Link not working for me

Thank you @rhoff95, I didn't realize I hadn't set the itch.io page to public!

Link is working, but would like to see w web build!

I can't really figure out what to do ... :(

Interesting concept. I need a strategy guide tho!

Interesting game! I couldn't really figure out what to do though I got a bit far to the ladder but wasn't really sure what to do, maybe a tutorial would help guide the controls and rules? Still a unique idea good job!

Nice try to teach me Morse code! I want submit.. or maybe I will, damn)

Yep, I need a tutorial. I think the concept is nice but hard to get to know

I like the concept but I have no idea what to do. Fellow pygamer.

As a note for people who are confused (which looks like everyone): I don't want to provide hints/clues because I think the game's general ruleset is learnable through trial and error, but I would encourage people to treat the first playthrough primarily as a way to test things out and play the game a second or third time to try for a good score.

I understand the mechanics up to a point but still seems that I'm missing something. Anyway, great game idea!

I found out I could place things and "mine"them. After a few playthroughs, I haven't completed the game but managed to fill half the screen. I am still confused to what the logic of the game is. Plus, things "mined" don't always give the same thing.
Basically, it is really confusing and I don;t know what the logic is. Could be a cool game if it were less confusing but again I don't know what the puzzle is. (kind of like CmdrApollo)

I got to the eyes and my record is 5

I got to the eyes (bats?) and got a score of 7. Definitely not a game for everyone, but I certainly enjoyed it. I'm not sure if I would add a tutorial, because that was part of the fun for me, but it may be nice to indicate the score as the player is playing. That way, they can at least know whether they are on the right track. Nonetheless, very creative and seems to fit the theme :)

Honestly I was originally pretty annoyed that there was no tutorial but after like five losses I finally figured out what to do (SORT OF) and I started feeling pretty damn cool for figuring it out. I still feel like I'm missing something just because loss is inevitable? But very creative game idea, I like this a lot!

Seriously though either I'm missing something or there's no way to extend your "health" and I really wish there was!!

You're probably not going to agree with me and thats fine but I think having zero tutorial is a mistake. I tried several attempts at this and the best score I ever got was 9 and that was after randomly making a bunch of moves, after several attempts of blind floundering I figured out I could put things down and then collect everything on a row, but I had absolutely no idea what anything meant so I had no way of making informed decisions, the cards I could place and the resources I accumulated had no meaning to me and despite several attempts I couldn't find any connections between one another. Even once I figured out the controls I just couldn't make heads or tails of what I was supposed to be doing or why. Even a very small amount of information at the start about "hey your first card does this, it generates these resources, other cards do other things, etc" would've helped immensely, because as it stands even after spending quite a while with the game it just felt impenetrable. The concept itself seems interesting and I'm sure if I was actually able to parse the outcomes of my actions and make informed decisions then I would enjoy it more, because it definitely seems like you've got something here, but its unfortunately lost on me because the game has zero desire to provide me with meaningful information. On a much smaller note I found the morse code detector a little hard to get used to, the threshold of what was a dot and what was a dash seemed to be right on the line of how long i'd tap for a dot, so i'd often get my inputs wrong. In a perfect world where we had infinite time to work on our games it might've been nice to have the game ask me to do a few dots and a few dashes so it knew what my rhythm was, but its a minor complaint otherwise and I managed to play around it. All in all I think you really do probably have something really interesting here, its just a bit too intentionally obscure for me to figure out what it wants.

Okay back one more time to say I SAW A DOOR RIGHT BEFORE I LOST and I desperately want to see if that does anything. High score is 14, my final opinion is that this is probably my most played game this jam so far and I just wish there was more of a tangible different to the tiles that were explained. I still don't really know what's going on :o)

@audrey Having a way to extend your health would have been a really nice plus up! If I revisit this I would definitely try to have tiles that helped in that regard.

The door doesn't "do" anything because I didn't implement an ending, but it's meant to be the last tile and it's worth 10 points. If I had more time I would have had that result in a "You win!" type message.

@lsk...

As soon as possible I will put my analysis here too.
I hope you enjoy the video.

https://youtu.be/7dy-tdwK9eQ

Trying more...


I've been trying to understand how the game works. As I understand it there are three features "light", "cave" and "triangle" (I did not fully recognize). And by putting a line to "produce" I get some resources and that frees me to build other things in other places.

I noticed that there is a door, a chest, a lever and a red pair of eyes as the most difficult items to find. I don't know if I need to focus on them, or if I'm still a long way from finishing the game.

Is the log part of the gameplay or does it come by default in the tool you used to build your game?

[I will still do my analysis.]




Analysis...

1 - Mechanics, Learning and Flow:
By choice in the creator, the game does not have much indication of how to play. There is only an indication of which commands can be used (input button and button to reset the game).
The mechanics consists (to what I was able to understand) of establishing "constructions" in one of the sixteen spaces of the grid, once the "construction" is established, it is possible to make it produce something (being able to trigger the production of the entire line at any moment).
All this interaction is based on Morse Code, with possible inputs with dots and dashes in specific quantities (I thought it was interesting to be done this way, I just thought the window for the code was very small, maybe in real life with the right machine it will be easier keep this time window, but using controller or keyboard things get a little bit complicated, so I would suggest two separate buttons and have a time window just to differentiate the sequences that have one, two or three inputs).

2 - Graphics, Audio and Narrative:
The interface is simple and, with some persistence, the player who accepts the challenge will end up understanding how the game works at a basic level. One thing that gets in the way of gameplay is the iconography, which does not always seem to fully deliver the functionality of each building or "item that can be produced" (most are clear, but not all).
There is no audio, which could make it easier to learn to play (in terms of short signal, long signal, functional processed chain, useless chain, etc.). It would have to be done properly to please, teach and, at the same time, maintain the current feeling (which seems to me to be of concentration).
I didn't see a projected narrative, but I was imagining that some "constructions" seemed to reveal some kind of narrative construction possibility that would depend on how it is played (I was curious to know if the game would be something with only one solution, or if there would be several paths to victory (which I was unable to achieve, unfortunately)).

3 - Culture:
Because it is a very experimental game (as I see it), in addition to reminding me of spy movies and leaving me thinking about several puzzles for RPGs, I was only able to connect to the Morse Code technology itself. Which can be a good sign, if the game can be expanded.

4 - Monetization:
I thought of a version that grows in size for the grid, with narrative between stages, which could be sold at low cost for smartphones or even for Steam (or similar).

I managed to fill in some squares but wasn't really sure what I was doing. Needed to be in the mood for a deep dive into the game to get the most out of it. I liked the morse code commands but sometimes I was unsure if I was entering the code I wanted. I think making the morse entry easier/smoother and what i entered more obvious would have made focusing on exploring the mechanics of the game easier.

I bit hard of a nut to crack for a jam game