The Runic Conjecture is a magical puzzle game about experimenting and learning the meaning of mysterious runes. What may seem like Magic now is merely a Science that you have yet to understand.

Controls:  Arrow Keys to move, Letter Keys to enter runes, Backspace to delete runes, Enter to submit runes, Esc to pause

Made in 1 week for GameCraft! 2022 🥇
Theme: Magic as a Science

Best played using Windows 10, in a Google Chrome browser, Fullscreen

StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5
Rating
Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars
(95 total ratings)
AuthorLio Lim
GenrePuzzle
Tags2D, Fantasy, Magic, Pixel Art, Sci-fi, Singleplayer

Development log

Comments

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Viewing most recent comments 1 to 40 of 78 · Next page · Last page
(2 edits) (+1)

So great. If you develop this into a larger game, one suggestion would be to have 3 optional “challenge stars” you can earn for each level.

Star 1: use the lowest number of runes possible for that level Star 2: “travel” the minimum distance possible for that level Star 3: bonus challenge (e.g. “don’t use the N rune in this level”)

(Perhaps these are only unlocked after earning all the runes in the game, or greyed out until you have the necessary runes to get the optimal number for a given star)

These would require different solutions, adding replayability for each level.

(+1)

Amazing! I love the concept of figuring out the rules myself, the puzzles and the aesthetic. 🥰

This game gave me an idea of solving a puzzle by typing a word and making a specific one line "drawing" like. Dunno what I'll do with this idea. 😅

Anyway, thank you for making this game! 👍

(1 edit) (+1)

Hi there! Can't believe it's been a year since the conception of this amazing puzzle gem.

Is there anything more planned? I'd love for someplace to follow news about this game or any other future projects!

(+1)

Thanks a ton for your support and enthusiasm! I haven't been able to dedicate a lot of time to this game yet, but I see and appreciate the love that it has been getting <3 I intend to work on it in the near future and will definitely drop devlogs here if there are any updates!

(1 edit) (+1)

how do I reset so I can play again?

Refresh the page! There should be a button to reset on the main menu :)

(+1)

81 runes, 12 in last.

(+1)

Nice game, got to 103 total runes used, i don't think i can optimize any further

(+1)

cool game, work on android with bt-keyboard, ideas for posible simbols-

M - look up

B- go backwards

M - a-a-r-c-a (if N is a-a-c-a)

(+1)

Nice game, I think I recognise some art from an asset pack

I spent a minute trying to solve the background lol

(+1)

The controls to mov around the world feel a little jank and I have no idea why, but I love this mechanic so much that I don’t think I actually care about any flaws this may have. If there’s any game jam game I want to see a full version of, it’s this.​

Moving a big cat block is a little weird, but it’s a game jam game so, probably something about time constraints.

Reminded me of Taiji and The Witness, which are two of my favorite puzzle games!

he he he ahhh

(+1)

also a very fun game, i would play the real thing if i could pay and download it. i love puzzle games and this is on my top 10 favorite puzzle games!!!

Thank you for playing and for your high praise! I'm glad you enjoyed it. 😊 Just a heads up, I've hidden your puzzle spoilers to preserve the surprise for other players!

Ok, i forgot to say it was a spoiler 😅

(+1)

Very cool game! I really the idea behind this, my favorite part was whenever I managed to "code" the full answer to the puzzle first try. Love the music and the visuals as well. Super well done

(+1)

Thank you! I am a fan of your games and devlogs so this means a lot to me! 🥰

(+1)

It was very fun! Just a suggestion but i think when the full game comes out there should be a level/world creator. Also, when do you plan on releasing the full game?

I am still building my team, but don't worry I will make a post if I have any updates!

(+1)

I got a barrel stuck in a door,  and can't get passed.

Feel free to refresh the page, the barrels will reset and your progress is saved! Thanks for the catch, I'll fix it soon™️

(+1)

Really nice concept. I would love seeing it extended.

(+2)

This is a nice idea. I'd like to play a full version of this and see what other rules you have in store.

(+2)

This is great, and I can't wait for the full game! My only complaint about the demo is the ending. It should've been a puzzle where you end up spelling "arcana" instead of it just being at the door. That would've been a bit cooler in my opinion.

(2 edits) (+2)

this needs to be a full game, would love to play it

(+3)

This is fantastic! I'd love to see you take it further. By the way, it works just fine in Chrome on Mac OS.


One possible refinement: a keystroke (perhaps up-arrow) to type the last attempt again.

(+2)

Great game! would love to see a full release!

(+4)

I managed to block one of the doors with a barrel

(+1)

yoooooooooo this is really really cool!

(1 edit) (+3)

I only realized it was a demo when finishing. I was so shocked because it was so clean that I thought it was already a full version. Really nice game! Gonna follow to see when it get extended

(+2)

Quite fun!

(+1)

This is awesome, please update this game I want to see how the other runes work 

(+1)

Awesome that you made this in a  week, can't wait for more! 

(+1)

I NEED MORE OMG I LOVE THIS!!!! THE ART, THE PUZZLES, THE EVERYTHING!!!!!!!

(+1)

I liked it. Seems like if you want to expand it though you'll have to add more complexity. I get a very "The Witness" vibe to this game, so maybe fitting with that theme you could add some puzzles that are affected by the environment in some way? You could also add some rune that splits the beam into two, maybe have some runes that have different effects based on which way the beam is traveling so that in the end you can feel like a wizard weaving different runes to control two beams with one set of instructions.

Also I liked that at the end you end up having to write an actual word, and think that would be a pretty cool idea for a puzzle. Like you're stuck trying to do this insanely complex series of tasks and every time you do one thing it breaks another, only to realize that the solution was right in front of you the entire time. Sort of like Gandalf's "Speak friend and enter" moment. Some players would probably derive the solution without ever realizing you spelt out an actual word, so it could be a cool moment regardless.

(1 edit) (+2)

loved it! Very clever but simple mechanics. It feels really good when you manage to write the whole answer in the first try.

(+1)


Since the game encourages optimization, I decided to do the opposite with a maximum input run (used private tab to avoid the statistic bug) and got 345. And for fun, I tried minimum R runes as well and narrowed down to 3.
(+1)

Extra facts: You can go out of the screen then return to the goal and the doors don't count toward the runes used counter.

(+2)

I'm not sure if this is intended but the "reset everything" option doesn't actually reset everything. It still save Puzzles Complete and Runes Used from earlier run.

 I'm not sure if it's a bug or not since the 54/18 kinda feel intentional to show how many run people have gone through in total.  But it's hard to calculate how many rune you have used in this run total.

(+2)

Oops I'll add that to my bug feature list

(+1)

Wow such an amazing concept, took me a while to understand R but I got it eventually. I love the fact that you can solve the puzzles however you want but you can do it with less letters. Would love to see a continuation of this

I thought R stands for Reverse when it actually meant Repeat (3 times).

(1 edit) (+1)

absolutely phenomenal for such a short game. really fun and interesting concept, along with excellent puzzle design to emphasise it. can't wait to see how this can expanded upon

Managed to get down to 81 runes used

You got 81? I was only able to get down to 99 runes.

I was also able to get 81.

I'm at 85, so 81 seems possible to do.

(+1)

This very much reminds me of Imagine Logo. It was a drawing software with a cute turtle in the middle, and was used to teach programming back in my primary school.

You could definitely take inspirations from the Logo programming language. With a major ones, being obviously the ability to change color / line style, and the ability to allow/disallow drawing the line.

(+3)

This is absolutely brilliant, love the way the puzzles work, as well as the visualization, i think if the line updated in real time as you write would be a tiny bit less of a challenge, but would be a major quality of life improvement. The puzzles are neat, i love games that let you figure out the rules on your own such as Taiji or The Witness, and it was done beautifully here. I'd be super excited about a full release of this, it's a great idea executed amazingly!

(+1)

What asset pack is this? I've seen it in a few places now

(+1)

You can find it here, it is one of itch.io's most popular assets! https://cainos.itch.io/pixel-art-top-down-basic

(+1)

Cheers, I knew I'd seen it before, but couldn't find it while looking

(+3)

Great game, love the concept, can't wait to see the more out-there runes! I hope this game will actually have some tricky navigation puzzles outside of simple pathing and optimization though. Can't wait to see more!

(+2)

Beautiful game. Got it down to 81 :)

(+4)

Also came from Aliensrock. I had to try it myself after seeing the first few minutes. The atmosphere is brilliant, with soothing music and lovely pixel art. It feels extremely satisfying to 'master' each rune. Excited to see more!

(+1)

I want to add to wishlist the full version of the game, but I can't

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