Pixel Piles by LDJam user 259831
" I don't know how I got here! I used to be in a platforming game but a glitch happened and I seemed to have lost my way. Help me dodge the blocks falling down!! There's not a lot of space in here D: "
How to play:
- Forget everything you know about that other block game...
- Dodge the blocks to survive for as long as you can, but of course you could clear some lines to get more space and earn huge bonuses!
- Use WASD or Arrow keys to move Pixie around these blocks. You can also use space key to jump.
- You can hold or swap a temporary block by pressing S or Down key.
- Run into the walls on the two sides to rotate the next block.
You can turn off the credits and tutorial info by hitting the button on the top right. There is also a grid assistance you can turn on to help you line up those blocks. You can restart the game by hitting the restart button.




The team:
Programming @iiandii
Programming @gabriel-chan
Audio & Music @cat-lab
Art & Design @okshirl
It definitely takes a while to get good at this game, but see if you can unlock some hidden achievements
What is your high score? Make sure to comment below with a screenshot! Thanks for playing :D
| Link | https://zihang.itch.io/pixel-piles |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/pixel-piles |
Ratings
| Given | 83🗳️ | 152🗨️ |
I never imagined that it could be
innovate the classic game of Tetris in this way.
Also, I loved the design and the soundtrack.
Anyway that's a good game with good feeling =)
Jumping felt good and the animations were cute.
Awesome game!
Thank you so much for the comment! Thanks for playing :D
@mushboom it's definitely a harder game that takes a while to get good at, even some of our devs are struggling. thanks for trying it!
Cool concept indeed. Couldn't get any higher than 366 score. But really enjoyed this neat take on the classic Tetris. And yes I accidentally trapped myself a couple of times by placing blocks right on top while trying to beat my high score =D
A very nice and polished game with interesting mechanics. Good stuff. Very nice work!
Very good job on creating this one, very minimalistic and cute. Love that you need to use walls to rotate pieces, so that making sure to be able to reach both sides fast is important. Inclusion of swap mechanic is very welcomed too.
On the presentation side - outstanding job!! From the small animations and dialogues to the audio, very enjoyable.

The graphics, the sound and the way it is played just feel really polished. When I think about the other versions of *the other block game*, that exist today, this one is definitely a different kind of beast!
I will definitely come back to this one trying to find out what the best course of action is to not get stuck and still rank up points (the thing I love-hate the most is that getting *The Big One* is like a skill-check because you can't jump 4 high - really good design) :smile:

- I think walking into the walls to rotate the incoming shape is very difficult to utilize. Maybe it would have been better to use a keyboard button instead.
- I would have like some sort of indicator that the next block will spawn in x amount of beats
Otherwise a solid entry. Well done.
This was a lot of fun to figure out! As someone who has played a *lot* of NES Tetris (Recently, even) I really enjoyed figuring out the best ways to line up for a tetris, even if it usually resulted in my falling down the well and dooming myself.
Wonderful work, and I recorded myself to provide more feedback:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_YPTkJnAfU

Got very very close so many times but got screwed by misrotated held long piece or failing to drop it on the correct column (as it was so damn tight to do without falling to the pit).
Here is just a few of those barely missed attempts...



That has got to be one of the steepest learning curves on a game I've ever encountered. It's not just one level up from normal tetris as there are multiple new things you need to manage. And I'm even from an old-school tetris players where there was no hold. So even figuring out which of the two next pieces the held one was going to replace and how it was going to drop (as you couldn't move it anymore) was quite much.
The block rotating really was the trickiest bit in my opinion. It took just so much time to triple rotate a block. And quite often one of the sides was kinda blocked so you needed to rush to the other side and more often than not it wasn't enough time to rush there, do at worst case scenario three spins and then rush back to the correct spot.
I think allowing 4 height jumps would have alleviated quite a bit of frustrations that the game caused for me. Falling to a pit while trying to slot in a long piece for tetris or just slipping and falling there while trying to do spins just felt so damn bad. And on top of that, most single errors cause a huge chain reaction and are pretty much as good as a reset. One time I did manage to get off there with some janky jump right at the falling block on top of me but don't think there was an intended way. Even if it wasn't just a higher jump, there could perhaps be some trickier corner boost jump or something you could do so you just wouldn't be shit outta luck if slipped in.
And slipping is bound to happen. Those block corners were a bit too slippery to my liking. Having to do precise block at the same time didn't give you the luxury of keeping that close attention to the character either.
Not having access underneath slides and t-spins really hurts. Sometimes you can even get kinda screwed right at the start when you get two pieces with holes in the bottom row. As good as a restart again.
The game looked great. Cute looking character that kinda reminded me of slugcat. And that line break effect was spicy! 🌶️🔥🔥
Good job, very well made game! 👍 I hated playing it so much but that doesn't mean that it was bad at all. I guess gaming doesn't always have to be fun. 😅
Maybe I'm just bad at tetris...
**edit:** Oh yeah and the "next block" thing was just not right. You could already see that same block and were moving it so it should really have been the one after that.
@nyxkn As someone who struggled to pass the 400 mark I totally agree! It's definitely a challenging game, and I've put down "adjustable difficulties - hard/normal/easy" as a possible feature to consider in the future! Maybe we will be presenting the rotation in a different format. Thanks for playing!!
@100th-coin I'm impressed! you may be one of a few that actually achieved that and I'm jealous. the video feedback is great, it's always helpful to watch someone playtest in real time. I'd also like to thank you for writing the vet advice on discord back in January. That, and your innovation in the past entries inspired me a lot!
@antti-haavikko WOWWW thank you so much for such a detailed comment!! you may be the only one in this comment section so far who has gotten **the mystery achievement and the big one!congrats!** :D
As for the hold block, it's definitely a last-minute feature we decided to add just because why not, but it comes with many design flaws. We do have plans to address that later on!
Rotating the blocks being tricky is a common feedback we've been getting so we're trying to figure out a better solution to encourage the players to move and platform while balancing the trickiness of fitting in a block. So far we are trying to emphasize the importance of prioritizing survival over high score.
Our team also had a debate over 3-block jump or 4-block jump, while 3-block jump gives the player decision a bit more depth, it definitely steepened the learning curve. For the slipping it was a conflict between having forgiving hitbox while also maintaining accuracy for position in a terrain with constant high/low. We will continue to adjust that.
And yes, I 1000% agree with you on the next block not actually being the next block, I will report to the devs about that!
It's definitely not the game I'm best at haha but I'm getting lots of joy watching everyone else struggle at it :smirk: But thank you so much! I've been a huge fan of your past entries, so it was really exciting to see your feedback.
Overall I really liked it, good job
**Type 1:** Improving user experience (regardless of player level). I think these would be good to add, not necessarily in the formats I suggest but any improvements that address the mentioned issues.
- Make the side control buttons push the player off after the block is rotated once. So you can tap *Left* 3 times to hit the wall and rotate the block 3 times, without needing to tap *Right*. You may even make it so you can just hold *Left* and it will keep rotating on a short cooldown. This is the biggest frustration I had, having to retreat and push multiple times and having the (usually great) walking controller work against me while I fight against time.
- Being clear about where the anchor point of each block is. Blocks are anywhere between 1 and 4 tiles wide, depending on rotation. When it's 2 or 4 I usually don't know where exactly to stand to get the block where I need without trying it out and seeing it first. I guess players can learn and internalise it after a while, but still... I think either you should make it directly in the middle (I'm not sure if this will work), or you should highlight the anchor column so I know where to stand. It will help with playing flow without segmenting your brain for this "aiming" task.
**Type 2:** Making it *easier* (which may be relegated to an Easy Mode).
- Double / maybe even triple jumping: This removes cases where you're stuck in a deep hole. I guess this depends on whether you find the losing condition of getting blocked in is a fair punishment for a misstep. Getting out of a hole right before the next block closes like a lid could potentially be fun? But that brings me to the next point.
- The game as it is right now, is already extremely punishing against any and all kinds of mistakes. If I am off by a tile or get stuck in a hole (even if I manage to get out), the block that's dropping down is just a giant reminder that I am doomed as I'm scrambling to deal with the next one. Maybe you can give players limited powers to recuperate after their mistakes. An awful example I can think of: 3 bombs that you can use to explode a 3x3 area of blocks around you.
There, I hope this is constructive and again congrats on a great game!
Edit: Oh and I love the cute main character, iconic.
Making the side control buttons push the player a little bit is a fantastic idea!
We originally wanted the blocks to be anchored around the center like you mentioned, however most of the blocks are an even number so we quickly found it wouldn't work. I do like the idea of highlighting the anchor column, that's something we could definitely explore.
Again, thank you so much for the suggestions, we will definitely take them into account and we hope you enjoyed playing our game!
Sorry for the messiness on the drawing I was afraid doing lineart would ruin it:

Very good polish ! An very good concept,
The music is cool
i suck in this game. but I have a score again which I think is a "nice" excellent idea
poor kitty, but she's playing great music there again
Well done! Take a candy! :candy:
1. The rotation for some blocks required too many steps (4 types of shape in total), I was so slow to complete the rotations
2. Again, it's the rotation, I have to hit the wall to rotate, which constrained my movement a lot
3. It's hard for me to take care of both preparing to escape the incoming block and arranging a good position for it. It's so easy for me to get distracted by one of them😂
But this is very innovative and original game. I definitely love this game! I really love the concept. Art is cute and soothing. Music sounds cozy but it also provides some feeling of challenging. Well done on this entry!
Brilliant creativity, and the animation is top-notch. I love the cat. Well done!
The graphics are very nicely polished, the character and it's animations are super cute. Nice sounds and music; basically the entire game is cohesive and well executed.
I really like score attack games that are very challenging, because then you can start going for your record quite fast, instead of playing through 90% of super easy to get to the challanging part :smile:

Maybe not the best score, but I am pleased I managed to get above 500! Great entry :trophy:
Nice entry!!!
Some random thoughts (maybe I'm repeating someone above):
* I didn't immediately guess why this game feels so pressing in comparison to basic tetris. Not to mention the obvious (the indirect control), imho, the difference comes from the case that falling block gets totally out of players control after starts falling. In basic tetris the block is controllable till reaches the endpoint. This distinction not only takes things out of player's control but also narrowes timing room to think.
* As said above wall-rotating mechanic is a bit frustrating when you have to go out of the wall to hit it again. I guess just rotating the block on each user button press after the wall is in contact should be enough to make the controlls more handy (for ex. `touch the right wall to first rotate` -> `double press D to rotate block 2 more times`).
But overall that's already a great experience!
The game idea is very unique and engaging. The only thing issue I had was I felt that the current piece being locked after it starts to drop felt rather restrictive. It may just be a skill issue lol, not a game issue.
(if you want to continue with this game, it's definitely worth checking what exactly they consider infringing on their tetris IP and avoiding those bits)
Also the art is outstanding! It feels so polished for a jam game, nice work!
SFX are great, music feels a bit more like Mario music than Tetris music, but it's not breaking anything so no harm done.
Had some issues with timing, turning, and aiming just because of the core premise. It should probably be easier to turn. Maybe rotate on any wall?
Anyway, nice work!
The only thing I still don't like, and I kept making mistakes because of it, is that the "next piece" shows the same piece that's already visible above - at first sight it seems to imply that would be the next piece *after* that one.

The concept is nice, but it's too hard to consistently clear lines with these mechanics. You can't rotate swapped pieces, and jump height is too low which leads to character being stuck in a hole (though I guess it is limited space) - only managed to get a score of 600.
I think this game has a lot of potential, well done!