Announcement: Be excellent to each other.


Caravel Forum : Other Boards : Electronic Games : Machine at the Heart of the World (A puzzle game made in a week)
New Topic New Poll Post Reply
Poster Message
skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 3734
Registered: 12-28-2004
IP: Logged
icon Machine at the Heart of the World (+7)  
When the world had stopped and everything became alien, one researcher stumbled upon a cave that lead him to the center of the world. There he found a machine...




Get the game on itch.io. Windows, Linux and Mac versions

I won't go into the details about the gameplay - just play the game, if you're into DROD or The Witness or puzzle hunts the chances are you'll like it. It's pretty short, about 65 levels and revolves around working out the rules of things and applying them.

The game was made in a week thanks to those people and websites:

- Aleksander Kowalczyk - Made (almost) all the art in the game
- Jakub "AceMan" Szeląg - Made the atmospheric music
- Alex Diener - Provided the voice overs
- http://freesound.org/ and http://www.freesfx.co.uk provided the sound effects
- Maurycy Zarzycki - Programming, game design, puzzles, story

And an important thing! The game was made in a week for the MonoGameJam. If you have some spare time check out the entries and vote for the one you like the most (or rate each game separately, I honestly have o idea how the voting will look like).

____________________________
My website | Facebook | Twitter
02-19-2018 at 05:16 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Visit Homepage Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
Kalin
Level: Master Delver
Avatar
Rank Points: 175
Registered: 01-25-2016
IP: Logged
icon Re: Machine at the Heart of the World (0)  
There's more than a few knots in that difficulty curve.

I had to guess the answer to the first 30-symbol puzzle because the answer I calculated was twice the number of symbols you're allowed to enter.

And the next puzzle introduced the "obviously modern" symbol, and I have absolutely no idea what it could be.

And I guess there's no way to save or even tell how many more puzzles there are to do?
02-20-2018 at 01:06 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts Quote Reply
Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 3406
Registered: 09-10-2005
IP: Logged
icon Re: Machine at the Heart of the World (0)  
Oh good, so I wasn't the only one getting a 15 there. Calling the symbol obviously modern didn't help me, but the symbol itself ended up being reasonably interpretable in its design.

____________________________
Click here to view the secret text

02-20-2018 at 02:00 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 3734
Registered: 12-28-2004
IP: Logged
icon Re: Machine at the Heart of the World (0)  
Kalin wrote:
There's more than a few knots in that difficulty curve.
There are, although considering the constraints of the jam and the feedback I've got so far I am still happy with the result.

I had to guess the answer to the first 30-symbol puzzle because the answer I calculated was twice the number of symbols you're allowed to enter.
A lot of people has tripped on so there certainly is something the game doesn't adequately teach. Rule spoilers in the secret tag.
Click here to view the secret text


And the next puzzle introduced the "obviously modern" symbol, and I have absolutely no idea what it could be.
It's "painfully modern" :). Some spoilers about why it says that but I am not giving an explanation what it does:
Click here to view the secret text


And I guess there's no way to save
It auto saves. Honestly I am surprised that anyone has asked about it because I figured auto saving of some kind has been in almost every game and decent software in the past 10 years or so, but I guess they also often have a mark indicating an auto save has happened so I should've added an information about it.

Add it to the bucket of the things I couldn't really do because of the time constraints of a game jam, mostly any kind of QA :).

or even tell how many more puzzles there are to do?
That's a subjective thing but I prefer the sense of mystery!

Thanks for the feedback! Perhaps there is a point after all in making a "deluxe" version or a tiny sequel in the future where I'll have time to iron out all those things.

____________________________
My website | Facebook | Twitter
02-20-2018 at 08:11 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Visit Homepage Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
Watcher
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 902
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Machine at the Heart of the World (0)  
Just played through the game. A nice little puzzle, and definitely worth expanding on. Some more detailed thoughts (with a lot of spoilers):

Click here to view the secret text


____________________________
Today the refrigerator, tomorrow the world!
03-02-2018 at 10:13 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts Quote Reply
skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 3734
Registered: 12-28-2004
IP: Logged
icon Re: Machine at the Heart of the World (0)  
Watcher wrote:
Just played through the game. A nice little puzzle, and definitely worth expanding on. Some more detailed thoughts (with a lot of spoilers)

Thanks for the feedback! It shows just how much a game like this needs testing from various people and, possibly, much more time to think things through :). (also insert something about striking balance between catering to people who are quick to figure things like that out and people who need more repetition).

So originally this puzzle type was supposed to feature in This and That (did I ever mention that?) but I decided to not do it, and one of the ways to handle this problem that I was considering was to make the level layout two-dimensional, so to speak. That is, each column would be a new rule, and each cell in that column would reiterate the same mechanic in different situation, possibly dividing it into sections like "Basic", "Advanced" and "Edge cases".

So the level layout would look like this


 Digits | Multiply | Divide
----------------------------
    1   |    2*3   |  etc.  
   11   |    1*3   |        
   1 1  |    3*3   |        
    2   |   2*2*2  |        
    3   |   11*1   |        
        |    1*11  |        
       


So you can go vertically down and keep learning the rules for one glyph, or go back to the top and do an exam that unlocks the next column (glyph). Or even more complex, where at first you have columns and a column is divided into rows, and each row is a separate interaction with the introduced glyph, and each cell in that row is another puzzle with the same rule just to give you more "space" to learn the rules.




On a side note, it seems Machine at the Heart of the World has won the jam! I've written on my site about Machine, inspirations and the jam.

____________________________
My website | Facebook | Twitter
03-07-2018 at 11:53 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Visit Homepage Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 3734
Registered: 12-28-2004
IP: Logged
icon Re: Machine at the Heart of the World (0)  
I wrote a blog post about the process of making Machine at the Heart of the World and some critical analysis of the design from my POV.

____________________________
My website | Facebook | Twitter
03-23-2018 at 10:55 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Visit Homepage Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
Banjooie
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 1645
Registered: 12-12-2004
IP: Logged
icon Re: Machine at the Heart of the World (0)  
One solitary question.
Click here to view the secret text

04-02-2018 at 06:19 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 3734
Registered: 12-28-2004
IP: Logged
icon Re: Machine at the Heart of the World (0)  
There is only one ending :)

____________________________
My website | Facebook | Twitter
04-02-2018 at 07:25 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Visit Homepage Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
New Topic New Poll Post Reply
Caravel Forum : Other Boards : Electronic Games : Machine at the Heart of the World (A puzzle game made in a week)
Surf To:


Forum Rules:
Can I post a new topic? No
Can I reply? No
Can I read? Yes
HTML Enabled? No
UBBC Enabled? Yes
Words Filter Enable? No

Contact Us | CaravelGames.com

Powered by: tForum tForumHacks Edition b0.98.8
Originally created by Toan Huynh (Copyright © 2000)
Enhanced by the tForumHacks team and the Caravel team.