Junk
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
The more you have, the worse it is for other people.
Junk is a variation of the familiar falling-blocks puzzle game. When you start a game of Junk, you don’t play on an empty board. Instead, you play on the finishing board of someone else’s game. And when you’re done, any mistakes you make, all junk you collect, will become another's problem in due time, for all time.
Junk requires an internet connection to play.
April 2024 Emergency Update Notes:
If you're checking in here because of the server crash somewhere between April 10th and April 11th, thanks for checking in :). The server has been restored and is operational again, but unfortunately board progress has been lost :(. Currently investigating what went wrong to see if we can prevent it from happening again. No redownloading is necessary at this point, your current Junk client whatever version it is should continue to work.
v0.6 Update Notes:
- Game running way too fast on your computer? Hit F7 to restart the game in a frame-limited mode! The vast majority of people won't need this, but if you do, here you go!
- The game now remembers the location of the game window, and restores it to that location on re-open
- Fixes bug where extra spaces or lines at the end of your keymap configuration file would cause the keymap to not parse correctly.
v0.5 Update Notes:
- You can speed through board loading/growing animation by hitting "Escape"
- You can change the game controls through editing a config file (read the README.md for instructions)
v0.4 Update Notes:
- Updates internal engine to LOVE v11.4
- Speeds up all delayed animations slightly (text typing, initial board growth)
- Fixes issue where moving the block right during a floorspin was penalized (in contrast with spinning the block, or moving it left)
- Fixes issue where you couldn't charge a movement during an animation (e.g. a line clear, a camera scroll)
Post-LD (v0.3) Update Notes:
- Decrease visibility of ghost block
- Show score during Outro scene
- Change "Junk" color to green when you've cleared more Junk than you've created
- Added improvements for repeat players (only applies on second play)
- Shows intro-skip indicators
- Increases board animation speed
- Changes game title to include username of previous board owner
- Saves specified username for quick submission
Download
Install instructions
Download the .zip file and extract it to play the game.
On MacOS, if you have trouble starting the game, try right-clicking on the application and opening it from the menu.
Development log
Comments
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I think the server crashed again, just got the same error screen chazzybara did a few months ago
As always, thanks for reporting! Server rebooted.
As always, thanks for maintaining the server! Have a good rest of your weekend. =)
went to play just now and got this error
Error
main.lua:831: main.lua:708: attempt to get length of local 'boardStr' (a nil value)
Traceback
[love "callbacks.lua"]:228: in function 'handler'
[C]: in function 'error'
main.lua:63: in function 'resume'
main.lua:831: in function 'update'
[love "callbacks.lua"]:162: in function <[love "callbacks.lua"]:144>
[C]: in function 'xpcall'
Thanks for the heads up, this was a server crash. I’ve restored the server and the game is functional again.
new update on the piling up junk:
after having the lowest 2 fields effectively reset multiple times over the past few days, i've now managed to get every field over 1500 clean lines, and planning to push even further.
i did also notice it's starting to take a couple seconds to actually load in the fields instead of happening almost instantly, and i suspect this will only get worse as i go higher. not sure if much can be done about that but it felt like i should at least point it out.
I am on your team helping you with this project. From time to time I'll notice an empty square and when that happens I drop L and S pieces until I get down there, fix it, and then we build back up, better.
we are both friends and rivals on the battlefield
As of yesterday I changed my mind and now I want to make a 6-3 board.
okay :)
because of the thing below i found a bug:
the board doesn't get saved if you go over 1600 lines
realized this after cleaning up another guy's mess but getting the same board with the same name again multiple times
(as a result there's currently 2 fields i can't build up any further)
That’s strange, I wonder what’s happening. Thanks for reporting, I’ll take a look when I can.
Alright, I'm not certain it'll work but I think I've gotten in a temporary fix that'll let you build further. No game updates, it's all on my end. Tell me if works! If it doesn't, then it's gonna be quite a bit longer before I figure something out lol.
can confirm it works, just came across a field last played by futonmania which was up to 1656 lines
will let you know if it breaks again at any higher number
i've decided to actually start piling up junk rather than just clearing it all
i'm not a monster though, so i'm stacking it all up cleanly with a right side well
goal: maxing out the junk counter to see if anything happens
current status: 1k reached on one of the fields
Fun! I was trying to do the opposite for a while—one wide I beam tower on the left, keep everything else as low as possible.
it does surprise me how easily people mess up an easy tetris setup like that, had to fix fields multiple times over the past few hours, digging down as much as like 60 blocks in some cases, but i got 4/5 fields into a state where i'm steadily building them up now c:
the fifth one will follow once the 500ish lines there are also cleaned up ;3
little update: got the highest field up to 1500ish, and two more over 1k
4th has been stagnant around 500 and got the final field all cleaned up just now
also came across the guy with the silly username ingame earlier which gave me a good chuckle (i think they gave up after the reply they made here, if not for good at least for today)
side note: i think it would be fun to have a way to actually view the full fields and see how they're built up (browser would probably work best for that?)
you have ruined me
imagine making a whole account just for that xD
i think something might've broken with that latest update, i'm getting the same error as the other guy in both versions as well, when it worked fine before
Responded to the other comment, but there was an issue with the game server. I’ve restarted it and things should be OK now.
can confirm it works again now c:
(Windows 64 bit) When I load the game there's a pause where the game window is all white, then it starts up as normal. If I hit escape or wait for the text "made a real mess of things" to appear, I get a baby blue screen with this text:
So far I've reinstalled the game, restarted the computer, restarted the computer and then reinstalled in a new location, and nothing seems to work. Any ideas?
Forgot to mention this is happening with v0.6. I just tried 0.5 and got the same result.
Thank you for the heads up! Something affected the game server, I spun it back up and now the game should be running again. I’ll try looking into what causes the crash so it doesn’t happen again/it recovers faster next time.
Thanks so much for letting me know! And thanks for making the game in the first place, it's a lot of fun and I play it way too much =P
Glad you continue to enjoy it! Definitely feel free to report back here if you run into any other issues!
Hello, I'm sorry to say that I'm getting the same error screen again. But that gave me some time to play invertebrae, which was a lot of fun!
The server crashed in a real bad way this time, thank you for telling me. I've gotten the server back up again, but I had to reset the boards :(
When I have some time I'll try to figure out exactly what happened so I can prevent it from happening again. Regardless, thank you for the report, and I'm happy you're still enjoying the game!
This is a really fun take on tetris! My only request is to add more boards so the shuffle and make it so you're less likely to encounter a board you just completed.
This game is so much fun, I've been playing it for like an hour just trying to chip away at the boards.
I think the only problem I've noticed is if you get close enough to the bottom, the screen scrolls past the floor, and it's the same color as the background so it kinda looks like the blocks are floating; just a weird visual quirk.
You can look at the included README for instructions on how to change controls! It even includes a sample control set for folks who are used to up-as-rotate.
And to skip all the setup, you can hit "Escape". The game will tell you this if you play more than once.
Can you see the readme on the itch app?
The itch app should let you view local files (maybe right click on the game?), but if it doesn't, you can see the README online here: https://github.com/y2bd/junk/blob/master/README_DISTRIB.md
Also note that this only works on the Windows version of the game. Unfortunately I've not been able to get my hands on a Mac to republish the game with the latest changes yet, apologies if that's what you're playing.
no more junk again, this time actually at the end
honestly a shame that it didn't seem to give any sort of special message, or actually counts that board as finished (refreshed a couple times, wondering if i'd see it again and i did)
also related, how many different boards are there actually in total? i know there's a limited amount cause i couldn't easily get repeats otherwise, but i can't actually put a number on it
There are five normal boards, and one special board that can’t be changed (the THX board).
>actually counts the board as finished
It’s never really over 😉. Congrats on the all-clear though!
huh, i had no idea the thx board was immutable. i just figured it replaced ones if one somehow got a full clear
this does create something of a mystery as to how one board distinctly had an odd number of blocks on it though. hmm
I might have done a little manual board editing when I first released the game back in 2017 ;)
no more junk
cool
my fatal flaw is that i think i can clear all 749 lines in 2 minutes
true SRS agent here
incredible. five stars
Fun idea! However me being used to up for rotate really threw me off and I would love some control mapping options.
Glad to hear you liked the game! If you're still playing, I just published a version that has control remapping.
Oh, that's great to see.
I have a weird keyboard layout where z, x, left, and right are all next to each other on the left hand and up & down are on the right hand!
Well, not bad Tetris twist off. I like that!
Very silly. lovely
It's way to fast ;;;;
Takes too long to load the board. Also I'm not used to the controls, and I make unwanted mistakes because of that.
You know, I would totally be down for cleaning communal Tetris garbage for an afternoon, except I hate the fact that every two minutes I have to wait two minutes for the board to scroll up. The scroll is funny the first time you open the game, but I wish it was skippable from then on.
really wish I could change the controls, i keep hard dropping and making more junk instead of rotating :(
happened after text `the last person...` in a Win64 Post-LD version:
Error main.lua:752: attempt to concatenate global 'returnName' (a nil value) Traceback main.lua:752: in function 'update'
[C]: in function 'xpcall'
Nice game!
took a solid five minutes for the whole thing to scroll upwards
Very nice game!
Awesome twist on tetris, very addictive
Is there an option to change control input? I find it confusing to use my right hand for movement.
But love the game, its an interesting concept and a great help for me to get to know what stuff i can do using the LOVE Engine.
what's the difference between normal and post-LD
i got your board on post-ld
oh and the difference is apparently this
Post-LD Update Notes:
This is quite the twist on the tried and true Tetris formula. Well done and a ton of fun! :D
Felt called out after being accused of being part of the SRS, of course, i would never try to T-spin triple, haha... yeah, fun stuff though, longest intro i've seen though
i feel like a fraud for being a tetris nerd and not getting that's what that was referencing, oh my god
Nice