Detachment Undone by Gossian

[raw]
made by Gossian for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

Capture2.PNG
https://youtu.be/j5XZQ7NVAyM

A simple game with hand-painted art and a haunting soundtrack.

Gossian: Art, design, code
Francesco: Music & audio

The mechanics are a little bit basic for now, but hoping to upload a post-jam version soon!

Drag and drop opposing circles together to create larger spiral circles. Continue combining all circles until only one spiral-circle remains. See video for demonstration.

The game is also a riddle - Can you work out what these are the 10 stages of? The clues are in the titles.


UPDATE - Improved responsiveness of the drag-and-drop - Opted back into graphics rating category - Please rate!


Ratings

Overall 1534th 2.804⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1635th 2.196⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1379th 2.739⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1528th 2.652⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Audio 171th 3.938⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Mood 254th 3.917⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 35🗳️ 21🗨️

Feedback

Harrm
06. Oct 2020 · 19:32 UTC
Didn't understand the gameplay tbh, but music is very relaxing.
gamebuilder
06. Oct 2020 · 23:15 UTC
The background images are impressive — nice work with the graphics. The music is charming and meditative.

One way to improve this game is to add a bit of variety with the moving circles: different colors and designs for each level would go a long way, for example. All in all, an unusual game.
Recher
10. Oct 2020 · 20:55 UTC
I always have the feeling I click exactly on a spiral, but very often it is not catched.

Same thing when I catched one and I try to put it on another spiral. I always have the feeling I put it on the right place, and very often they do not merge.

Very frustrating.

Beautiful graphics, but that's the only interest of this game. Sorry.
Jakob Reborn
10. Oct 2020 · 20:56 UTC
Wow really a nice game. I guess because of the clunkiness I started to feel like I don't understand the game, like somehow some circles only fit with some and don't fit with others because of some weird mechanic that i don't know. I loved the soundtrack and the art. Also it was really hard to grab those circles. Definitely keep working on this 'cause I see that loads of players could easily waste a lot of time playing this kind of game. And man - rate other games - get noticed - polish yours and release 'cause it could be really fun and could possibly entertain a lot of people. Deffo a mobile players favourite!
dumplingsquid
10. Oct 2020 · 20:57 UTC
Really lovely art and music! It took me a while to figure out how to interact with this game, it could've done with a bit of a tutorial at the beginning. If you made the controls a bit easier and clearer though I think this could be a really wonderful meditative experience
Ree Rolph
10. Oct 2020 · 20:59 UTC
To be honest, it feels like this is far from a playable state. The aesthetic is nice, but the gameplay is both glitchy and not particularly engaging. I feel like this could be interesting given more work, but can't rate it highly as is.
Cargamoni
11. Oct 2020 · 00:07 UTC
Nice background, nice music ! Dont forget to rate our game too ^^
arzi
11. Oct 2020 · 00:26 UTC
Nice mood, but dragging the circles felt a bit clunky, maybe add more feedback to that?
jeroenpx
11. Oct 2020 · 08:28 UTC
I like the art and the music a lot. Nice mood!
The dragging didn't work so well though. Tweaking the dragging so it responds well and maybe some effects on hover, click and drop would make the game feel a lot more engaging.

Edit: also, just wondering, why did you opt out of the graphics category if the game description mentions "hand-painted art"?
🎤 Gossian
11. Oct 2020 · 10:51 UTC
@jeroenpx Omg that was unintentional!!! Didn't even realise!! D:

But yes, mechanics and gamefeel need work for sure!
acaral
11. Oct 2020 · 15:17 UTC
An experimental game between John McLaughlin and a Tetsuya Mizuguchi creation.
Beautiful backgrounds, contemplative music. Relaxing entry in sum
Inferture
13. Oct 2020 · 00:09 UTC
As others said, the graphics and the musics were on point, but the gameplay does not feel so good (imo). I don't know if the fact that you don't grab the object every time is voluntary or not, but it makes it feel frustrating, while the music and the graphics have a relaxing effect and it seems a bit contradictory :/

That's too bad that you opted out of graphics because graphics and audios are definitely the strong points of the game ! Keep it up :)
danielblanco3d
13. Oct 2020 · 07:22 UTC
Sometimes objects are hard to pick up and move. Backgroung fluids images are impressive. i believe that you don´t know how to play unless you see the explainer video...maybe there is something here that i am not get it...nice visual style!

![1.png](///raw/ce9/81/z/3a16d.png)
peterfonts
16. Oct 2020 · 12:32 UTC
Strange and unusual game! The music is amazing and the graphics too (perhaps adding a parallax movement will be more dynamic the game). Also improve the gamefeel dragging and when the dots are combined will be nice. Reminds me Junji Ito's Uzumaki... Keep it doing games team! Nice game!
🎤 Gossian
24. Oct 2020 · 15:47 UTC
@arzi @harrm @acaral @recher @jeroenpx @inferture @cargamoni @gamebuilder @jakob-reborn @dumplingsquid @ree-rolph @jeroenpx @peterfonts

Thanks for all your comments! Some really useful insights there and also some interesting references!

I've improved the responsiveness of the click and drag functionality and now I'm getting around to refining the rest.

Also managed to opt back into graphics, so it's finally possible to vote on the graphics!

Thanks again!
testuser
27. Oct 2020 · 16:32 UTC
Nice hand-painted background, and interesting music. The biggest challenge of the gameplay was actually just trying to click and drag the objects themselves. It looks like the hit-box to click and drag might be a little down and to the right of the objects we see. After a few levels, I saw that I was doing the same thing with no sense of progression in mechanics, so I wasn't sure if I could struggle with the hit boxes for another 7 levels, but the experience of the art and music was nice while I played.