N0THING.exe by PSiv

[raw]
made by PSiv for Ludum Dare 45 (JAM)

CoverImage.png N0THING.exe is a puzzle/code breaking game, carry out tasks, solve puzzles and crack the code to win! Each puzzle is presented as a computer program, reaching the end of the program unlocks more programs for installation or unlocks part of the final code. screenShot.png Instructions: Start with nothing!

Due to time issues, there are not as many puzzle programs as I planned, but I made the best of what i had. All the foundations are there to add more so I will definitely continue to develop this post-Jam, and I would love to hear any ideas of puzzles/minigames etc. that could be put into the game! Thanks for playing!

Ratings

Overall 206th 3.833⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Fun 350th 3.534⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 150th 3.817⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Theme 181th 3.862⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 352th 3.833⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Audio 246th 3.586⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Humor 360th 3.115⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 191th 3.839⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Given 32🗳️ 19🗨️

Feedback

Pedro Rosa
10. Oct 2019 · 11:51 UTC
Cool game I like a lot the mood :)
Shad
10. Oct 2019 · 11:52 UTC
I like the idea. It was a litle hard to read the text.
Wevel
10. Oct 2019 · 12:00 UTC
I really love this game, there are some fun puzzles. I especially like the language one, even though it took me a while.
BilalCh213
10. Oct 2019 · 12:45 UTC
Nice music there! I have no idea how to solve the nothing program. But the game felt good! :)
Jam373
10. Oct 2019 · 13:10 UTC
This seems really cool and really well thought out, but that langauge puzzle is going to take me forever so I might need to come back to this when I have more time.
Hellper
11. Oct 2019 · 12:18 UTC
Nice! I'm not a good puzzle player but I liked this game.

But I think I found a bug : when closing the installer and opening it it alorws to reinstall programs that were already installed.
AliceCrd
11. Oct 2019 · 14:54 UTC
Your game is really hard x) But I continue to find the solution.. Good game ! I'm addict
🎤 PSiv
11. Oct 2019 · 15:29 UTC
@pedro-rosa @shad @wevel @bilalch213 @jam373 @alicecrd Thanks for your feedback! Some of the puzzles in the game were not originally intended to be puzzles, and were forced in late on to add more content, so the difficulty is sort of a bit all over the place!
@hellper Thanks for pointing that out, I hadn't noticed that. It's a purely visual thing, when you close the window it resets the animation on the button so it says install again. I will fix it!
DAVidus
12. Oct 2019 · 13:40 UTC
Fun tricky game :thumbsup:. I had much fun playing it.
croewens
12. Oct 2019 · 13:46 UTC
I recognise the difficulty being all of the place from my submission as well. I build out a fully working level editor, only to realise I had 2 hours left to do level creation & submission. Ended up with 4 rushed levels! Super unique vibe mixed with the puzzle aspect made for a cool demo! Great submission :clap:
bassguitarbill
12. Oct 2019 · 13:58 UTC
This seems very polished for a jam game, which was impressive. The language game is obviously what a player will be spending most of their time on, but even if it's not too difficult, it ended up being really time-consuming.
AlexFSmirnov
12. Oct 2019 · 13:58 UTC
That was great! The music was awesome, the graphics too, and the idea is cool. I like the interpretation of the theme :) Solved the first two digits, got stuck on the translation. Managed to translate the buttons and get to the security code but was to lazy to translate the actual text in order to find the code. Nice job :)
Heartclaw
12. Oct 2019 · 14:25 UTC
So, I played the game and didn't realize it was opened on a webpage (went fullscreen), so I just Alt+F4'd at the end. Took me half an hour to find it after that just to say this:
it's the best puzzle game I've played probably ever. I am not a fan of puzzles, but damn, this one hooked me up with the way it is designed! I loved every single minute spent on the puzzle and if you extend it, maybe add a bit of a plot and release it somewhere, let me know and I will buy it without a doubt. Really clever and brain tickling problems and they are all unique.
Moreover, I loved the layered design of them as well. I.e. my last digits that I found were probably the most obvious ones:


(SPOILER ALERT)
the music, the time and the num.alphabet green thing (although, I discovered the last one mentioned midway through the language puzzle)
(END OF SPOILER ALERT)


So yeah, that's really great work, and I don't regret a second playing it. 5/5, want more. <3
primitive-concept
13. Oct 2019 · 01:02 UTC
I started out with nothing, but hey, at least I still have most of it left.

Love games like this! Last bit took me a bit to figure out (Are there more puzzles? Do I guess?), but finally got it. Lot of polish in this, even little things I wouldn't have expected to be there. Good job!
OF711
13. Oct 2019 · 01:26 UTC
This is... amazing!!

I'm russian and translating the cipher was difficult for me, but I did it!
It was very exciting! I need more @__@
Foursay
13. Oct 2019 · 01:50 UTC
the puzzle game really got my interested. I enjoy the interface and the music, and the way the puzzled are displayed. the translate puzzle is difficult and the transation takes me a lot of time to figure the textural meaning for the symbols. Every puzzled is designed in a delicate way. Good job dude!
hwaet
13. Oct 2019 · 02:06 UTC
Really good entry! I love that you have to run the music in-game in order to listen to it as a player, that's a nice detail. This felt very polished! The only constructive feedback I have is for the time puzzle. On any sort of QTE, players usually react better to the timing being on the button press, rather than a button release. But that's a tiny detail in an overwhelming fun game. Thank you for sharing it with us!
Lars-Erik
13. Oct 2019 · 18:10 UTC
Nice music and general setup. The minigames were too week to keep me going. (Time)
Very interesting concept. With balanced difficulty and "getting started" bits this could really rock.
🎤 PSiv
14. Oct 2019 · 12:05 UTC
@davidus @croewens @bassguitarbill @alexfsmirnov @of711 @foursay @lars-erik Thank you all for playing and providing feedback!

@heartclaw I'm really glad you enjoyed it so much! I've got a lot of ideas that I had no where near enough time to implement so I will definitely be continuing to work on this, thank you for your kind words!

@primitive-concept 'Started out with nothin and I still got most of it left' is a Seasick Steve album/song, as soon as I saw the theme it reminded me of it! There are 8 programs, 4 unlock numbers in the code, 2 contain a number if you can spot it/find it, and the other number is hinted at by a few clues and there's a program that hints at the order the digits should go in. So in theory there should be no guessing, or at least if you can't figure out the last number and have to guess I hope it would become apparent why that number is the answer. Thanks for playing!

@hwaet You are absolutely correct about the time puzzle/QTE, I thought something was off about it at times but couldn't quite put my finger on why, I'm sure that is it. Thank you!
boyTurnedRobot
16. Oct 2019 · 13:55 UTC
The music and graphics were my favorite part. I liked being able to move windows around and the overall feel. I think I broke the time puzzle though. Eventually it just kept giving me the error sound whether I was pressing anything or not. Good vibe overall.
lootgrounds
16. Oct 2019 · 14:51 UTC
Nice entry! Love GUI/hacking games. Spend 40 minutes translating messages, it was fun at first but got really tedious. I think you should really consider the difficulty
Empty Set
17. Oct 2019 · 06:28 UTC
Interesting concept. Ended up getting stuck, though. Got 4 green numbers and noticed one elsewhere, but didn't know where it went or what the other 2 numbers more.
After beating "time" it said I could install "time2," but I couldn't seem to find a way to do so and help didn't say anything about it.
I probably would have preferred if you got all the numbers through more minigames instead of however else they were hidden, but maybe it's something obvious I'm missing so it's hard to say.
🎤 PSiv
17. Oct 2019 · 13:40 UTC
@boyturnedrobot It is supposed to make the error noise everytime you miss pressing the button in time, which is perhaps a little over the top and I may change that to only make the noise when you break the sequence. I did have some issues with it but I thought I fixed them all, will have to double check. Thanks for playing!

@lootgrounds Thanks for putting the time in, I appreciate the effort! I agree with you that that puzzle needs tweaking in terms of difficulty, or at least better/clearer clues as to what to do.

@empty-set The idea was to have all the minigames/puzzles unlock a code number or unlock further minigames/puzzles, hence why time says it unlocks time2. There is no time2 because I ran out of time, but it would seem I forgot to change the text, good spot! So with the lack of minigames/puzzles I tried to hide some extra numbers in the other programs to try to give the game a little more content, but I appreciate they don't quite fit with the rest and it could definitely make the game as a whole seem a little confusing/less clear than it is. Thanks for the feedback!
GreenDinoGames
17. Oct 2019 · 20:35 UTC
I found it a bit hard, but I like the concept. The visual presentation and music are amazing. Overall great game!