Unstable pathing by arachnid56
My solo entry for LD49.
Unreliable pathing is a a turn based puzzle game inspired by Euler pathing and graph traversal.
| Link | https://arachnid56.itch.io/unreliable-pathing |
| Link | https://github.com/scartwright91/unreliable-pathing |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/unstable-pathing |
Ratings
| Overall | 498th | 2.896⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 349th | 3.167⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 464th | 2.792⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 278th | 3.563⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 512th | 2.396⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 487th | 2.152⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 18🗳️ | 22🗨️ |
Quite a simple puzzle game. However I do find the mechanic not fully explored and there are a lot more potentials.
Thanks for the game.
I see that you used Heaps - yes, that's a pretty tough library to use especially for 48h :rofl:
The possibility to zoom into the scene and rotate the whole room using the mouse was unexpected :D
Nice and simple puzzle game! It would be nice the character has animation, but level design is good! I like it.

After I got into it, it was pretty fun! I would recommend using "keydown" events to move the character. When you use "keyup" then the game feels unresponsive, like there's some kind of lag. To prevent unintended double-pressing, you can have a boolean like "hasPressed" which becomes `true` on the first `keydown` and is set to `false` on every `keyup`.
Still was nice to figure out the pathing for each level, a fun challenge. Thank you for the game.

Overall I enjoyed it still, thanks for sharing!
I would like more levels, the current levels are passed quickly :)
With more animations, sound and FX the game will be very funny. The gameplay fit perfectly the theme.
Good job, keep coding :muscle:
On the last level, my character was falling even if I did nothing (had to move quickly to not lose immediately). Not sure if this was intentional, but I preferred the more relaxed experience of the previous levels, in which I could think a bit before moving.
Two notes on controls:
- it feels like there is a short lag between when you start a move and when the move completes, during which pressing a key again doesn't trigger another move. This can feel like the game "eating" inputs and is especially annoying in a situation where I'm focused on entering a string of keypresses quickly.
- in discrete-steps puzzle games, I prefer "Increpare Standard" controls (have both "undo" and "reset" and undo can undo resets). There's a debate to be had about whether having "undo" stands counter to the performance aspect of this puzzle (needing to make a choice within a few seconds of stepping on a red block); on the other hand, I found the performance aspect of the puzzles to perhaps be the most frustrating.
(Also, much like a poster above, I definitely got tripped up by the "Play" non-button on the start screen.)
Overall, fun enough that I did complete it, so that's saying something.