Ludum Dare 46: Tiny Fragments

“Tiny Fragments” by Daniel Moreno.

“Connect fragmented pieces of a level to help our protagonist get its food. Be careful and keep it away from the hazards!”


Some days ago, we recommended “Tumble Baby” on our Twitter account, a highly enjoyable puzzle game made by Will Blanton. Just like “Tiny Fragments”, it was made for the Ludum Dare 46. Also, both jam submissions share a very similar concept: You drag pieces of the game world grid around to create hopefully safe travel paths for your little character, so that they reach their goal. While in Blanton’s game the baby wanted to reach a teddy bear, the figure of Moreno’s jam entry craves for a fruit.

Of course, the real big difference between both submissions lies in another part of the gameplay. The only limit in “Tumble Baby” for the player’s manipulation skills was the fact that one single piece could only be moved when an adjacent slot was empty. “Tiny Fragments” tried another approach: Here you have also to collect keys or press switches, so that certain pieces become unlocked and thereby ready to be moved around.

The combination of a simple control scheme with a clever level design, but also its cute audiovisual representation make “Tiny Fragments” a fun puzzle experience. Especially the animation of how the orange hero reaches from one world piece to another makes my heart pound a bit faster, because it just looks so adorable! So you better try it out for yourself; and if you like such concepts in general, you better give “Tumble Baby” a closer look too. This is truly a good day for all lovers of pixel art and good puzzle design. [PLAY]