HundredPipers

Provide houses with water

In Hundred Pipers you have to provide a set of houses with water, by placing pipes coming from water tanks.

All houses and tanks must be connected in order to complete each level.

The score is based on time and pipes used.

You are welcome to speed run the game though it's 10 levels.

How efficient and fast can you be?

Please questions and feedback more than welcome as this is my first published game and gamejam ever.

When posting score, post the pipes score, in case of ties we can look at the screenshots for the time.

Sadly Alakajam doesn't allow to set the score to something like 3260/176 (Will take this into consideration for the next time)

PS: Removed the Music and made few quick sound effects, still left it so it's not judged on sounds.

Voting results

Overall
25th
73%
5.400
Graphics
30th
88%
4.200
Gameplay
27th
79%
4.467
Originality
32nd
94%
4.733
Theme
13th
36%
7.400

This game entered in the Solo competition (33 entries).

Comments (22)

Mr. Chocolate Salmon
(@mr_chocolatesalmon) • 3 years ago • 

I think it would be nice if you could highlight which pipe piece is currently selected, and also include in the description that the middle mouse button removes pipes (I didn't realize it until I read the instructions). Most people won't read through all the instructions, so it'd be good to have it obvious somewhere :)

Overall, the gameplay worked well though!

MrAmericanMike
  • 3 years ago • 

Thanks for the feedback Mr. Chocolate Salmon. Yes I had noticed that people may not read the instructions :P
I added 2 pages "faq" and "howto" kinda the same thing actually as they both give tips on how to play, not much to read.
But yes, having some indicators on screen to guide them would be cool for sure.
I don't know if today I can finish work earlier, if so, I may do some minor modifications before the deadline.

And yes, totally agree that I should have an indicator of pipe selected, was on the plans and totally forgot/stalled it.

maartene
 • 3 years ago • 

Who reads the manual anyway? Still, nice puzzle game with some great music. I do feel that it would keep me engaged longer if there wasn't an unlimited supply of pipes.

Just a bit curious though: did you create the music yourself as you also credit somebody else for it?

MrAmericanMike
  • 3 years ago • 

@maartene Yes nobody reads the manual, or the credits LOL

No the music is credited to Bensound https://www.bensound.com/

I though on limiting the pipes, but then I would have needed way more time to create the levels. That's why in part I don't remove pipes score once a pipe is placed, even if the player deletes it, that way they have to be careful with what they use. But yes, definetly limiting pipes would make the game even better.

Maybe I do a polished post jam version some day.

Thanks for the feedback.

ratrogue
 • 3 years ago • 

@MrAmericanMike Thanks for playing my game, I'll try yours soon this week!

Just a hint: if you want to be ranked you have to create the music yourself (or not have music at all).

MrAmericanMike
  • 3 years ago • 

@ratrogue Ohh ok. Didn't know that, I did check on the submission page where it says "Disable ratings for audio" So maybe that does it. If not well, for the next jam I will be more prepared ;)

ratrogue
 • 3 years ago • 

@MrAmericanMike https://alakajam.com/article/docs/scorespace-x-alakajam-rules - "You must make your own music during the event, even if you opt-out of the audio category." Maybe just remove the music for the ranked entry, and make a special version for people who want to enjoy music?

MrAmericanMike
  • 3 years ago • 

@ratrogue Ohh ok. Thanks, missed those details.

Grossbaff
 • 3 years ago • 

Cool game, I'm generally not a big fan of this kind of game but this is just subjective

Objectively everythings works well, nothing much to say that haven't been said, selecting the pipes with the keyboard would have been nice in my opinion and maybe adding the button to control the sound inside the game would have been more comfortable but this is details. Other than that congrats for your game !

MrAmericanMike
  • 3 years ago • 

@Grossbaff Thanks for the feedback. Yes as I was doing the play through the version I was going to upload just to set a score to submit, I was thinking that having keys associated with pipes selections would have been great to have, specially for speedrunning it, not having to go select the pipes with the mouse.

Thanks for playing and submiting score.

dorkulon
 • 3 years ago • 

Great job on this fun little jam game. Reminded me of Pipe Dream from the windows entertainment pack but with more of a focus on competitive high scoring. I was maybe missing some kind of challenging mechanic that would push me even more (e.g. the water beginning to gradually flow a la Pipe Dream). The sound effect was maybe a bit much since it came up every time I hovered over to pick an object with my mouse. Overall, though, great job! :)

MrAmericanMike
  • 3 years ago • 

@dorkulon Thanks a lot for the feedback. Yes been my first jam ever I didn't want to get catch into trying to implement many mechanics and I agree, it's not so challenging as it it, limited pipes would have been great, but also require more time for the level design.
For the sound effects on pipe, maybe I should have leave it only on click and not on hoover, agree.

Mills !
(@Mills_Himself) • 3 years ago • 

Well, I won't say this game is bad, but it's pretty basic.

The overall concept is great (I like the "connect the pipes" games), but the UI is not good, we never know which pipe is selected, there is scroll bars on the right and bottom of the game, and I couldn't manage to finish a level, even when the houses were connected to the water.
Also (but it's more personnal because I'm on laptop right now), I don't like the idea to use a middle click when the left click (place and rotate) and right click (remove) could perfecly be used.

But anyway, that was not that bad.

BPM
 • 3 years ago • 

The game fit well with the theme although the colors didn't work well together. Overall the game was pretty fun.

TomBuston
 • 3 years ago • 

Hi, it's a already a nice game, but as said above there's some things that can be done to improve it. It's mainly about adding more feedbacks and juice to the game, like being able to see the water flowing through the pipes when testing the level.
Adding some custom level design with pipes constraints could have been great also as it felt a bit easy and the challenge was really on the speed of completion instead of the puzzle itself.
Sadly time is always an ennemy during game jams, so well done for what you did considering it's your first one !

MrAmericanMike
  • 3 years ago • 

@Mills_Himself Thanks for the comments and feedback. For sure needs way more polish, but my first experience, so a lot to learn from here. The scrolling, you are the first one mentioning it, I assume that's because of the screen width. I noticed a bug in Phaser that if the screen is resized once the game loaded, the mouse clicks are innacurate. Maybe it's related to that. As to all houses been connected, the level should complete, as far as I tested, didn't encounter any problem with that. Yes I should have added a pipe selected indicator, I had that on the TODOs but, never got to it, my bad there.

@BPM Now that you mention, I guess I should have used some color palette instead of winging all random colors :P

@TomBuston Thanks a lot for playing and the feedback. Been my first time I was more focused on "finishing something" that implementing all I wanted for the game. Specially cause I did it mainly in 2 days as Monday I was busy with work. But with the time and experience if I join future Jams, for sure I will aim a bit higher.

thomastc
 • 3 years ago • 

Definitely spot on with the theme! Lots of polish in the menu, unfortunately not so much in the game itself. I played with sound effects, but they get really annoying really quickly.

As to gameplay, I have two suggestions. One is to add some more challenge. Right now it's easy to connect everything, it just takes time. You could do this by adding time pressure, but it might be more interesting to add some more puzzle aspects instead, for example limits on each type of pipe shape that you can use, so you have to get creative.

The second suggestion is to improve the way you place pipes. Going back up to the top of the screen and then clicking where you want to place it is quite tedious. Instead, why not just click and drag where the pipes should go, and have the game figure out what shape they need to be to connect to neighbouring tiles?

And I think I found an exploit:

I guess the code is just checking that everything is connected, but not what it's connected to :)

MrAmericanMike
  • 3 years ago • 

@thomastc Ohh damn… I though about that during the development, but I guess I forgot to check for that, I even planned on adding a check to see if the pipes were connected to water, but I guess I totally forgot about it :P
Nice bug I have now :P
I wonder if it should be fixed, or too late now :P Hopefully it doesn't matter for the ratings, it will matter for sure, for those submitting highscores.

hattoum
 • 3 years ago • 

It's a well-executed spin on an old classic, what's not to like. That said I would have loved to get some interactivity in the game.
Like, it was difficult to know which pipe I'm currently placing. The map is also static no matter what you do, some visual ques that a house/water is connected would have been nice.
Nice little game, really well done!

MrAmericanMike
  • 3 years ago • 

@hattoum Thanks for the feedback. At some point I may do a rewrite just for fun and apply a lot of the suggestions. Really cool feedback and a lot of ideas here, some I knew I needed, but been my first jam I just focused on been able to submit something on time. Lot of improvement needed. (Specially with the bug that Thimastc found) LOL

Thanks for playing.

Yaro
 • 3 years ago • 

The game is nice, but other that the speed run, there is not a lot of challenge.
Some additional animations would've been nice too, like the selected pipes, connected houses to water, water flowing etc.
However I understand that in order to add stuff you need way more time to finish the project.
I did enjoy it, good job!

TrustMe
 • 3 years ago • 

Nice game, could do with more impact, maybe particles or screen shake when things get connected. :D

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