Grinding Gears by Pincushion

It's a puzzle game where you need to manipulate gears to clear a path to the goal (The yellow dot).
Controls
- WSAD to move
- E to activate wheels and levers.
- (Windows version) alt + F4 to quit
Changelog
- No changes yet to Web and main Windows versions.
- Added a post-compo version with a fixed camera for reduced disorientation
Ratings
| Overall | 195th | 3.63⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 322th | 3.259⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 128th | 3.741⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 416th | 3.333⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 320th | 3.37⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 338th | 2.963⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 341th | 2.386⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 253th | 3.3⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 28🗨️ |
Besides the finicky controls and the camera angle it was a great experience with interesting puzzles, thank you!
I couldn't entirely finnish the third level, I'm bad at puzzles :laughing:
Loved the art and the smoothness of movement.
The only problem is the confusion when switching place.
What I didn't like was the way camera works. In order to solve the puzzle, you *need* the minimap, so it would probably make more sense to make the minimap fullscreen and ditch the "room" camera altogether. I've found myself staring at the minimap 90% of the time, only pausing to see which way I should be going. This, sadly, hurt playability a bit.
Overall, I liked it very much mainly thanks to the concept and the puzzles themselves. Pity about the controls, but I will be going back to this nonetheless. Good job!
I also thought that the camera was disorienting, but I couldn't think of a solution in time. I have an idea now, but time's up!
3rd level was actualy pretty challenging. gj on managing to make that and have it work in the 48 hours.
the movement change when player changes room were realy disoritening. i know ppl have mentioned it but playing the game for 10 min and that truly was disorienting.
You should expand this with more levels (maybe some inbetween level 2 and 3?) and make it into a small "full" indie game.
About the room change: i haven't looked at the source code yet, but if you do **one camera for each room** - and just switch them (maybe fade out, then in with the new camera) the potential disorientation should be lessened. Like in VR games where you can teleport instead of running now.
@madbookstudios Thank you so much!
Like has been mentioned, I found myself exclusively looking at the mini-map, especially with how tricky it was to jump between the main screen and the map I avoided it as much as possible. Character movement was maybe a little on the slow side for me, but that's a pretty minor complaint. Good work!
I'm not sure if it would improve anything, but it would be cool if you could open the mini-map bigger on the screen, just like a real map, giving more focus on solving the puzzle and your next move. That way you wouldn't have to squint over the mini-map constantly.
One thing I wished for at times was the ability to rotate a gear in the opposite direction with the Q key, as that would save me some time, which I desperately needed in order to solve that third puzzle!
One suggestion on the camera stuff that has not been suggested yet, would be to try point and click navigation.
I really enjoy the complexity that comes out of two mechanics really - gear sliding and gear turning. I wonder how many levels can be made on just those two concepts alone...
I'm very impressed with what you were able to put together here, especially that you were even able to add character animation and music&sound when you spent what I assume has to be lots of time on the mechanic and the puzzle content.
As already mentioned by others: the minimap was super helpful when solving the puzzles!
A really stunning entry, great work!