screns and the blinking make it really hard to think about a solution without testing many combinations.
Extremely difficult, and sometimes I had to go by trial and error, but still it's very well done and the idea is really good. A minor complaint is on the sound of the waves, as it is more often than not just noise, it can be a bit annoying, especially when I'm analyzing the waves to understand what's missing. Oh and the theme is basically just in the description, rather than the game itself but having seen the quality of the work I'm still glad you did it like this.
I didn't manage to finish it but I'm pretty sure I'll keep it around to try and finish it some time later.
Great job!
The negative is you have fulfilled the theme by adding a game time limit only, which doesn't directly affect the game most of the time, it will just end ... one time. The next thing, which can be improved is platform arrangement, for a better movement between them and the placement of the connection pins, some of them must be connected when jumping, which causes sometimes the wire loss when missed.
Really good job!

Overall, the game has good graphics, great audio, and fun concepts, but it is bogged down by being too unintuitive.
@jtn191 currently the background music is just something I made on a keyboard and is playing on a loop, but ideally the music would all be generated by the in game synths. Maybe building up over the course of the game as you complete each level or something like that.
- First I found the game music clearly obstrusive, couldn't focus on hearing the waves. There shouldn't be music in a game focused on sounds, unless that music is part of the game like in Fract Osc.
- I don't know if it was made on purpose or it's a bug, but the way waves scroll in the oscilloscope, as in the gif above, makes it difficult to get what's going on. The colors used to show the 2 original waves and their result also make it hard to see the result.
- Couldn't prevent myself confusing the jump and plug keys, but that may be just me.
Just saying for further dev, it's a very good job on 48h dev. I love the idea, one of its kind, and mixing it with a platformer, i.e. instead of a top view puzzler, is great!
But I found the gameplay really hard to grok, since I wasn't that familiar with signal theory, and most of the time I was randomly experimenting until I got a combination that worked, rather than applying knowledge of how signals combined to get the answer.
-First of all I've no memories of the electronics lessons I had from college, and performing operations on oscillator was like a total new field for me. Not that it's not the same with every new puzzle game mechanics, but here after three times performing a signal addition, I still couldn't foresee how it would work in a new situation. It seems that you've chosen a pretty hard topic to introduce to players, good point is, if you make it right, it may be used as educational material I guess.
-The platforms mechanics didn't feel to get along very well with the puzzle one, most of the time it only delays my trials of connecting two boxes, and when I had to time my jump + connect on a box that has no platform in front of it, it was pretty annoying to me.
-Sorry but this one hour general timer seems like a bad idea to me: it didn't impact the game before quite some time, and didn't get me to feel in a rush or something, but I imagine it could be veeery annoying if it made me fail the game if I was like one minute too short in the end.
-The graphics and music are really nice, but I got annoyed by the oscillator's disturbing sound and the glitch on their display.
I'm super sorry for being that harsh to the trememdous amount of work you seem to have put in this game, and if it wasn't clear enough in the review I wrote it is only my opinion and I don't expect you to rely on it too much. Just keep in mind that signal modulation could be pretty hard to grasp for some people.
You seem motivated to continue to work on it, so I wish you well.
The timer thing is obvious in hindsight, I thought it would add some intensity to the game, but it was a terrible design decision.
Yep, i'm currently reworking most of it, hopefully the new version will be a lot better.
Anyways, when I managed to get a level done, it felt really great. And the art was so great.
Oh, and make a Mac version!
A lot of people have pointed out a lot of the critiques I had in mind, so I'll just mention a couple that I didn't spot while skimming through:
When working with some of the doors with higher frequency solutions, when I had a similar but different waveform it was often difficult to see how my own waveform differed. I think in these circumstances the low resolution worked against the gameplay. You might want to consider making the waveform window higher resolution than the platformer elements.
On one level I believe I came up with a solution which was identical to the expected waveform, but just out of phase. It's difficult to spot that your waveform has the incorrect phase until at the very end, since there's no real reference for where the wave sits on the timeline. You might want to consider allowing solutions regardless of phase, so long as the waveform is correct? (hopefully phase is the correct terminology here, I mean the offset of the waveform in time.)
Anyways, again, fantastic game! I really hope to see a spruced up post-jam version of this! I'll be recommending this to some non-gamedev friends because I thought it was so cool!
I also agree that the waveforms would look so much better at a higher resolution. And the timer is dumb; this is a puzzle game.
It's a great game, your stuff always impresses me. I'll certainly be interested in any updates.
The modular synth is what shines of course, this is a brilliant idea, with a brilliant execution! <3
Good work, I just wish I had time to internalise the concepts during the game!
The concept is really good, I would say the the difficulty probably ramped up a little too fast. Later levels were mostly "try and error", the pixely display made it somewhat harder to recognize the waveform. I really enjoyed that you can hear the waveform, that was a cute little gimmick! :)
I saw no connection to the theme except for the hour timer, as the story wasn't explained inside the game.
The filters are a bit inconsistent, I had a cable going from one filter to another and the door didn't open, then I swapped the order of the filters and it worked (it was highpass to lowpass, or maybe vice-versa, can't remember). Also on one level, a door was spazzing out, even though I had the right solution (I think), I just had to wait until it opened properly so I could pass (this was also because of filters probably).
Anyway, this was probably my favorite entry out of all the LDs I've participated in, I can't even believe this is a compo entry. Really well made, great work!
Overall, awesome game! I have no idea how you managed to make it just 3MB, so that is an achivement all on its own! Well done! :smile:
The idea is great and really well executed, the art style is simple but works perfectly with the mood of the game and the good sound effects.
One of the best ideas I've seen in this jam. Congratulations!!