Nice game, very uncommon concept :)

Maybe a bit more feedback on what altering the parameters actually do may be useful :) As humans we can't iterate thousands of time to figure it out on our own

Really neat theme interpretation and a cool puzzle game. Maybe needs an earlier starting puzzle that doesn't require as much understanding of physics/has clearer visual indications of when you're improving. (something like trying to throw a ball into a basket maybe?)

Thanks for the feedback. It's that kind of meaningful reaction to a parameter change difficult to give in general. Maybe having some "debugger" panels where you can see a single state and see the details of the input and output might be a neat idea.

Very unique game! Love it!

Very Unique and Diffrent Idea! But i have one problem that could use some work.
Usually people can cheat by just clicking next all the time and that ruins the fun. (Maybe level progression when a condition is met?)
(Also a + for somewhat teaching the player)
Pretty much the rest is fine :)

@witekwitek Thanks for playing. Yeah, the game doesn't really stop you from speedrunning past all the fun. Better win conditions was on the list of things that I didn't have time for. Originally I planned to have a zachtronics-style online leaderboard with verification. With programmatic optimizers you can get Level 2 above -200 average reward.

Feel free to add some images of parameters sets that work well.

haha nice, I love these kind of games even if I'm too stupid to really understand what's going on. I think your idea of maybe adding a 'debugger' window is a good idea. nicely done!

Intersting idea. I felt like a genius after getting about -500 score on the first level and bravely went to the second... And then quickly NOPEd out after seeing so many variables to optimize :sweat_smile:

Fantastic and unique concept for a LD game! Congratulations!

I'm loving the totally unique take on the theme here - experimental gameplay ideas is one of the coolest things I've seen come out of these jams.

Great concept

Really unique game, probably the most unique I've played so far!! This definitely scratched an itch as there is something quite satisfying for me about tweaking variables and seeing outcomes like this. I must admit I was a little daunted by the second level, but I imagine to a more computer-science-minded individual this sort of thing would be more easily embraced :smiley:

Interesting idea and unique interpretation of the theme. It was interesting playing about with the variables and seeing the result. Some sort of win condition or more clear feedback about how your changes affected things would be good. Also the leap from 3 variables to 22 on the second level was asking a lot from the player. To be honest I gave up very quickly at that point.

@simex @cfdj43 I added a debugger in the post-jam version :D

The idea is pretty cool and original, but I think it lacks feedback to understand if you are going to the right direction or not.

I like the execution with the visualization of multiple simulations at the same time and also the added debugger in the post-jam version is nice. However what I'm missing is a simple description of what all the variables do. Like for the first level, just explain in plain English what theta and theta_dot are. The code was also hard for me to understand. I think it's javascript, but it's using syntax, variables and functions I'm not familiar with. Just took me forever to discern that "p" is supposed to stand for "parameters". The debugger is nice, but what would help even more if I could set initial simulation parameters so I can just test simple scenarios. And the speed could be shown as an arrow, while stepping through it frame by frame.
For this concept to be approachable in any way, it needs a lot more explanation, visualization and helpers.

This was a totally different game I have played so far. I liked that how it was unique, but at the same time it was not very intuitive as well. I was able to get a score of -450 in the first level beating the required goal. But the second one was quite hard with so many parameters.

On the other hand, I think in order to provide a bit more rewarding feel to the game, you could have chosen something different for the training set ( I dunno if that's the right word ), rather than the spinning stick. Something like a walking stickman, or some image dataset. I dunno what I'm saying is even right at all lol. What I mean is something other than the rotating stick could have made the gameplay a lot more rewarding. But I think I am very much underestimating the amount of work to be put into it.

But either way, I liked how different this game was. A very unique entry to the jam! :)