Decrypt by Gabriel Chan
Decrypt is a word game where you play as a cybersecurity program to defend against hacks (scrambled words sent to mess up your system D:). The main goal is to unscramble as many words as possible, before the word drops overflow. The word drops will be sent every 10 seconds, so be ready to decrypt them as soon as they appear!
When you reach a certain score, 2 hacks will be presented for you to choose. These are abilities that will help you defend against the attacks. But be careful, each ability also comes with a disadvantage, consider the consequences before you pick. Good luck 🙂
Controls: Use left clicks to drag letters around. Use right clicks to use ability.
Comment with a screenshot of your highscore!
Software used: Unity/Procreate/Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop/Indesign/XD/Garageband/Audacity
Bug Fix: - Fixed a bug where the letter would be covered after being solved if you hovered over it with a certain hack - Fixed a bug where the letter in the correct position given by a hack would be covered if you hovered it with a certain hack - Fixed a bug where using right-click to solve, it would give you points but the word would be still scrambled and not show the solved word - Fixed a bug where the cover would incorrectly cover the wrong amount of words - Fixed a bug where the in game music would not play upon resetting the game - Fixed a bug where the base line would not be in its proper position - Fixed a bug where the tutorial button would not work - Removed an extra character in a hack's description - Fixed a bug where if you hold a letter while it is decrypted by a hack, it would be stuck to the cursor - Fixed a bug where certain combination of hacks would crash the game - Fixed a bug where words would end up stacking directly on top of each other making it difficult to keep playing - Fixed a bug where the letter you were holding would disappear with a certain hack, not being able to solve a word. - Fixed a bug where the cover would not be updated when taking a hack that would remove number of lines possible.
Note: - Tutorial is available through clicking on the question mark button on top left - Please play on full screen as the controls may not work correctly otherwise, click on the button on the bottom right of the window to enlarge to full screen
| Itch.Io | https://zihang.itch.io/decrypt |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/decrypt |
Ratings
| Overall | 278th | 3.819⭐ | 157🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 429th | 3.555⭐ | 157🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 439th | 3.487⭐ | 157🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 294th | 3.955⭐ | 157🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 323th | 3.987⭐ | 157🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 223th | 3.753⭐ | 152🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 289th | 3.753⭐ | 152🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 122🗳️ | 209🗨️ |
Dragging letters into any middle position was tricky for me, I think I had to drag a letter one spot past where I wanted it to go.
Thanks for the game, great work!
@ideaspersecond Yes! the game is a "twist" on tetris, thanks for playing! We have a tutorial panel that can be opened through the question mark button on the top left. We will consider adding that to the title screen as well.
@str0nkyk0ng Thanks for the comment! We are planning to fix the letter moving system post jam, stay tuned for a smoother animation :)
@nbumgardner Thank you for the comment, we will try to make the experience better in the post jam version. Thank you for the comment on the music as well, the audio person wasn't sure what vibe she was going for :')
@joey-van-lierop Thanks for playing! That's an excellent suggestion to reveal which words the player lost on, we'll add that to our update list.
@beetlebox thanks for the kind words!
Unfortunately I ran into a bug on Stage 3. I had selected the hack which hides everything except for the bottom row, but it decided to just hide everything lol
Somehow managed to find a bug:
Other than that, it is a very solid jam entry!
@jess-from-online Thank you so much for the kind comment! there's a tutorial panel if you click on the question mark on top left, we should make it more noticeable. Thanks for the feedback.
Having multiple words to solve stacked up together is a great mechanic. I think there's a ton of potential here for an addictive casual puzzler.
Very polished presentation! Love the whole vibe of the game.
The biggest problem for me is that moving the blocks around felt quite buggy. And while it's a good use of the theme, 10 seconds felt a little too slow, I think it would be improved by letting me cruise through words faster.
I really want to play the V2 version of this game!
@protowlf :OOOO you must be cracked at unscrambling! thank you so much for the feedback, we will keep working on it. It is a little hard to gauge whether 10 seconds is too long or too short for different players, we will try to balance it out more.
@paul-avallone Thank you! that's a great suggestion, we will add that to our list :D
I also like that words used are so simple that it does not become an issue for players whose main language is not English.
The only major feedback I have is that dragging and moving letters could use some polish. It is sometimes very hard to gauge where the letter will end up when you drag it. Some kind of indicator between the letter would probably solve this quickly.
But overall, great work!
@nash Thank you for the feedback! We are trying to figure out a way to make the dragging mechanic feel smoother and more intuitive, the indicator suggestion really helps!
@asue Thanks for the comment! That was a worry we had as well, but during playtesting some native english speakers were struggling as well haha (i won't say who :face_palm_tone1:) We will keep testing to see if there are certain words that are too hard in our word bank!
@excy I feel you, I'm losing my mind over these words.. thanks for playing!
@honest-dan Your feedback is really helpful!! thank you so much for the ideas. We will definitely keep working on it.
@steamdr4gon Oh no, sorry for that! that sounds frustrating, we will add that to our bug fixing list. Thanks for letting us know c:
@m11 thanks for playing!
Very good amount of polish! I know how hard these UI type games can be to make, and how easy it is for bugs to turn up all over!
check out my jam game!
I really like the theme, cyberspace hechyeah. The concept of a stacking word game is fun.
I wish that there would be a line indicator, where I'm about to drop the letter. I think that could make it a lot easier to move the letters around. But I understand.. we all made this in limited time :sweat_smile:
I think I'm not the first who reported that only in full screen mode works fine moving letters. Thanks for the gaming experience, I hope you will not abandon this prototype and after some time it will be possible to see it on mobile platforms.
p.s I think the difficulty curve should be made more casual, for example, in the first levels of 3-4 letters, so the player could get used to and get used to the mechanics
Good luck to you!
@nyxkn one of the hacks in the later stages gives out that ability, but it's random, maybe we should let players equip a skill they want to start out with? thanks for the feedback!
@jackofcups We just discovered that bug too! Thanks for reporting it to us c:
@john-llyod-apolo @pinnyo @asbjorn Thank you for the feedback :D The letter dragging system is top priority on our fix list! :wrench:
@motti We will consider adding word banks for different languages, I think that's a good addition!
@birdy-games @helzinko Thanks for playing!
@hellsquirrel Oh wow I didn't know that, that's pretty funny. The overlapping letters and dragging letter bugs are definitely some common ones amongst many others :((( who knew that UI dominant games could have more troubles than regular games. thank you for the feedback! We will keep working on it for sure c:
Overall the graphics are simple, minimalistic, and beautiful. Good job!
- Really cool concept
- Very cohesive design
- Feels polished
Cons :
- The dragging really feels odd, and it's very distracting. It feels like the letters don't go where I want, and with the ten second timing, it's a bit frustrating :(
@vphyre @spacefudge @sagiii @friend-pirozhok @melbadream Thank you for the feedback! We have taken note of these bugs. In the meantime, we recommend playing the game in fullscreen as we have found that the drag/drop of the letters feels better in that format.
Very good presentation.
The aesthetics and tone are very attractive and the concept of the puzzle is striking.
However, the control is too rough and I had a lot of trouble putting the letters in place.
It's a shame because polishing that detail would make an impeccable game.
In any case, a very good entry!
EDIT: I tried it agin in full screen and the control is more responsive. Maybe a little more feedback in the movement of the letters would improve the experience. NIIIICEEEE!
Okay I gotta stop for now lol
So much fun! I've started using the glitches to my own advantage though.
We're so glad that you liked our game! Will definitely work on the controls post-jam, thank you for the feedback :D
@4ahizon Thanks for playing! I don't usually work on the audio so this was a rare opportunity, but I really want to improve on it. Any suggestion is welcomed <3
Also I picked a hack that hid all but the bottom row and one that showed one less row and I couldn't see anything. Maybe that's on me but it seems like there should be a safeguard.
Very polished! Modifiers are neat, aesthetic is great, sound is great
The design is gorgeous, the spacing of the visual elements was *perfect*.
I think it might also be useful to not lose the bottom rows, but top. I don't know why but when the word moved "up" instead of a bar blocking from the top, my brain just went "I don't like this, I'm out."
I also found a bug where I was clicking and dragging in an above row while the previous row was finishing the sorted animation... and when the row I was working with dropped, the tile I was holding disappeared, which made the word no longer solvable.
Then the other critique I would have is that having proper nouns in the list (Henry, Berlin) makes the game fairly culture specific and so removing those could improve the accessibility.
I did adore this game though - the feedback isn't to bring the game down, just as "room for growth" comments. :3
You made my brain do the tingly thing and that was wonderful.
Thank you so much for the fun this morning. :D
one thing I would change is how difficult it is to move letters arround, you don't get a sense of feedback so the game feels irresponsive when you move a letter but it doesn't move where you want it, other than that I think the game is pretty solid!
Only feedback I have is the same as in the comments, the letter dragging mechanics was not precise enough.
The UI is very good looking, even the in game credits look really great haha.
The drag and drop worked well, even if would have liked a bit more feedback when putting down a letter, like other letters moving / bouncing to their new position instead of instantly teleporting.
Great job and thanks for the game!
@gibss We appreciate your comment!! that's a really good point, we will look into integrating the current UI with a more friendly light mode for other audiences in the future :)
@doot Thank you for playing our game! We will continue to adjust the click and drag feedback. I'm a big fan of your game c:
Thanks for everyone elses' comments too! They mean a lot of us. We are working on improving the drag and drop system (including visual feedback), filtering the word bank, as well as the remaining bugs.
Bugs that still occur:
- ~~*letter sticking to cursor*~~
- ~~*some "hacks" causing the game to be unplayable (unable to see any words)*~~
- *baseline ui looking weird*
- ~~*Ui not scaling correctly out of full screen*~~
Also super impressed by everyone who posted their high score, apparently I suck at my own game :sweat_smile:
nice game！love the art styl- simple but looks great!(rate back?)
As a non native english speaker, it challenged me and my knowledge of the english vocabulary, somehow managed to get 23k points idk if it's any good ahah
Everything about this was very polished, the graphics are very clean (I wonder what a light version would look like). The music was intense and thoughtful (something about it reminded me of "The Forbidden Tower" from The Talos Principle).
Once or twice it seemed like I had a word that was not accepted, but it was probably just me spelling poorly. I wonder if it would be more accessible if score was saved up and could be spent on permanent upgrades.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAOCy_1zNMw
* Did some words have more than one solution, did any valid word solve?
* Did different color words mean anything, it seemed like the green/blue ones where easier than the redish ones?
I got to stage 3, I think that all I can manage (**My highscore: 41 000**)
Only wished there was an option to see the solutions after losing, but still really great game
Seems to me that not every viable solution is accepted. For example, it accepts some names (like Mike), but not others (like Gary). It does not accept some words at all (like noir). Or maybe when the word is generated, the one and only viable solution is generated with it and the game just won't accept any other, even if it makes sense?
I didn't get very far, but I will definitely play again. The randomized choice of powers does give the game a lot of replayability! Thanks for a great jam game.
