Lana's Lab - Puzzle Game (In Development)

Games
1

Hello all! :blush:

I have been working on my first game for the PlayDate, it's a simple puzzle game. It currently has 30 puzzle levels. I'd love to hear feedback and suggestions on gameplay and features! I created a itch.io page that has the current alpha version of the game for download.

You can use the arrow keys to move the selector around and the crank to rotate the tiles. Rotation is also available using A + Direction.

Playdate-2024-01-05-16-49-08

I'm still thinking what features I will be adding next. Currently there's only two level types:

  1. Match all tiles
  2. Clean all bacteria

Thanks for reading this far! :slight_smile: Would love to hear feedback or suggestions! Have an amazing day!

5 Likes
2

Looks fun. Unfortunately, it doesn't get sideloaded onto my device. Other games do. Have you got an idea why?

3

Thanks for trying! I’m unsure… I have sideloaded it and it works for me. Any specific errors pop up?

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Thanks for replying. Unfortunately there are no errors. I can even play it in the simulator when I upload the unzipped pdx folder. When I sideload the zipped folder, the logo appears under sideloaded games in the browser window. There is just no game on the device.

5

An alternative way of sideloading is from Simulator to device over USB. Might be worth a try.

6

Hey, it worked! Thank you very much for the help! The game is really cool!

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@matt thanks for your help!

@Wladi113, thank you for trying it out! Sorry it was hard to get working. I'll see if I can get some of my friends to try installing and see if they also have issues.

2 Likes
8

I've been making progress with the game and uploaded a new version to Itch! :blush:

Here's the changelog:

  • New 'Experiments' Menu for selecting levels
  • Game tracks number of moves and assigns stars based on performance
  • Undo functionality, it counts as a move, so it will take away from your stars if you use it too much!
  • Progress automatically saved every time a puzzle is finished
  • Added 'Reset Level' option to menu during puzzle levels
  • Basic "music player" logic, will cycle tracks every 90 seconds
  • 2 new background songs
  • 5 new puzzle levels sprinkled throughout

Still would love to hear any feedback regarding the gameplay, e.g. is it frustrating, is the amount of challenge good?

Have an awesome day! :grin:

9

Hi all! Hope you are having a good start of your weekend :slight_smile:

I'm currently working on a Level Editor right inside the game to perhaps make it easier to make puzzles and export them. I didn't post anything about it in itch yet as I'm not certain what direction that will take (or if I will even finish that), but it would be super cool if people could share their own puzzle packs! (Clearly the UI below is work in progress):
level-editor

Though I'm unsure how sharing puzzles would work besides putting the PD in disk mode to extract the JSON... Has anybody done a similar thing in which you want to share content created in the PD itself?

Also, I have posted a new version of the game just now if anybody is interested in trying it out (it's free). I added 8 new puzzles and new features, including a time-attack mode and new horizontal / vertical bombs. The editor is not included with the game yet, but if there's interest I can create a new version.

Here's a Devlog and link to the download:

Have an awesome weekend!

1 Like