Can You Even
Spell casting, literally...
Tools used:
- Unity
- Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop
- Bfxr
- GarageBand
- SunVox
Comments (21)
@the1257thornothing Yeah, the second level should be quite simple. Too bad, you missed all the more interesting levels. The game runs a check every five seconds or so to see if the level objective is done. And if you're holding a piece when the check occurs, it's cancelled. Thanks for playing!
I got stuck on the second level.. no idea what the clue meant, nor what I was expected to do.
after blowing up every letter and stacking them in randome ways… I gave up.
it was intrsting how the game was checking for spellings of things, but that means I probably need to be a master at spelling and word guessing to come up with the different varations that could possibly be made with the given letters.
@dgeisert You mean the thing when you destroy a letter, it spawns back in its original position and another block is already there? Or was it some kind of bug with that detection?
Pretty much had to add that in since without it letters could easily get stuck together and usually start spinning out of control (which was hilarious though) with a similar end result of them both getting destroyed.
I have to say that your games never fail to impress me. Eventho sometimes the clues were too mild to understand, but it was really original idea. How can I even compete against the legend? =D
I know you from alakajam #2 your Mildred rocked and this is another highly polished game, you are true professional.
I hope someone picks you up for some serious project. If he does, he won't regret it.
@josefgazdos Thanks for the kind words! Well yeah, I have been doing games for quite a long time, well over 20 years (only few years of active game jamming though) and I do have a day job as a programmer too.
Did you make it all the way through even with the too mild hints? If not, how far did you get?
This is one of the best entries I've played so far (if not the best). The take on the theme is very clever. The art works really well, the music is cool, it's juicy and the physics are neat. The level design is also very nice.
My only nit pick is that the game is pretty frustrating and I must admit I didn't get all the tips (but I guess that's mostly my fault, I'm less patient when I'm testing multiple games one after another). I played until the floor is lava but then my tower crashed at the last minute and I rage quitted.
I have no idea how you check that the letters are the way you want them to be, especially with all the different level designs.
(btw good job presenting it too, there's even a trailer ^^", and kudos for making it playable in a browser and making all the exports, zipped windows exe are my nemesis when it comes to testing jam games)
Impressive work for a jam, well done !
@Ashtrail Thanks! Yup, I guess it can be tricky and frustrating to figure some of the puzzles out. And I do get that not everyone likes to delve too deep into a single jam game. I myself try to keep a different mindset and usually finish the games with pure stubborness alone.
The letter checking is basically just checking that the letter sequence has correct x coodrinate order. And the tower building one is just checking that nothing is touching the floor.
Yeah, I think html5 version is a way to go for a jam game. Makes it easily playable with almost everyone without the extra step for requiring installs or extracts.
I'm with you, I like to finish the games as well. I thought the second level here might just be a sandbox where you can blow up all the letters, but I'm glad I stuck with it and actually made it through to The eNd. I think the background art hints were a little hard to notice for me, so that level tripped me up more than any of the others, but it was obvious enough when you figured out what you were supposed to 'just do'.
Oh, and I also beat the tower level by just throwing the last letter up in the air from the bottom, which gave me just enough time for the game to evaluate that nothing was touching the ground. Blowing it up didn't seem to work, so I got a little bit more stubborn in my cheating. XD
To put a bit more review into this, I really liked the concept and the art here, and I was impressed with how many variations you came up with on this theme. The style was very cohesive and nicely polished (faces on the letters added a lot), and the shaders brought some solid punch to the explosions. I think you did an excellent job subverting the theme, and you get my originality vote for sure!
@innomin Yeah, I think I made a bit of a stumble on the second level. I added the hint pictures early on and didn't really think about it too much that after adding the background stuff it will not be so clear anymore. And then even added a hint text that probably makes it more confusing than if it wasn't there at all. Just thought it would be so obvious without giving it much thought. And to think I did almost exact same thing on last Ludum Dare where I obfuscated an important tutorial bit with loads of decorations.
And even on top of that, that second level acts as a guard for the more interesting/versatile levels so makes me kinda sad that loads of people will miss them…
Nice, didn't even think about the juggling method. I guess it works since you were not holding the piece the exact moment when the check occurred. The intended way was to pile all other letters and then hang T from N/I. Or another way that could be solved quite easily is to just add two letters to the base and rest on top of them.
Thanks for playing and leaving detailed feedback!
I loved this!
Graphics look really nice and polished. The learning curve on the levels are fine. The letter's collision effect with the borders are neat and also polished. Sometimes the mechanic can get a little clumsy depending on which part of the letter your pointer is grabbing. Kudos on the audio as well.
On my first playthrough I softlocked on a bug and then refreshed to start again. Recorded a gif:
(sorry for my poor gif quality)
Great job :)
Very creative interpretation of the theme, loved it.
I'm a big fan of exploring the entire play space, and this game leans heavily in that direction. Lots of uses for the same things, I'm into it.
I think the only puzzle that felt a little obtuse was the the second one, so I just copied the answer from the gameplay video hah hah.
Visually it looks great as well, very clean, very appealing. Great work!
@thesunda I don't think that is a softlock, looks like it's just that your A is in the way of I respawning. Thanks for playing!
That second level! The solution is obvious when you know it, obviously, but "Just do it" just doesn't do it. I kept thinking of Shia in front of a green screen and a particular brand of sneakers to no avail.
Visually polished to high heaven with your usual bag of tricks in heavy use. Very consistent all around, amazing work.
Catchy music; does it fit? Not quite, but that's fine. The sound effects are adequate.
Back to the interactivity. Physics based puzzles aren't my thing. This is mostly due to sluggish and occasionally glitchy inputs as well as finicky solutions where the stars need to align just right for the objects to stay in place. Here these issues are not present much at all. Even the floor is lava level was relatively painless when building a solid foundation from G,N,I and T.
The variety of levels build around the basic mechanic of dragging letters around is commendable, although many of them had very little to do with the theme. After all, the letters could be changed to pretty much anything and the golf and lava levels would not have to be altered one bit. It's got spelling and casting (throwing!) a plenty though, no complaints about that.
Proper great job in all, that's about it.
Overall: Great (8.0)
Graphics: Amazing (9.0)
Audio: Great (8.0)
Gameplay: Good (7.0)
Originality: Great (8.0)
Theme: Good (7.0)
The background sound is a bit weird, but is an interesting idea what you have here, an a bit complicated in some levels hahahaha