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I Want to Hold Hands's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #80 | 4.324 | 4.324 |
| Creativity | #296 | 4.296 | 4.296 |
| Audio | #436 | 3.803 | 3.803 |
| Artwork | #616 | 4.155 | 4.155 |
| Narrative | #827 | 3.394 | 3.394 |
Ranked from 71 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
Every hand must be held, creating closed loops of people holding hands, loops of friendship.
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
Font - Cute Dino by Khurasan
Music - Mellow Puzzler by Eric Matyas (www.soundimage.org)
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Comments
This is one of the best puzzle games I've ever played. Please continue with this one, I'd buy it in a second!
Wow that's such a great compliment, thank you!
Currently I don't plan to continue it to focus on other games but I appreciate your comment!
Wow! such a creative and well polished puzzle. Had me playing the most out of all the other games I've played this jam. Must have been very difficult and brain scratching to come up with these puzzles haha. Also liked how the mechanics were introduced, very intuitive!
Thank you for the compliments! Actually it wasn't that difficult to come up with the puzzles, they were pretty quick to create. So most of them are harder to solve than they were to design.
Thanks again!
I was just asking some friends how they can come up with complex puzzles like this, after creating all the systems. I thought your puzzles were very impressive with how interconnected they were, but seemed to only have one correct solution. Do you have any tips on how you approach level creation for puzzle games? Less about the mechanics, more about making an individual puzzle with only one solution - I end up spending a whole lot of time guessing until something works.
I'm no expert so I don't know if my tips will help but I'll try.
First I try to have a theme to each level, by making each one unique (could be a new mechanic, a unique situation with the same mechanics, or even a new visual element). This helps me introducing new mechanics slowly while keeping everything fresh from the player's standpoint. Ideally it's something I can summarize in a short sentence. For instance for this game I have levels with the themes "Teach the player that someone can have 6 arms" (new mechanic), "Have more characters than before do a party" (Visual element + difficulty increase), "There are only people with 6 arms" (unique situation + remind the player that 2 same people can't hold hands more than once + funny visual situation). If a level has multiple purposes it's even better! But yeah in general if can't summarize a level with a sentence by saying what's unique about it (doesn't have to be groundbreaking), then maybe the level doesn't need to exist? I would say that is my main tip when designing levels.
Then, to go in specifics, I don't have a lot of experience in level design so I can't speak a lot from previous projects, but for this game I started designing each puzzle from an intended solution I had in mind (a graph of all the arms connection I wanted) and then chose the color, name, hats and requests of each character according to this solution, while volontarily making some information ambiguous (for instance a character requiring to hold the hand of someone with a hat is far less specific than one directly requiring the name of the specific person). But at the end of the day most puzzles of this game have several (often similar) solutions, and like you I do need to test the levels over and over to know if they are truly fun, and make corrections to improve them (or throw them away) if it doesn't.
Sorry for the long reply, I hope it answered your question and can be of some help.
that was great, thank you!
Really cool puzzle game
Thanks :D
Very awesome and deep puzzle mechanics in this one! I especially loved Jason xD
Thank you, it's good to see you liked the puzzles (and Jason)!
So cute and polished! Visuals, music and sfx are on point, very cozy and laid back. Puzzles were also the perfect difficulty, nothing too hard but hard enough to make me think for a bit. Very nice!
Thank you for your comment, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Really nice puzzle game. At first I was wondering how you were going to increase the difficulty and quickly found out. However, it's very well balance and I don't have any real criticisms regarding the presentation. Congrats on creating this in such short time 👍
Thank you! Perfect if you enjoyed the difficulty then!
Lovely puzzles! It's simple, effective, and gradually gets more challenging, while keeping simple rules, very efficient for a game jam! :D
I don't know if it was deliberate, but I felt like the webs of friendships evolved, and there was a story behind all those little handshakes, I found that very cute :')
Also, ALL HAIL JASON, until I realized he was a pain in the a**... Why does everyone love Jason, and not Bob :((((
Good job! Thank you for making the game :D
Thank you for your thoughtful comment!
It was deliberate to make a little story of some sort, but it's definitively the aspect of the game I left behind the most to prioritize gameplay, so it's basically non-existant as is. But I'm glad you found it cute!
Don't worry, Bob is loved too!
Thanks again :D
This made me smile.
Perfect then :)
Easy to pick up and very fun! The subtle cue of them dancing, made it so much easier. However once it game to the overlaps, it got a lot more challenging (in a good way). Keep up the good work!
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the visual cues and the difficulty!
Absolutely loved it. That head bob animation after holding hand was really cute. Also really loved the overall art style of the game. Had so much fun playing it. Great work!!!
Thanks for the compliments, I'm glad you had fun!
A very cute puzzle! This was cleverly made. Puzzle were challenging enough for me to sit and think about it carefully! Also, everyone wants to hold hands with Jason. I WANT TO HOLD HANDS WITH JASON TOO
Thank you, I'm happy you liked the puzzles!
Jason sure is popular :)
Very creative interpretation of the theme! The puzzle and level design is also great where additional elements are introduced gradually after each level. The art style and audio design complements each other well with a more comedic tone. Great job!
Thanks for the comment, I'm glad you enjoyed the game!
really interesting and funny puzzles1
Thank you!
Great game and idea! I don't know if you thought about this explicitly during when designing the game, but if you enforce that every character has only two hands, then the resulting graph from connections must always form a loop (as it would be a 2-regular graph). This is a very clever mathematical application of the theme. Unfortunately, this is not true if people can have >2 hands (which your game allows).
Thanks! Yeah that make sense even though I did not think about it explicitly, especially since the idea of people with more than 2 hands came up quite quickly.
Thanks for the insightful comment!
Very cool from all sides!
Additional thanks is for pleasant animations in all elements)
I will be very glad if you play our game too :)
Thank you for your comment, I'm glad you enjoyed the animations!
I'll try to play your game too.
This game felt soft, (i don't know how to explain it in a batter way haha) but it was very very cute and i really liked it. :]
Thanks that's a nice compliment, I'm glad :)
Super cute and polished game! It got surprisingly difficult for such a simple mechanic but I liked it a lot. And I'm glad that everyone universally loves Jason, as they should.
Thank you, and I'm glad you love Jason too!
I like this game a lot, simple but not obvious idea, cute theme to it. Very cool puzzles!
Well done!
Thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed it!
Ahhh, this interpretation of loops is soooo good, and the colors somehow made me really happy. Loved the artstyle and gameplay. Would appreciate the effort if could check our game too.
Thanks, I'm glad the visuals made you happy :D
I try to play the games of people who comment on mine as much as I can so I'll surely check out yours!
Coooooooooooooool Jason XD
Very interesting
Exquisite level design
Very juicy
Thanks xD
I'm glad you enjoyed it!