Circleline by caeonosphere

Your train is stuck in a maze of looping track — hit the right switches at just the right time to escape! A puzzle game that will exercise your reflexes and recall.

The game comprises a scant 11 puzzles, but I hope you'll be able to see where all the time went. I'm really proud of what I was able to do with the presentation. Oh, and that last level is a doozy. Leave a comment if you make it all the way through!
Shift+S skips the current level, for those interested.


Done in Unity/C#, with the help of Photoshop, Illustrator, FL Studio, and Audacity.
- Auber CF font by Chuck Mountain
- SFX from MeijstroAudio, debsound, Deathscyp, sjturia, and Jay_You
- Sand-as-wind texture from this Turbosquid tutorial
- Tilt-shift shader adapted from Ronja Böhringer's tutorial
- SpriteRenderer shadow shader adapted from anlev's example
- Everything I know about shaders, I learned from Martijn Steinrucken and Michael Ashworth
- Thanks to Jonny Leahey for vobf
Ratings
| Overall | 6th | 4.31⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 11th | 4.155⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 77th | 3.905⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 16th | 4.429⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 44th | 4.202⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 5th | 4.329⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 10th | 4.369⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 48🗳️ | 53🗨️ |
- esc should bring up a menu of some sort, not exit the game
- some way to track levels (which one you're on, how many left)
but understandable given the limited time. What is there is phenomenal, the polish and game feel are amazing
So
Good !
Really I'm extremely impressed, you designed a cool puzzle game that's fun but not too easy, made a lot of levels, and used a simple but efficient art style to create a full game that's beyond jam level. The sounds and music are on point too, really, it's perfect.
Congrats !
@tadeas-paule Both good ideas, I'll be adding them both in the inevitable v0.2.
@eriku Nice work — I honestly didn't expect anyone to beat it! It didn't occur to me to use stable states to solve the final level, since with the alternating switches I didn't realize it would be possible.
Very Polished and the piano sound fit perfectly!
✔️The mechanic is unique and clever - it can really lead to some interesting and challenging puzzles
✔️The low poly graphics look amazing for a game jam game.
✔️The overall atmosphere with the music and sound effects is overall very nice.
➖I would have liked to see a few more mechanics maybe, but really the game has enough as it is.

(I redid it right after)
It's phenomenal. I don't have much else to say. This compo is stacked.
Puzzles 8 and 11 are **awesome**. I always have extra respect for puzzlers because you have so little time to come up with great levels. Expand it with more levels/mechanics and send me a link to the steam store page. 265 clicks 30 crashes
Suggestion: consider adding some sort of crash/error sfx because it feels kinda weird without them. I understand this is a calm game which is why you chose to opt for the road signs instead. Maybe something like a piano note would've worked.
@rngames I agree: I had a whole list of mechanics that I ran out of time before I could implement! Hopefully next LD I can get started quicker and have more time to round out my game.
@shp My last few LD entries have been confusing and/or intentionally esoteric. My intent this time was to simplify, and I'm glad it seemed to work!
@alaah I have to admit: that's a bug! Ha! A friend of mine ran into it during testing, and when he didn't accuse me of creating a broken game, I decided to leave it in. I'm happy it didn't frustrate you enough to keep you from trying again. 265 clicks is the record, as far as I know? And yeah, a little more acknowledgement of crashes would be a good idea, even if it's not a massive explosion. I'll have to work on my sound design skills...
The athomesphere, the simplicity, the puzzles, just amazing to play.
Thank you for this submission.
Keep it up. I like your style
I am definitely going to look into your source code as there are things I could definitely learn from.
Great job.
:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:
Maybe I would've liked to see more puzzle-like levels in the rotation. In one level, a tree covered one of the switches, dunno whether this was intentional.
Thanks for making this!
It's not easy for me to keep an eye on multiple trains simultaneously to protect them from colliding (even though I don't seem to get to the last level yet!), but making such good puzzles is even more difficult!
Great job!
Looks and sounds absolutely gorgeous.
Great presentation too. The sound design and level switching effect were great.
There was one level where a tree was partially blocking a track junction which made things a bit unclear.

It'd love to play a versions with more levels one day, but for the limited time the amount of levels is impressive! :slight_smile:
@dans17 Thank you, and nicely done! That's the high (low?) score for sure.
@hybitous Slow motion would make a lot of sense, even the ability to control the speed with the mouse wheel or something. Probably with no limit, too: it's supposed to be peaceful!
else to do. The chill background music really enhances the experience, as does the very clear style you went for. Thank you for this great zen-puzzle!
time pressure + the knowledge that you'll never have to look at it again = not great code