Polyfurcation

SpindleyQ's picture
polyfurcation.png

The mechanics of this game appeared fully-formed in my head while half asleep one morning last week. I've been spending every spare moment working on it since.

Seriously this is the best game I've ever worked on. (EDIT: upon a few minutes reflection, I've realised that no, Putt-Putt is way better. But this is still really good.) So much potential. You should play it and tell me what you think of it so far.

It is a game about dudes on a grid that need to get to a goal, except you can create more or less dudes by passing them through blocks larger than one square.

I have four sets of levels that I'm calling "worlds". The first world is a set of 4 "this is how the game works" levels. The second world is a set of 3 "mazey" levels, which are good. The third world is a set of 3 levels involving enclosed squares, which act as crazy traps from which your dudes can never escape. These levels are also pretty good. The fourth world is a set of 3 mediocre levels about building weird shapes. I don't think these are very interesting, but I am very interested to hear what your experiences with them are like.

Author: 
Jeremy Penner
Made For: 
An event

Comments

Danni's picture

Currently on 3-3. This is a

Currently on 3-3. This is a really clever puzzle game but there are way too many ways to end up in an unwinnable situation.

Edit: Game complete! Thoughts:

World 1 - Good tutorial levels, although 1-4 kinda involved a rather drunken solution ("Hmm, wonder what happens if I press down + right") so thus doesn't really teach players to be careful about duplication.
World 2 - 2-1 is good application of the lessons learned in the tutorial world. 2-2 is frustrating until you read the hint in the title (which should have waaay more visual priority on the screen than it does). I liked how you have the player shift between the different shaped blocks in 2-3 to try and cut a path through an invisible maze.
World 3 - Frankly the difficulty increase here is way too sudden. A lot of fidgeting with the positions of all your players to try and make sure they're in the right spot. Too easy to deadlock yourself. If this game were to have more levels you should probably consider moving these a few worlds back.
World 4 - I know you don't like this world but personally I really appreciate the simplicity of the mechanic employed by these levels. IMHO should probably go before World 3.

SpindleyQ's picture

Thanks for the detailed

Thanks for the detailed feedback! This is really helpful.

1-4 originally was a completely different layout where it was possible to screw up; that's when I wrote the text. I agree that it should be tweaked and a gentler introduction to uncontrolled duplication included.

I'm surprised you found 2-2's title helpful, TBH. Would it have been easier if you had only two guys to manage? I guess you do kind of need to work backwards a little bit to see what needs to happen, so that you can set yourself up for it. I could probably split this into two puzzles; one with two guys, and then one later one where the third guy had more going on.

World 3 - yeah, okay. I think symmetric levels = lots of fidgeting, and squares = big punishment for screwing up, and combining the two = balls in a vice grip. Lesson learned.

World 4 - Super glad to hear you liked these, because I had started to get concerned that this was just kind of inherently boring and not fun. It's not easy to judge the difficulty once you know the solution.

sergiocornaga's picture

I find this quite hard; I

I find this quite hard; I couldn't get far. But then, I've also failed to complete most of increpare's puzzle offerings, and this is definitely increparesque. Kudos to your subconscious.

Smedis2's picture

This is the most confusing

This is the most confusing this ever. Not bad, though.

Everyday I'm Qwopin' It.

This was REALLY mind bending

This was REALLY mind bending at times! I like how the mechanic has an intrinsic punishment for brute force strategy. That was pretty frustrating at first though :P