A Halting Problem by Honey Pony
In A Halting Problem, you are tasked with programming a robot to navigate some simple mazes. The only catch: every single program has a fixed set of instructions, including a "stop" instruction.
Can you master the art of programming these machines?
| Link | https://github.com/HoneyPony/a-halting-problem |
| itch.io | https://honey-pony.itch.io/a-halting-problem |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/a-halting-problem |
Ratings
| Overall | 71th | 3.926⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 40th | 4.037⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 226th | 3.5⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 555th | 2.885⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 189th | 3.759⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 134th | 3.635⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 291th | 2.792⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 168th | 3.538⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 25🗳️ | 34🗨️ |
I've seen a lot of games like this last LD so there's not much innovation wise, and I don't really get the theme connection.
Got pretty far, but I don't like to think so didn't finish this one.
Well done :thumbsup:
If I'm gonna be honest the main things I ended up liking about my game are the main menu and the music :sweat_smile:
If you want to know the theme connection, it is intended to be this: each program is inevitably going to halt, so your goal is to "delay" the halting until after the task is done.
In practice... you just move the "stop" command to the end of the program each time. So, the thematic connection ended up being extremely weak. At least for me--I definitely don't feel like I'm delaying anything when playing through each level.
I think the 'medkits' (to give you my internal name for them) gave me the strongest feeling of delaying the inevitable, they even let you change what the inevitable thing was.
(Note: I didn't think of this until I read the comments here)
One thing I'd suggest is saving the command tree across executions, so you don't have to rebuild it every time you fail. I was using Flameshot's Pin feature in some of the harder puzzles.
Nice work though! I had an enjoyable ~~14 minutes

The drag&drop system was intuitive and worked well, for the most part. I think its drop zones could use a bit of adjusting. I had some troubles with moving an instruction to the very end or with placing an instruction in a proper place in a repeat block. I think it didn't detect the drop area properly and just left the instruction where I picked it up from.
I haven't finished it yet (I've gone through something like 10 puzzles), but I will definitely return to it later. ;)
I have played these so many times with different themes (minecraft etc) so I'm used to this kind of games. I wish there had been a twist somewhere in addition to collecting additional orders but after ~10 puzzles there's not much new on the table. Maybe I'll finish later. Music is ok but had to turn it off after a while as it became jarring.
I had high hopes for mood from your earlier games. This game didn't have any of that, but it's a complete solid game and I couldn't find any bugs. I couldn't also tell how the game fit the theme, but maybe I didn't read the notes well enough or maybe there was more plot at a later point.
Oh and for the sounds, I liked the detail that there was different click sounds when you hovered the button :smile:
EDIT: I actually solved the rest of the puzzles and graduated. Good workout for the brain.
Loved the twist with the toolboxes, and how it actually did add one layer of strategy on top of the program execution game. On another note, I really appreciate the visual representation of levels in your UIs, with multiple related levels being connected. It just feels very structured and helps remembering the 'lessons' that came before! Great job :D
The difficulty curve is not perfect, but for a jam I'd say it's good.
I would have really liked to have the ability to zoom out for levels where you couldn't see the whole layout at once. Also, when you make an attempt that doesn't succeed, your code gets reset, and that's pretty frustrating.
Really fun otherwise, and the UI was very good, well done!

Overall, this felt like a more polished, albeit watered-down, version of your previous entry. Still, it's a very good entry!
The game is well polished and fun. sure, the theme connection is a bit weak, but who really cares. The only "bug" I ran into was visual - sometimes the "preview" of the commands you'd get from the parts boxes would go off screen so I couldn't fully see what I would get from them:

Anyway, great work, I had fun!
Do note it is possible to pan with the mouse in order to bring those popups into view. (This is only mentioned once IIRC so it may be easy to miss).
Either way thanks for playing!
The lesson is probably that nested loops add a strong layer of difficulty.
https://www.mymilestonecard.top/