In Path of Aratron, you can send a little demon to visit Dreams. You can control the demon by placing stones on Glyphs. 

Each stone is part of a path and will trigger one after the other once you start the summoning ritual.

Solve 25 puzzles of increasing difficulty, you will need to carefully plan ahead and reuse part of your stones, as you don't have an infinite number of them.

This is a programming game inspired by the game Lightbot, it has been made in 72h for Ludum Dare 55

  

You can reset the level (clear all stone) by going into pause menu (press enter)

Controls:

- Mouse (recommanded)

 - maintain left click on a stone to drag it

 - right click on a stone to delete it

 - left click on a path to insert an intermediary stone

- The keyboard can emulate the mouse (key c for left click and v for right click)

- Gamepad also works


StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5, Windows, macOS, Linux
Rating
Rated 4.7 out of 5 stars
(20 total ratings)
AuthorNuSan
GenrePuzzle
Made withPICO-8
Tags2D, Ludum Dare, Ludum Dare 55, PICO-8, Pixel Art, programming, Retro, Singleplayer
LinksLudum Dare

Download

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Click download now to get access to the following files:

pathofaratron_windows.zip 997 kB
pathofaratron_osx.zip 3.2 MB
pathofaratron_linux.zip 758 kB
pathofaratron_raspi.zip 2.1 MB
PathofAratron_nusan_src.p8 77 kB
pathofaratron.p8.png 36 kB

Comments

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(3 edits)

I am a programmer and find this game to be fantastic. The core mechanics "programming" mechanics are familiar yet exciting because of the polished graphics and sound. The progression in difficulty is perfect; and while the game is by no means easy, I do not think (so far) that it is too difficult. The only issue is that some of the grammar is incorrect and the names aren't always consistent (e.g., Ophiel is sometimes spelled as Aphiel instead). With more content and spelling corrections though I think this could be great game to put on a platform like Steam!

Thanks for enjoying this game!

I'm sorry about the spelling issues, I'm not a native English speaker and this game has been made in limited time (72h) for a game jam so I didn't check for those, my bad

Hello! Really liked this game, so I featured it on my site with some other Pico-8 gems! Keep up the good work! https://erikhoudini.com/the_crypt/arcade/

thanks for the feature, it was a delight to see my game in such good company and read a few nice words about it. Also I like that you think about the labor condition around the creation of the games, pretty cool!

it's small praxis, but I think it's important to get people to think about those conditions

genius

Very fun, it’s good to pass the time!

This is genius... A very creative take on the genre. I am having a lot of fun, thanks! :]

(3 edits)

My gem PBs per LV for now

1 - 4/4
2 - 4/4
3 - 7/7
4 - 8/9
5 - 7/16
6 - 10/16
7 - 13/30
8 - 8/30
9 - 5/30
10 - 15/30
11 - 11/30
12 - 13/30
 

I would like to be abble to know what is the minimum number of gems needed per level. Also gaining something if you get it would be nice.

I don't think there's any intended "lowest stone" solution. It's something we'll have to solve ourselves

Path to the comments.

(1 edit)

Great game and you lied in level 6

Almost every level are solvable without Surgat.

And all are solvable with only one gem on call Surgat

Haha, yeah, a lot the puzzle I knew could be done with only 2 Demons, but I didn't know there would be so many. For most of them, I decided I preferred to leave lost of stones and all 3 demons so people can solve them how they want.

By "only one gem on call Surgat", do you mean "one yellow gem only, and it's on Surgat" or something else?

(2 edits)

no, I'm talking about putting at most one gem on call Surgat (meaning we only use Surgat as  "aditional gems" and not as "aditional loops"/"aditional repeating paterns")

I've been trying to beat every level with only 2! You also seem to do Level 6 more optimally than me. :p We should get in touch and see if the whole game can be done with only 2 demons or smth

(2 edits)

Those are the levels I dindn't manage to do with only 2 demons:

10, 12, 13, 17,  23

And of those I think 10, 17 and 23 are impossible to be done with only 2 demons (for 12 and 13 I won't make any affirmation but they most likely aren't solvable with 2 demons too).

If you want I have screenshot of each level I solved using only 2 demons to prove my claims.

I fully believe you because I've beaten all of them you said you did. 23 can actually be done if you just loop a single pattern, 13 and 17 I haven't even found a "2 Path Clear" (you use one Aratron stone to activate the other two, it's technically 2 demon but also not?) for those two, like NuSan has 10 and 12.
I uploaded a video of all my 2 demon setups if you're interested in seeing what I did, but I'd love to see your own screenshots too. You could've found fewer stone/fewer step setups. Hit me up on Discord or smth so it's easier if you wanna! (@holoknight)

Great visual art (this particle!) I'm not up to the challenge but definitely a great #ldjam entry! Well done!

Super cool game ! Levels are well designed and progressive, really cool puzzle game =D