Boléresque

Solve the puzzle by rearranging the score of Maurice Ravel's Boléro.

Boléresque was created in one month for Games For Blind Gamers 4. Please rate the game and provide feedback!

The game outputs text-to-speech using your device's screen reader, if one is detected. You can adjust or disable text-to-speech in the game's Options screen. Please see the Known Issues below.

How to Play

You are given a grid of tiles, where each tile is a small piece of music. Your goal is to rearrange the tiles to recreate the beginning of Ravel's Boléro.

There are four tools you can use to manipulate the selected tile:

1. Listen: Hear the tile's music. (This is mostly for people playing with a mouse or touchscreen. If you are using a keyboard or gamepad, you may find it more convenient to use the dedicated shortcuts listed below.)
2. Move: Swap the tile with its neighbor to the left or right. To use this tool, first activate the tool, then press left or right. Focus follows the moving tile.
3. X Mirror: Reverse the order of the tile's notes, so the first note is played last, etc.
4. Y Mirror: Invert the pitches of the tile's notes, so low notes become high notes, etc.

The puzzle grid has two sections (rows): the melody played on piano, and the accompaniment played on cello. There is also a background snare drum part, which you don't need to rearrange. If you find it too challenging to listen to all instruments at the same time, you can adjust each part's volume level in the options.

There are various ways to hear all or part of the puzzle in its current state, and to hear the solution to learn what the music should sound like. Once you think they match, navigate to the Check Solution button (Page Down) to find out if you are correct!

There is currently only one puzzle, but it is randomized to provide some replay value. In the future I hope to add more puzzles with different solutions, sizes, and complexities, as well as a daily puzzle mode.

Controls

The game can be played with a keyboard, a gamepad, or (if you are sighted) a mouse or touchscreen.

Action	Keyboard	Gamepad
Navigate UI and puzzle	Arrow keys, Tab	D-pad or left joystick
Switch focus (puzzle grid or check solution)	Page Up, Page Down	Back (Select) button
Switch tool	Number row 1-4	L/R shoulder buttons
Use tool on tile	Space, Enter	A. (bottom face button)
Hear puzzle tile (press and release)	Shift	X (left face button)
Hear full solution	Shift + Left	X + Left
Hear solution column	Shift + Up	X + Up
Hear puzzle section	Shift + Right	X + Right
Hear puzzle column	Shift + Down	X + Down
Hear full puzzle	Shift + Space	X + Space
Toggle listen mode (see below)	Backspace or L	(No binding)
Pause menu	Esc	Start

If you have difficulty pressing multiple keys at the same time, you can press Backspace or L to enter listen mode, which is equivalent to holding down Shift. Once you are in listen mode, press the up, down, left, right, Shift, or Space key to perform the actions described above. Listen mode automatically ends after you perform the action, or if you press Backspace or L again.

Change Log

As allowed by the jam rules, I have made a few small fixes and improvements after the submission deadline.

March 1

• Fixed the game almost always telling you the solution doesn't match. Oops.
• When you check the solution, your result is now also shown on-screen. Before, it was only read aloud via TTS. Apologies for making the game inaccessible to players not using a screen reader!
• Added keyboard and gamepad shortcuts to switch focus between the puzzle grid and the Check Solution button. The game remembers which tile had focus.
• Moved the Check Solution button to the bottom left instead of bottom right, so the focus order is more logical. The Menu button is now in the bottom right instead.
• Added basic TTS feedback when you use a tool. It's not good but better than silence. Future versions will have sound effects.
• Fixed the game forgetting the TTS voice between play sessions.

March 4

• Fixed the options screen showing everything as zero/off the first time you play. Just in case anyone can't play because TTS was disabled by this bug, all options will be reset the first time you play this version.
• Added a "Reset All Options" button in the debug section of the options screen.
• The check solution screen now tells you how many columns are incorrect, so you know if you are making progress.
• Made the cello patterns easier to distinguish from each other.
• Made TTS less verbose when changing focus between tiles in the same section.

March 7

• Added sound effects when the various tools are used, and when navigating and interacting with the UI. The volume levels can be adjusted in the options screen as "Object sounds" and "UI sounds", respectively.
• Removed annoyingly verbose TTS output when using the various tools, since they have sound effects now.
• Minor performance improvements to music playback. The music may be somewhat less laggy and off-tempo when playing in the browser, although mobile devices will probably still struggle. It is still recommended to download the native Linux and Windows builds for the best experience.

Known Issues

• When playing in the browser, the music may be choppy, clicky, or out of tempo, especially on mobile devices or not-very-powerful computers. I did not have time during the jam to optimize performance. Consider downloading the native executable instead.
• When playing in the browser, the game may warn you that TTS is not available even though it actually is. This happens if the voices list takes a very long time to load. It may fix itself by reloading the page.
• On Linux, TTS may not work in Chrome-based browsers. Try Firefox or download the native executable instead.
• On Windows, TTS can only use Microsoft Narrator voices, even if you are using a different screen reader such as JAWS or NVDA. This is a Godot game engine limitation which I cannot do anything about.