I love the vibe. If this turned into a bigger game, I think it would be amazing if typing runes in the overworld could be used for secrets!
One thing I think could be improved is, once you know the controls of the runes, the underlying puzzles aren't usually very interesting. "Go through this, don't touch that", it's a bit simple and tedious. I liked the 'CC' ban because it made me think a little bit more about what I was doing. More mechanics and constraints would be great.
Okay this was a ton of fun! I'd love to see more, especially if your obelisk puzzle skills keep up! (The only thing I got a bit confused on at first was somehow thinking I couldn't use "C" at all in the third area, but that's probably just me being derpy)
This is a very promising game! The way that you have to learn how your input works gives this game the potential to explore many unique ideas. I would love to see runes that mess with the properties of the line, such as how it interacts with shapes on the board. I also hope you explore rune count more, like limiting the amount of a certain rune, as even this demo has some clever tricks for reducing your rune count. After optimizing several times, I got down to 81 runes used, which I conjecture to be the minimum (pun intended).
Also, when accessing the Settings from the main menu, the header says "SSettings," which I would assume is a typo.
Absolutely love this game. I disagree with others who want to be able to see your progress as you're typing the runes; the interesting part of the challenge for me was trying to remember where I was after I entered each one. Makes for an interesting challenge. Maybe you could have multiple difficulty levels - a beginner one where you can see your progress as you type and a more difficult one where you can't. I wouldn't change a thing about it; just add more runes and make it longer!
Thanks, I'm glad you like it! I too have thought of adding those difficulty options, and maybe even a harder one where you can't see the line at all! 😈 I might use this to increase the difficulty of the later puzzles to truly test the player's knowledge. Will test it out and see how it goes :)
Not showing what your current in-progress string does is definitely weird - I mostly just Enter'ed after each letter and rewrote the whole string again and again. Would be arduous for whomever has a slower typing speed, so seeing it immediately change (like Pheonix suggested) would be great. In fact, Enter doesn't really serve any purpose in this demo, it could just auto-enter after each change in the string.
Overall, I liked the demo but felt like it was even slightly too drawn out so I doubt more puzzles would do it any good - but more letters is cool and I really liked the finale! Final runes used: 84.
Really enjoyed this! I found myself testing the other letters to see if they did anything so I am curious if the whole version will use them all or not. Good luck on the development!
I really enjoyed the game and how little handholding it has, the moments when you realize what a symbol means can click very hard, like the triangle did for me. Another great thing about the design was how good it felt to imagine a path in my head, write it down and suceed in the first try, I really felt like I was getting good at it!
I also think your solution of creating a rule for the last chamber was very elegant.
2) Being able to "lock-in" to a puzzle so you can use your up (and down) arrow key to bring up previous entries and then left/right arrow keys to be able to move through your runes to fix a mistake
(or)
3)Having the path be drawn as you type in the runes. Because right now you either have to enter in the runes over and over, slowly making it longer a few runes at a time or figure out the whole sequence in your head (which I did because I found the other way annoying, especially since the runes didn't line up to the previous ones so it was harder to re-enter)
Not sure you'll see this, but if you do please consider my opinion: if you were to take suggestion 1 and 3, make those togglable options, please. I personally feel having a grid would be terrible visually and I love the extra challenge of trying to guess how far the line will go as it is. 3 would just make the game too easy.
For what it's worth: I enjoyed figuring out the whole sequence in my head. :-) I think I would have found it too easy if you could see the path as you went, and that would make it very possible to just use trial and error ("now an A. Nope, backspace, C. Now an A...?").
On the one hand, this feels like well-trodden ground (it's so very much in the spirit of The Witness and more recently Taiji). That's not inherently bad, of course.
And on the other, it definitely brings a whole new twist to things, and the design is very good (introducing new elements one at a time, starting with simpler tasks so players can get their bearings). I think this absolutely has the potential to go further if you have the time and inclination!
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I love the vibe. If this turned into a bigger game, I think it would be amazing if typing runes in the overworld could be used for secrets!
One thing I think could be improved is, once you know the controls of the runes, the underlying puzzles aren't usually very interesting. "Go through this, don't touch that", it's a bit simple and tedious. I liked the 'CC' ban because it made me think a little bit more about what I was doing. More mechanics and constraints would be great.
Okay this was a ton of fun! I'd love to see more, especially if your obelisk puzzle skills keep up! (The only thing I got a bit confused on at first was somehow thinking I couldn't use "C" at all in the third area, but that's probably just me being derpy)
Awesome game. When are the walkthroughs being posted?
it was a fun little game, and i would like to play more of it
This is a very promising game! The way that you have to learn how your input works gives this game the potential to explore many unique ideas. I would love to see runes that mess with the properties of the line, such as how it interacts with shapes on the board. I also hope you explore rune count more, like limiting the amount of a certain rune, as even this demo has some clever tricks for reducing your rune count. After optimizing several times, I got down to 81 runes used, which I conjecture to be the minimum (pun intended).
Also, when accessing the Settings from the main menu, the header says "SSettings," which I would assume is a typo.
It took me 180... :(
88 runes, nice game
Love the concept and the execution. I finished with 104 runes used.
Brilliant mechanic! would love to play the full release
Very fun! I ended with 96 runes used.
Absolutely love this game. I disagree with others who want to be able to see your progress as you're typing the runes; the interesting part of the challenge for me was trying to remember where I was after I entered each one. Makes for an interesting challenge. Maybe you could have multiple difficulty levels - a beginner one where you can see your progress as you type and a more difficult one where you can't. I wouldn't change a thing about it; just add more runes and make it longer!
Thanks, I'm glad you like it! I too have thought of adding those difficulty options, and maybe even a harder one where you can't see the line at all! 😈 I might use this to increase the difficulty of the later puzzles to truly test the player's knowledge. Will test it out and see how it goes :)
I like the idea of having a level at the end of each section where you can't see the line, to test understanding (like the game "Understand")
Not showing what your current in-progress string does is definitely weird - I mostly just Enter'ed after each letter and rewrote the whole string again and again. Would be arduous for whomever has a slower typing speed, so seeing it immediately change (like Pheonix suggested) would be great. In fact, Enter doesn't really serve any purpose in this demo, it could just auto-enter after each change in the string.
Overall, I liked the demo but felt like it was even slightly too drawn out so I doubt more puzzles would do it any good - but more letters is cool and I really liked the finale! Final runes used: 84.
Really enjoyed this! I found myself testing the other letters to see if they did anything so I am curious if the whole version will use them all or not. Good luck on the development!
I really enjoyed the game and how little handholding it has, the moments when you realize what a symbol means can click very hard, like the triangle did for me. Another great thing about the design was how good it felt to imagine a path in my head, write it down and suceed in the first try, I really felt like I was getting good at it!
I also think your solution of creating a rule for the last chamber was very elegant.
This feels strangely reminiscent of learning Vim motions... :wq
HAHAHA 💀
I enjoyed it but did I do have some suggestions.
1) Having a grid so I know how far I need to go
2) Being able to "lock-in" to a puzzle so you can use your up (and down) arrow key to bring up previous entries and then left/right arrow keys to be able to move through your runes to fix a mistake
(or)
3)Having the path be drawn as you type in the runes. Because right now you either have to enter in the runes over and over, slowly making it longer a few runes at a time or figure out the whole sequence in your head (which I did because I found the other way annoying, especially since the runes didn't line up to the previous ones so it was harder to re-enter)
These are excellent, thanks for the suggestions!
Not sure you'll see this, but if you do please consider my opinion: if you were to take suggestion 1 and 3, make those togglable options, please. I personally feel having a grid would be terrible visually and I love the extra challenge of trying to guess how far the line will go as it is. 3 would just make the game too easy.
For what it's worth: I enjoyed figuring out the whole sequence in my head. :-) I think I would have found it too easy if you could see the path as you went, and that would make it very possible to just use trial and error ("now an A. Nope, backspace, C. Now an A...?").
But that's kind of what you're doing now anyway. Except in this case you have to retype the whole sequence or figure out the whole thing in your head.
On the one hand, this feels like well-trodden ground (it's so very much in the spirit of The Witness and more recently Taiji). That's not inherently bad, of course.
And on the other, it definitely brings a whole new twist to things, and the design is very good (introducing new elements one at a time, starting with simpler tasks so players can get their bearings). I think this absolutely has the potential to go further if you have the time and inclination!