Hope Falters by Jeremy Ryan

made by Jeremy Ryan for Ludum Dare 54 (COMPO)

The game

Rush Hour meets crossword puzzle! It's a familiar sliding block puzzle, but blocks can be reshaped or combined as long as they spell valid words. Win by getting HOPE to the exit.

Note: performance is poor in web. For the best experience, download the Windows executable.

Credits

Everything was made by me in 48 hours for the Ludum Dare 54 Compo. The game was ported to web with PygBag after the jam period, with improvements to caching and performance to work in browser, but no gameplay changes.

Code: Python with PyGame (some base code for buttons and file management)

Art: Paint.NET

Sound: SFXR, Audacity, MuseScore, and an unjustifiable desire to write music in 7/4 time

Fonts: Brown Bag Lunch, Rudiment

Dictionary: I started with this list of English words to check word validity, but removed a number of profanity or uncommon words that were getting in the way of the puzzles.

Design your own level

All the levels in this game are text files, so you can make your own in Notepad if you're running from Windows! Simply open up levels/level_1.txt and make your changes, and it will replace the second level in the game.

If you end up trying this, please leave a comment with your level. I'm eager to play some that I didn't design!

Split the middle <-- Level name worth <-- Comma-separated list of hint words ............... ........W...... <-- Periods are empty tiles ........O...... ........R...... ........T...... HOPE....H.....* <-- Asterisk is the exit tile ........L...... ........E...... ........S...... ........S...... ............... Pipes | make immovable blocks

:joystick: Play the game (Web/Windows) :joystick:

Link	https://github.com/jeremycryan/LD54
Link	https://plasmastarfish.itch.io/hope-falters
Link	https://plasmastarfish.itch.io/hope-falters
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/hope-falters

Ratings

Overall	1^th	4.618⭐	36🧑‍⚖️
Fun	9^th	4.235⭐	36🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	3^th	4.706⭐	36🧑‍⚖️
Theme	76^th	4.103⭐	36🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	31^th	4.265⭐	36🧑‍⚖️
Audio	1^th	4.397⭐	36🧑‍⚖️
Mood	1^th	4.647⭐	36🧑‍⚖️
Given		11🗳️	19🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 373644

01. Oct 2023 · 22:26 UTC

Great pacing of the puzzles, and nice work with the audio!

TrebleColby

01. Oct 2023 · 23:38 UTC

Very neat concept and fitting art

blobo

02. Oct 2023 · 15:58 UTC

Absolutely fantastic. The puzzles were a lot of fun to solve! (And to make- but we'll get to that in a bit). This is a game that looks incredibly difficult to design a difficulty curve for. It's not easy to know specifically which levels players will get stuck on. Here's a recording of me playing, so you can see firsthand when I struggled:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ-M1dcl__g

And giving the players the ability to make their own levels- absolutely brilliant. So yeah- I had to do that. I tried to make all the words depressing, but it's pretty tough to do that while still making a tricky puzzle. Anyway, Here you go:

```
Break
None
...............
...W...........
...I.......YOU.
...T....S.A....
...H....I.I....
HOPE....N|ROPE*
APART..|G......
........LOST...
....O...E......
....N..........
....E..........
```
I honestly had a lot of fun making this level. And might I add- making levels for this is difficult! Not because the format is weird- no, placing everything is easy, but actually designing the puzzles for this was a lot of work!

And here's the solution to my custom level:
## Spoilers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0qDsRHvJ-I

🎤 Jeremy Ryan

02. Oct 2023 · 16:49 UTC

@100th-coin Thanks for playing and for the gameplay video!

One interesting design problem is that the problem space is so big --- it's like a game of chess, where you change one move and the game becomes totally different. I playtested with a couple friends during the jam and had to strategically change some words or add extra blocks to prevent particularly troublesome red herrings.

All that to say --- I managed to solve your puzzle in a *completely different* way with the word "hout".

# Spoilers for 100th_Coin's custom puzzle

![hope_break.gif](///raw/aba/3/z/5d593.gif)

There were a number of "cursed words" in the giant txt of English words I used that I had to individually remove because they broke puzzles or would confuse players - but clearly missed "hout", "ish", and likely many others.

Thanks for making a level! It's always really cool to see other game designers riff on a puzzle system. Maybe as a post-jam project will make a nicer method for making and viewing player-made levels.

Frogman

02. Oct 2023 · 19:04 UTC

Amazing game! I loved the twist on the classic traffic jam game - it made it significantly more interesting! The graphics and music were awesome too - I especially liked how the music changed depending on the state of the word Hope.

I ended up playing it for way more than I expected to create a custom level alongside a friend, which we promise is possible (we swear on everything that's important to us):
```
Test Area 112
PEAR,YEE,HEE,REP,PAV,DAN,HAND,DOPE
.........G.....
.........R.....
.......H.A.....
.....B.G.VHD...
....DAN..IEEA..
HOPE.N...TY...*
.....AE..Y...E.
.....N.......S.
.....A.....P...
...PE.R........
...........DO.E
```

Anyway, awesome entry!

JDeeDubs

02. Oct 2023 · 19:12 UTC

Absolutely beautiful game, once again. Genius really is found in simple elegance.

This game is like peering into a deep well of wisdom and beauty. It's hard enough to create a good game that fits well within the confines of the LD prompt, but it's more remarkable still to make something that *creates meaning* within those confines. Such a simple concept like "freeing hope from obstruction" is profoundly beautiful, and using other words to do so is a perfect match.

I'm very happy to be able to contribute to puzzle making. It really highlights what these Jams are about, so thank you. Here's my level:

```
Assembling Truths
Truth,Brash
.............B.
BELI.TLE.......
....T.IMAGE..L.
....E.E....M.I.
..L.A.A....O.E.
..I.R.N....T.F*
..F.SR.SH..I...
..E.B......VP|.
.F.AA.....R....
....R.|...U.T..
....E.....T.H..
```

P.s. I still play Holding Out sometimes.

🎤 Jeremy Ryan

02. Oct 2023 · 20:45 UTC

@frogman Thanks for playing! Not sure if this was the intended solution, but I managed to get past the banana, with the help of "cursed word" GRA:

# Spoilers for Frogman's custom puzzle

![hope_test_area.gif](///raw/aba/3/z/5dc24.gif)

@jdeedubs Thanks for the kind words; I went in a very different direction than most of my past Ludum Dare games, but I'm happy to see it resonated with people! I forgot exactly what steps I took to beat your puzzle, but this is where I ended up:

# Spoilers for JDeeDubs's custom puzzle

![hope_truths.gif](///raw/aba/3/z/5dc5a.gif)

This one was particularly interesting in that you don't even *start* with "hope." In hindsight, there's no reason why you need to, although I designed my twelve levels that way.

Frogman

02. Oct 2023 · 21:58 UTC

@jeremy-ryan - I, uh... We spent so much time making the solution as needlessly convoluted as possible that we completely forgot to check for obvious solutions. Accursed Gra, ruining all our plans! Here was our planned solution:
![ezgif-3-d99b477fdb.gif](///raw/5d0/72/z/5e2e8.gif)

Anyway, thanks for checking it out! Making this level was still a blast.

Mathstr0fficial

02. Oct 2023 · 22:25 UTC

This is a really beautiful game for a lot of reasons. It's fantastic aesthetically, with the music, (admittedly limited) visuals, and all the special effects and theming working in harmony with those. Unfortunately I think the difficulty curve might have gone against the general theme of the game. Now I'll be the first to admit that I am very... subpar in terms of puzzle-solving, but I got stuck pretty early and didn't really have the energy to push my way past it. I felt I got enough of the experience to give a fair grade, and judging from the rest of the comments here I trust that the rest of the level design holds up. It's a good concept very well executed, and you should be very proud of what you managed to get done!

Arnenia

03. Oct 2023 · 02:03 UTC

Fantastic idea and execution. The music and atmosphere are great, and the concept is both challenging and inspirational. Great work!

digital bacon

03. Oct 2023 · 05:41 UTC

This is such a beautiful and fun game! Fantastic work!

n.feofentov

03. Oct 2023 · 10:03 UTC

Supercool combination of narrative and mechanics! It is incredible how levels convey ideas and meanings simultaneously working as solid puzzles. Great entry!

P.S. In the end you are stuck with thank you from developer (which is nice) and your Hope which you cannot move further (which is sad :cry:)

P.P.S. Also huge Play the game link is misspelled and doesn't work.

🎤 Jeremy Ryan

03. Oct 2023 · 13:31 UTC

@mathstr0fficial @arnenia @digital-bacon Thanks for playing!

And @n-feofentov, I just fixed the link... good catch!

tanis

03. Oct 2023 · 15:54 UTC

Absolutely beautiful. Great puzzle game, cool level design (how long did it take to come up with those levels?), the music fits perfectly. Grats!

LDJam user 371030

03. Oct 2023 · 17:30 UTC

WOW! This is an amazing puzzle game! The vibe, the feeling, the graphics, the audio... so perfect! And this idea of words movement and splitting... wow! A **great** idea implemented in a fascinating way!

It is obvious you have been doing game dev for quite some time : )))))

Great job!! I have nothing to add...

PS: performance was perfect for me for the web version :)

Neeko69

04. Oct 2023 · 01:07 UTC

Very nice and challenging puzzle game. I kept getting confused on the words, one time I keep seeing the word "peed", and I kept thinking what the hell does this have to do with any of this? then I noticed that it was actually "deep ":P.

WiredOverload

04. Oct 2023 · 11:08 UTC

Great work as always! I really can't think of any similar word/letter puzzle game, especially not with dynamic word splitting, so full points for originality. It's hard to have the right balance of subtlety and obviousness with emotional theme in a jam game, so incorporating it all into your word blockers like "doubt" and your main character "hope" was a pretty neat and effective choice. The whole game was really cohesive, so the only feedback I can really give is about the level design itself; personally I found "open ended" way harder than the final "Theseus" level, but that might have just been me overthinking things or getting into the right headspace by the end. Great game!

🎤 Jeremy Ryan

04. Oct 2023 · 12:22 UTC

@wiredoverload Thanks for playing!

The comment about level design is interesting because most of the people I've seen play have struggled a lot more with "Nothing is impossible" and "Theseus" than "Open-ended."

Of course, everyone's brain works differently and that makes balancing puzzle games really hard (and playtesting is only useful if the person has never seen the level!). I did make some changes to Theseus and to Open-ended partway through the jam after preliminary playtesting, mostly by adding obstructions and changing out words to avoid red herrings.

Glad you still enjoyed it and made it through to the end!

Alchemic

04. Oct 2023 · 17:56 UTC

Amazing work as usual! I love the music and overall vibe, it's all very cohesive and I found myself very immersed.

I really like the difficulty progression. Theseus was a great finale! I didn't get stuck on it was much as some of the other levels, but being able to exercise my mastery over the mechanics felt great.

I made a strange level that breaks certain assumptions, but it seems to work okay:

```
Tea and Pie
Stew,Fae
.MANLY...CAFE.|
...TEA..AND...|
.SHOW....PIE..|
..............*
```

Really enjoyed playing everyone else's custom levels! I'll have to come back in a while to see if any more get made.

Pious

05. Oct 2023 · 01:54 UTC

WOW this is a real winner! What a fantastic entry. Extremely well designed and the progression of the levels teaching the player how to play and the concepts to really make a challenge at the end. Absolutely wonderful. I'll see if I can make a level sometime after rating some more games but I'm so glad I followed you on LD. This entry blew my mind.

Daxtear

05. Oct 2023 · 16:49 UTC

brilliant

LDJam user 178793

05. Oct 2023 · 17:01 UTC

I loved your LD53 entry and I think this one is amazing too! Really awesome puzzle game. Nice job!

vidarn

07. Oct 2023 · 20:01 UTC

Wow, absolutely fantastic! That last level ("Theseus") was so satisfying to solve! :grin: The idea behind the game is so novel and works so well. I'm impressed with how easy it was to understand what to do, even though I've never played a game like it. I'm sure it's down to how well implemented everything was. For instance, the fade to a muted version of the music when the word "hope" breaks was great, both for mood and as a signal to the player.

The music and art was beautiful and really elevated what was already a great game.

Alexascher

07. Oct 2023 · 21:50 UTC

Just WOW! Genius level design. 5/5

jordantanner

08. Oct 2023 · 14:00 UTC

@jeremy-ryan As usual, great entry. Always impressive work. I can tell you devoted more time to the game design/puzzle design this time around, but the graphics definitely still hold up and are appropriate for the vibe. Very thoughtfully designed word puzzles and the design of the game is very innovative which is always cool too see. The music was also lovely and matched the uplifting spirit of the game, so was a perfect fit. Excellent work sir!

Honest Dan

08. Oct 2023 · 15:13 UTC

Really wonderful entry! A nice change up from the usual style, yet shows a clever design as always. I think the tutorialisation was great, wonderful choice of words and the breaking up / combination of them adds extra depth.

I found it got tough maybe a bit too sudden, noticed when I played I got stuck on Nothing Is Impossible. The use of a hint button was great too. Think I just needed more time and is a game that keep your noggin ticking for plenty of time.

Had you come across a word puzzle like this before> or you make it up? it was pretty sweet. Nice aesthetic too.

ditam

08. Oct 2023 · 19:39 UTC

A wonderful game all around. The super-minimal graphics are a reminder of how hard it is to create a well crafted puzzle game in a jam setting. I think you managed to walk a fine line here, creating levels where the words tell a story, yet the solutions are not entirely trivial. I particularly liked the simplicity and symbolism of the "deep breath" level, very tasteful. The dynamic music wasn't lost on me either.

All in all quite impressive - as usual -, for a compo submission, and support for custom levels is a cherry on top. I also enjoyed reading the comments here with the additional levels.

In the arc of your LD submissions, this one seems to circle back all the way to Fade, which was the entry that made me start following you. You're an inspiration, keep up the great work!

🎤 Jeremy Ryan

09. Oct 2023 · 00:28 UTC

@alchemic Dang, that was tough! Although I still don't think I ended up solving it the intended way since I didn't use "FAE" and used a couple cursed words like "NTH"... got the last two letters via "YAP" and "ADE". Thanks for taking the time to make a level!

![Screenshot 2023-10-08 191359.png](///raw/aba/3/z/600d6.png)

@pious @nick-baggett @daxtear @alexascher @vidarn @jordantanner Thanks everyone for playing and for the feedback!

@ditam Glad you liked the "deep breath" level --- I decided to throw it in at the last second and wasn't sure it would translate well. I don't think the graphics were inherently a scope reduction to fit everything into 48 hours - I mostly had a hard time picturing "looks" that would fit well with a board full of letters.

@honest-dan Thanks for playing and for the feedback! Of the twelve levels, there are really only three "hard" ones --- "Nothing is Impossible" being the first. Puzzle games are obviously very tricky to balance on jam timelines, and the difficulty curve seems to be hit-or-miss from other feedback. I haven't made a true puzzle game since LD43 so all the feedback is very helpful for next time!

> Had you come across a word puzzle like this before> or you make it up?

As far as I'm aware, it's original --- I haven't specifically played any word games like this. But I don't play a ton of word games, and this is a pretty straightforward concept, so I also wouldn't be surprised if somebody has done it before!

Martin183

09. Oct 2023 · 20:14 UTC

Really cool game! Reminds me of Baba is You also!
Smooth gameplay and good level design and game design!

cassowary

14. Oct 2023 · 15:39 UTC

This is really cool! What a unique idea. I really liked "Theseus" especially. And the custom level idea is fantastic!

Wendel Scardua

15. Oct 2023 · 14:35 UTC

The game was so perfect, even though it was short. For me the best part was when the name of the levels clicked on my head and gave me hints about what to do (I bet I would've taken way longer to figure out the Theseus one if it wasn't named Theseus 😅)

LDJam user 374472

15. Oct 2023 · 17:44 UTC

Wow! Masterful level design. And very good execution on all sides. 5/5

Paul Nadan

16. Oct 2023 · 01:10 UTC

This was super creative and a lot of fun! I really appreciated how you used words with thematic significance; combined with the hopeful music it really made the game feel immersive and uplifting, like each level was its own little story. The artwork was simple but fit the vibe well, and the particle/glow effects and screen-shake were nice touches. The puzzles were fun and a good difficulty level - not too obvious (unless meant as a tutorial) but still solvable in a few attempts. The one improvement I could think of is having more of an overarching storyline as you progress through the puzzles, rather than just a constant theme throughout, but that would be pretty difficult on a 48-hour timeline. Overall this was excellent and I really enjoyed playing. Amazing work!

ThaProfesional

18. Oct 2023 · 10:27 UTC

So polished and everything fits together do well. Great game - great graphics, incredibly polished music (I loved how it changed when hope was broken). Really cool levels that ramped up in difficulty perfectly. Real vibe even if it's way too.. mushy and optimistic for my tastes.

tempestCognitor

18. Oct 2023 · 10:30 UTC

This was amazing, really lovely music and a clever puzzle mechanic. Reminded me of the old Flash game, Today I Die.

Papaver

22. Oct 2023 · 00:30 UTC

Congrats with your great scores! It is a very innovative game, and it was fun to play! :clap:

LDJam user 206001

22. Oct 2023 · 02:49 UTC

The minimalist music is very pleasant, and the art is not that simple, we have the female character with her clothes blowing in the wind, this gave a touch of minimalist art, but well executed

chompdev

22. Oct 2023 · 21:28 UTC

Congratulations on 1st place! This is a beautiful game and a well-deserved win. The overall "hope will prevail" theme is a breath of fresh air and the level design and contrasting word choice is well thought out. Nicely done!