LudumData

Symthesis by ollie_d

[raw]
made by ollie_d for Ludum Dare 55 (COMPO)

A card-based puzzle game where you summon products. A little bit of Solitaire, a little bit of Doodle God, and of course a little bit of inspiration from Balatro's Jokers.

This game has an ending screen and takes about 10 minutes to beat.

Game best played on Windows, but if on browser use Firefox! Chrome has horrible stuttering

promo_mid.gif

No AI was used in the making of this game.

Source Code: * https://github.com/ollie-d/ld55

Controls: * Mouse clicking/dragging only!

Playtesters: * Chase * Luna

Fonts used: * ElderGods BB * castpixel's curiously chunky free pixelfonts

Tools used: * Godot 4.1.2 (gave me a lot of problems, I use 4.x for work, but will stick to 3.x for web games) * Ableton Live 11 Suite * Audacity * Gimp * Aseprite * Git * Butler

Sounds used for samples (recorded all during compo): * Me chanting (I'm not a singer and apologize deeply for offending any of you) * Blowing into bottle * Dropping books on one another * Ripping paper

Visual samples (photos taken during compo): * Different pictures of my mousepad for creating noisy textures * Gimp's pixelate and artistic pixel work great!

source downloadable on itch https://ollie-d.itch.io/symthesis
HTML5 playable on itch https://ollie-d.itch.io/symthesis
Windows.exe downloadable on itch https://ollie-d.itch.io/symthesis
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/symthesis

Ratings

Overall 71th 3.86⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 81th 3.74⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 75th 3.8⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 137th 3.74⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 169th 3.5⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 79th 3.64⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Mood 101th 3.62⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 29🗳️ 30🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 389592
15. Apr 2024 · 05:59 UTC
nice game from such simple concepts! Cool audio and graphics too. Would like some more levels tho.
crafteverywhere
15. Apr 2024 · 06:04 UTC
Cool puzzle game!
LDJam user 297990
15. Apr 2024 · 08:07 UTC
I want to be able to rate this game. The gameplay starts off interesting but the game keeps freezing the browser after a random time. Just thought I would let you know
sirJupitron
15. Apr 2024 · 10:39 UTC
Amazing mood, sounds and music. Good solid rules and clear explanation of each effect. Thanks!
CodeRaurus
15. Apr 2024 · 11:08 UTC
Sweet puzzle game. Challenging enough, made me scratch my head few times and think. I like the atmosphere. I kind of wish there was better way to check combinations. I'm not sure what it could be, though.. Maybe a tooltip when you're about to fuse cards?

I managed to bug the game on win. In the assumed later part of the game, one of the fused cards stuck on cursor and couldn't interact with cards anymore, even after restarting.

Good job regardless!
Theyflower
15. Apr 2024 · 14:51 UTC
The music was immersive and figuring out how to automate some of the later stages was cool. Watching the imps cascade and reproduce was satisfying.
LDJam user 384191
15. Apr 2024 · 14:51 UTC
Very clever puzzle game! The concept is simple but deep, and the difficulty curve is just right. Good job!
OddballDave
15. Apr 2024 · 16:03 UTC
Do you know what? That was tremendous fun. I love this kind of merging puzzle game. Played all the way to the end and loved every minute. I really like the visuals and the music was very atmospheric. Great stuff :8ball:
Harmadillo
15. Apr 2024 · 16:44 UTC
Nice game. The easy restart made experimenting with the combinations a lot of fun. The stylised cards looked good.
goodwincek
15. Apr 2024 · 17:52 UTC
WHAT A GAME! Took me forever to figure out level 7 but was immensely satisfying to crack the code. Then I was in it to win it, and had a fantastic time solving the puzzles!! You did an amazing job on the balance and difficulty level of figuring out the combos, and there was a surprising amount of nuance to how you sequence the cards. I played this a good 20-30 minutes and the music never got old, so great job on the sound design as well. Very simple graphics but didn't leave anything to be desired. Maybe some color codes or slightly more distinct card graphics would have helped memorization quicker, but I really liked the aesthetic overall. Super fun!

![Screenshot_26.png](///raw/3c3/b3/z/61f4f.png)
LDJam user 388782
15. Apr 2024 · 18:13 UTC
Fun game! I couldn't figure out level 7, though
Nash
15. Apr 2024 · 19:50 UTC
Actually quite intriguing. It took me a while to get hang of it but when I did I liked it quite a lot. Some levels were overly trivial though and some where very difficult. Maybe the difficulty curve was not perfect but other than that I liked it a lot.
LeanJukes
15. Apr 2024 · 21:50 UTC
Finding a sequence that worked was satisfying, easy to grasp the basics, nice job!
Fataljg
15. Apr 2024 · 23:45 UTC
Super cool game, might need a bit more help to add some flow
🎤 ollie_d
16. Apr 2024 · 04:19 UTC
@fredrik-andersson thanks for reporting this -- do you remember a specific time it was happening? The Windows version should run fine. Unfortunately Godot 4.x's HTML5 exporting is much worse than Godot 3.x's and there are certain lagspikes that occur consistently at places across devices, but their severity seems to differ quite a lot and I'm not sure why.
🎤 ollie_d
16. Apr 2024 · 04:21 UTC
@coderaurus thanks for reporting that -- I did notice that on testing and thought I resolved it, but it was hard to uncook the spaghetti by the time I noticed it haha
LDJam user 297990
16. Apr 2024 · 04:58 UTC
@ollie-d I came as far as the level you create ash from imp and ent
🎤 ollie_d
16. Apr 2024 · 06:45 UTC
@fredrik-andersson thank you very much, I'll look into this for a post jam version
OldDog
16. Apr 2024 · 09:09 UTC
so good game design and game idea,love this game so much
zimny11
17. Apr 2024 · 18:10 UTC
Really well done game! Everything fits nicely to each other. I suggest to add an info that the ONLY way to get rid of card you placed in the Newt (or passing the to your goal). I was a bit confused for a second why I'm getting a big red X (apparently that was not enough of a clue XD) when trying to move cards back to my head. So just info about that somewhere, to make it even more obvious. Also information about some cards special power under "?" would be nice. I just wish there was more level. Well done! Bonus points for Compo :D
🎤 ollie_d
18. Apr 2024 · 02:28 UTC
@zimny11 Thanks for playing it and for your comments! The UI system certainly has a lot of room for improvement in terms of explaining combinations, clarity of special cards, etc.. I'll probably do a post-jam version with improvements like this and add more puzzles and bug fixes :)
LDJam user 364744
19. Apr 2024 · 02:10 UTC
super pleasantly surprised by this! the theming works so well with the mechanics, and it's a very novel and polished puzzle game. i remember your ld53 entry, and once again the soundtrack doesn't disappoint. well done!
LDJam user 184264
21. Apr 2024 · 07:06 UTC
A nice little puzzle game. I feel like there is a lot of potential you could explore with more meta cards, such as moving things, doing more complex interactions, more incentive to automate things, etc. As it stands the game works nicely. My only nitpicks are that I would sometime try to drag a card out after a thing I needed appeared, but while the cards were still processing. Greying out the hand a little while it is processing would help communicate that. Other thing is that I kept reading it as "Ime" instead of "Imp" due to the font. Both of these are super minor though. Nice work!
José Bonilla
01. May 2024 · 15:39 UTC
Really liked the concept. You should make more levels now :)