Folder Depth by Zigtalk
A whimsical game about navigating deep folder structures under time pressure. Players take on the role of an office worker who must find a specific file in a chaotic company server within a strict time limit.
| GitHub | https://github.com/azigler/coding-jams/tree/main/ludum-dare/57-depths |
| Game | https://azigler.github.io/coding-jams/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/folder-depth |
Ratings
| Overall | 780th | 2.935⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 832th | 2.478⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 173th | 3.761⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 206th | 4.043⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 269th | 3.261⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 840th | 2.522⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 27🗳️ | 27🗨️ |
I wasn't a fan of having a time malus on getting the wrong folder, but it was fun once I got the ball rolling. Got to level 5. Great job!
I think the game is at a great spot to implement some puzzle mechanics (hidden files, shortcuts/symlinks for teleport style navigation, limited search tools). I think it would be interesting to piece together a paper trail of clues about how the file moved around, and use these different clues to figure out the true location of the important file. I love the idea that the file structure is so cursed that people using the machine would leave notes to each other about the whereabouts of important files.
Mechanically I found it a bit hard to figure out what was the right direction from the popups, and sometimes I'd end up clicking on a file trying to dismiss the popup, further exacerbating the situation.
When clicking on a wrong folder, you're told it's wrong but it still enters, so you always have to click back. The context switch, mixed with the popup and time pressure, sometimes causes me to forget which folder I even clicked on since the names repeat a lot. Would probably make more sense to not traverse here.
I wish I had more time to read the flavor text, but all I do is skim it for the filename and ignore the rest.
Might have been cool to have a more gentle guidance than the popup and time loss. For example, some kind of gauge or indicator that doesn't make it immediately obvious what the right/wrong choices are.
I changed my mind mostly because I had no idea how to generate random but coherent folders, which is kind of the issue here: we have no idea what each folder is going to contain, so the only way to play is to click randomly and hope for the best.
A way to guess (more or less) which folder might contain the file (for example, `Images/` will probably contain a `.jpg` if we're looking for a `.jpg`) would have made the game much more strategic. Just because the company server is a mess doesn't mean it should be completely random!
I agree with the comments above, we shouldn't be penalized for clicking on a wrong folder, but only when clicking on a wrong file. Wasting time searching an incorrect path is already enough wasted time by itself!
I'm not sure how to guess which folder to click, which is very punitive since each wrong folder makes you lose seconds.
I managed to win 3 levels, the folders where starting to shake.