Absolutely stunning. This game is only in early development, but you introduced seven or so game mechanics over the course of only so many levels. This game could become really difficult really fast, and is an excellent puzzler. I'd love to see speed runs of this game when it's fully released. Fantastic job.
Amazing game!
I really enjoyed the level design and how you gradually add each mechanic of the game. The levels will get complex focusing on one mechanic and then get easy to teach you how another works. I think this way of level design works great!
The whole concept of the game is great and having a strong mechanic makes the game so much more enjoyable. The magnet is a great idea and I think you’ve executed it really well.
I have nothing bad to say about this. I watched your Dev Logs and couldn’t wait to play it. Amazing job!
I have only just found this community like 4 months ago, but you've inspired me to make video games. I've always loved making board games (and I still do), but a video game would be an interesting challenge.
After watching your video, I knew I shouldn't give any criticism, because you've probably heard everything by now, (plus it's hard to get me frustrated so anything I bring up will have already be covered).
Congradulations on your mvp. Although it has bugs, and may not work properly in particular cenarios. you have proven your worth to the game development community. and got something infront of us that we can all enjoy.
My only suggestion is do not take all the criticisms to heart its almost a great game, you essentially asked for negative feedback.
This was good. Part of the puzzling is how to use the platforms etc I played using a keyboard and had no issues with the platforming bits.
My only frustration is that it should be one puzzle one room or checkpoint, having to reset and re-do puzzles I already knew the answer to because I got stuck in a trap 3 puzzles over was no good.
I found a bug . When you throw the magnet upwards and try to go up, if the laser touches you, you stay on the laser. The game is stuck, you can't jump and you have no way out of here. :(
Overall, I think the game is good. I can't think of any problems besides the ones you mentioned in your video.
The one suggestion I have as far as iterating on the idea is that you make the magnet a permanent part of the character's equipment. You could take the magnet with you between levels and, prior to introducing the recall mechanic, you could use a level element to give the player back the magnet at the end of the level. That and making the robot visually match the magnet would help show that the magnet is the key element of the game.
I'm playing through at the moment, and as far as bugs go at least, one I see coming up is in the level Electro Magnet. During it, when you jump from being pulled with the magnet to the level's end, if you position yourself to be pulled on the edge and leave the beam with the magnet, landing on the top, the magnet will still want to finish its pull to the electro magnet, making it unable to be taken more than two tiles towards the door. In this particular level it isn't an issue, but were it to be used as a movement tool, it would be shut down because of it not checking if it should finish that pull. Setting the magnet down also does not stop its (unintended) tether.
I really want to play this on my Switch Pro Controller, but it doesn't seem to work with this game immediately, and I'm not too good with this stuff. Can you post some sort of instructions so that we know what to do to get our gamepads working?
All I've done so far is connected my controller via bluetooth to my laptop, I haven't set up a drive or anything. That's usually all I need to do for Steam, not sure about this. The player character keeps jumping and a keyboard occasionally opens up, which responds to my inputs but the player character doesn't.
Some random specs I think I'm supposed to include:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6300U CPU @ 2.40GHz 2.50 GHz
Installed RAM: 4GB
System Type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
There are a few bugs I have found with the game. The most notable of which I will describe now: in the second or third level (Please make an indicator to show the level number) when you are supposed to drop the magnet you can pick it back up again just inside of its pickup field and you get stuck.
Just played through the game a few times and here are some observations. I was playing on a mouse and keyboard because I don't own a controller.
First the good. The mechanic is solid and enjoyable. There is a ton of potential with it! Finding the solution always felt fair, even when it took me a minute to get there. A big part of that was that each puzzle room fit in a single screen, which meant I could take in the entire picture as I went. The progression of new mechanics and their introduction was spot on. I really liked the little robot.
The critique. Sorry it's so much longer than the praise xD It's very easy to sum up what you like without going into detail, but critiquing always feels like it needs more precision to convey exactly what you mean, you know?
Jumping felt very floating, in a way where I never felt like I could reliable execute precise jumps. In particular, it felt like I jumped with an initial speed and if I held the jump button the jump would accelerate the higher I went. Which left me frequently finding myself jumping too high then being frustrated at the slow fall speed and feeling like I was having to wait too long to land so I could try again.
On several of the puzzles, mostly the ones involving the screws, I would figure out the solution pretty early on, then get stuck on nailing down the execution. The screws moved very slowly with no way to reset them quickly after I had already missed on that attempt, so it felt like there was a lot of sitting around waiting to be allowed to retry.
Relatedly, I tried just restarting the level a few times because that was the fastest way to get the room back to it's initial state, only to find myself several rooms back, having to replay through puzzles I had already solved. Which is to say, resetting the entire level when there are multiple rooms can be a frustrating situation, especially when I got myself stuck and had to restart. It would be nice if each individual room was considered its own "level" for the purposes of restarting.
The slow swipe transition to restart levels felt like it took longer than it really needed too. It would be nice to hit a button and pretty instantaneously reset to the start of a puzzle.
The one way platforms felt inconsistent in their rules. Particularly not being able to pass through them upwards with a magnet but then later being expected to drop through them with a magnet. It also felt weird that I couldn't throw the magnet upwards through them.
The slowed movement speed right after landing felt bad. Especially when combined with the floatiness of the jumps. It made the puzzles that required precise movement feel unnecessarily difficult. I frequently found myself trying to avoid jumping whenever possible as a result.
It felt like it took a long time for magnets to respawn.
I feel like I might have solved the last puzzle incorrectly? The one where you have to ride a plug across a spike pit then use the magnet to block a laser to open a pair of locked doors. The solution I came up with was destroying the magnet and hoping the new one would spawn and fall onto the moving plug. If that was the solution, then the lag between the magnet being destroyed and a new one spawning made it feel less like I was getting the timing right and more like I was taking wild stabs at the wrong answer and being punished for it.
Bugs!
Multiple times I got trapped trying to drop down through the one-way platforms. The platform would flip to the open sprite and the robot would freeze halfway through and require resetting the level.
It was possible to grab the hanging switches from a distance, which sometimes meant that if there was an open space, a vertical wall, and a hanging switch recessed behind the wall, I could jump against the wall and hold the grab button and my little robot arms would stretch through the wall to grab it. Which occasionally got me stuck on the wall.
The throw targeting dots seemed to remember their last position and would start the next throw in that direction, regardless of the direction I was holding. So if I threw the magnet left and up, then picked up a new magnet and hit the throw aim button while holding to the right, the indicator would start pointing up and to the left and only change to indicate the new direction if I clicked the throw button a few times. Often I would try to throw the magnet and instead just drop it at my feet (er, wheel I guess).
Throwing a magnet horizontally so that it lands between two one-way platforms would result in it becoming trapped and the level needing to be reset.
When standing on a one-way platform that had another platform above it, moving sideways, jumping, then immediately moving back and forth rapidly (eg, moving right, jump, start alternating the movement keys left, right, left, right, etc) occasionally resulted in the robot slowly zigzaging his way up into the air. Coming in contact with any over surface would immediately cause the robot to start obeying the laws of gravity again.
All that said, this was very fun to play and honestly really impressive to me. It's super cool that you were able to put this game together and get it out there for other people to play. I kinda hope you keep working on it because I would play the hell out of a longer version! Keep up the good work!
On the last puzzle, I'm pretty sure that's how to do it. In stead, what I did was I got to the other side by riding the plug with the magnet. Then I waited for the plug to stop right below the magnet dropper and stepped on the Orange Button. Then I threw the magnet into the spikes and the magnet got on top of the plug.
So, in my opinion, the puzzle was fair, just a little tricky.
hey just wanted to say i found a bug, nothing major just wanted to let you know, the magnet can get stuck on the side of the pull lever's wall, thankfully you're able to get the magnet here by just jumping down from above, but this may impact gameplay in the future
Magnetism is literally everywhere and in everything, your idea of magnets so far feels... simplistic. As in not doing magnetism true justice, where are the magnetic fields? A game is creation where anything can be possible, so let the real world keep magnetic fields invisible to the naked eye. Thankfully this is not the real world, why not show off some of the magic that is usually impossible to see in real life?
What if you develop some kind of toggle between normal vision, and "magnetic-fields-vision." In this "magnet-vision" the robot senses magnetic fields, revealing their rippling interference and interaction between, say, player magnet hands (pro-tip: add tiny magnet hands to ya Boi) and the magnetic fields between everything else on-screen, including platform sections, magnets, and even repellent zones to simplify a level, while also enabling your initial no-go areas, without having to butcher the once elegant and simple level. Having to stop and view the magnetic fields also helps put the brakes on some of that information overload, making the use of the magnetic fields view mode a rewarding one by showing the next order of information only once the player feels ready to tackle it. I hope this made sense as it is difficult to explain the idea, basically picture a magnetic field diagram, with the concentric expanding rings with arrows along those lines showing direction, they could be moving in their respective directions perhaps, but having the field lines warp and change with respect to all other magnetic fields in real-time will not only place heavy focus on MAGNETS, but also enable clearer communication to the player regarding the next step they should take. We all look forward to a reworked, reimagined demo version 2 release, in time that is 😀👍
Maybe start off with your magnet-vision-sensor getting broken, and briefly needing to use a compass, but holding it messes it up to point at your hands, so you have to drop it and move away to help indicate a field near by, helping you locate the replacement for the broken part to your magnetic fields sensor, this starting off strong on the theme of magnets and magnetism.
I feel that making magnetic fields visual and interactive would be extremely satisfying to play with already, then using it to help understand and overcome challenges would only build upon that satisfaction. It would surely allow for plenty of those "Eureka" moments where the player has that moment of noticing their new and unexpected understanding of the game world.
Hi Mark, I accidentally managed to throw the magnet from the bottom to the second platform, when I tried to grab it, it clipped and got stuck in the wall where the arrow shows.
Hello, Mark; and thanks for sharing your game with us! It was really fun to watch how did you planned out and built your game on Youtube, and it feels great to finally see it for ourselves.
Controls:
Now, I've played this game on Windows. The game didn't recognized my gamepad, so I used the keyboard controls . I found it wasn't as bad; I think it is sufficient for basic character movement. However, when it comes to throwing the magnet and/or flinging the character, it IS clunky, since it lacks the precision of the analog sticks.
Now, I am mostly a Keyboard and Mouse fan, primarily due to its quick and accurate response, so I'd personally prefer that set of controls over gamepad. Since there are 2D platformers which use Keyboard and Mouse, it may be a viable way to follow, at least for aiming.
However, if you don't want to have a single mouse cursor roaming around the screen, just for the sake of throwing things around, and not much else (I'm assuming there won't be any shooting?) here is another throwing mechanic, for the keyboard:
While pressing and holding the "Aim" key:
Tapping Left and Right flips directions,
Holding Left and Right Increase and Decrease the strength of the throw, depending on the direction you are facing,
Holding Up and Down adjusts the angle of the throw, between 0 and 90 degrees.
Pressing Pickup/Drop key throws the object/you and ends the Throw action,
Releasing the Aim key before throwing the object cancels the Throw action.
Level Design & Gameplay:
I liked the way you've introduced and expanded on the new concepts as the game progresses, so the gameplay progression was good. I only truly stumped once, at the end...
...which brings me to the visual design. It communicates what is what quite well (Researching for those GMTK videos really did paid off to you! Kudos!) without filling the screen with too many details. But I'd maybe change the spikes into, say, rotating sawblades? I mean, the spikes are an universal danger, allright, but it feels a little weird when those static spikes destroy our robot character, a hunk of *metal*; and even our magnet like it is made of porcelain - which can withstand the red laser, and getting thrown around in magnetic fields... I think that was mostly why I got stumped at the end, even though the game did taught me how the magnet and the spikes react... My 2 cents for visuals.
I personally think the one-way platforms are allright, it forces your character to move in a certain direction, and act as a valve. The game isn't an action game, but a puzzle game, so I'd say considering your movement actions should be a part of it as well. (Think of Portal 2, for example, the excursion funnels, at their core, force you to go towards one direction when you are using them. You can change the direction, or redirect it with portals, but you cannot travel against its flow).
Finally, the sound. The sound does feel juicy, however I've noticed a few quirks here and there. The most apparent one was that the sound sources didn't fade in/out, they stop abruptly once you go a certain distance away. In addition, they also seem to add up on one another - it is very apparent in the chamber with the 3 slow magnetic-lifters-in-a-row, their sound effects overlap and add-up.
In real life, the sound energy (Decibels, or dB) *does* add up, but it adds up logarithmically - base 10, if I recall - meaning to have the twice the amount of dB one unit produces (without altering the loudness of an unit), you need 10 of them, not 2; and 100 of them, if you want to triple the amount, and vice versa.
Anyways, there are my thoughts on the game so far. I am looking forward to see where this game evolves into, and I wish you good luck and a fulfilling creative experience!
Tried a few levels this morning. There's some fun here, but I did note few issues that made me struggle to get a good feeling in game:
The sudden loss of travel when landing discourages jumping and generally makes you feel like a sluggish character.
I miss being able to drop through a thin platform I'm standing on (i.e. D-Pad Down + Jump), especially as if you have to drop off to the side for some puzzles, you feel like you're not fighting the puzzle layout so much as the time penalty from the landing slowdown above.
Reusing the L stick for the throwing is another choice that feels like it constrains my movement/makes me less fluid when I could be moving with L and throwing with R. Appreciate this may be an accessibility choice, but I feel like I'm going to get tired in one hand more than the other if I want a prolonged game.
Something's up with the platform hitboxes and landing. You can stick below the level of the platform.
Magnet interaction with one way platforms seems inconsistent. In some places you can pass through, in some you can't.
Hanging off a rope, I feel like jump should also allow you to disconnect (even if it doesn't give you any vertical boost).
Sound and graphics look nice. Maybe don't have the particles effect following the wheel of the character, when we jump we can see it follow it weirdly.
I think the character should not loose as much momentum when landing. I find it a bit frustrative to be slowed down after each jump.
I liked to grab the magnet in midair because it repositioned the character a bit. It made me think about the mirror temple in Celeste where you can throw and catch a big crystal and it repositioned the character in an interesting way. Maybe you could play with this mechanic also ?
Sorry I did not finish the game, I really don't like puzzle games in general...
Overall, the game is very neat and already has a solid amount of polish to it. Love all the small details like the lights to show the magnetic radius and colour coding. The way the magnet snaps to objects also feels very juicy already.
With that said, onto the nitpicks:
The first panel in the throwing tutorial could be a bit more obvious. Didn’t realize that LT needed to be held down.
Alternatively, it would feel more natural to me if tapping X would drop the magnet, whereas holding X would start the aim and depressing would start the throw. (Probably because I always played Yoshis Island in the fast throw mode.)
The one-way platforms feel somehow clunky. I’m not a 100% sure on why exactly, but every time I had to climb those under time pressures it didn’t feel good climbing them.
On the technical side, it feels like the parallax background isn’t updating at the correct framerate on a high refresh rate monitor. This makes the scrolling feel a bit nauseating and juddery.
Lastly, one thought about the level design: The best levels are those that only work because of the magnet physics of the magnet itself. The one where you need to place a magnet along the path of a magnetic block so it attaches itself for example. On the other hand, the levels where the magnet basically acts like a glorified crate, mostly in the beginning, aren’t nearly as interesting.
I think the big RED crate had to be red in order to attract to the BLUE magnetism, just like the little magnet. Also, gray objects haven't been seen to be magnetic.
First of all I love the art style. I think giving the robot a single wheel instead of legs adds a lot of character to it. I liked the majority of the puzzles and how well you taught new mechanics . The one puzzle that gave me the most trouble was the one with the big red box. Once I figured it out I had that "ahh haa" moment and also "I'm an idiot" feeling.
There were some puzzles that after solving it, the pacing felt a bit sluggish having to wait for a platform to move or a door to open.
On my second play through I looked for bugs and short cuts. I found a few, some you might already be aware of. I recorded my third play though showing some of them. Testing GMTK's Untitled Magnet Game.
I really hope you eventually turn this into a full game :)
Amazing project! Hard enough to just complete something and feel good about it. Left lots of thoughts in the survey, but the biggest note is that while the puzzles were good, I found several situations I knew what I had to do, but it felt like it was taking too long to set it all up.
Would love to see some bigger spaces to traverse. There's potential for where the magnet can take you... I guess the closest and easiest comparison would be sonic style-level design. Where you're leading us through space. I know you're focused on a puzzler, and I think this would still nicely complement your puzzles.
Picturing a small puzzle room, you solve the puzzle, then you have some easy traversal rewards that let you see a bigger open space (hopefully giving some storytelling in the process). Then during that point veterans and curious players may catch "challenge" opportunities to sneak away from the main road and solve more problems using the mechanics.
I'll upload an atrocious screenshot-edit, but just some possible directions to consider. Loved playing this and hope there were some helpful thoughts here. (would be so excited if we got to build levels using your project on GitHub or something)
Hi Mark, I'm also a game dev with 4 years experience, and I'm making an indie puzzle game too (Epiphany City comes out in under 2 months)!
I left feedback and a video of my playthrough here. Thanks so much for the opportunity to play this game, I really loved it and I can't wait to play the full game!
Very lovely game to play, it feels very charming in general, like how the 'robopal' gives a smile when you're attached to something. I immediately want the best for the little robot.
The grey accentuates the part of the puzzles that really matter, but on the other hand also makes it look a bit drab. The little icons next to puzzle elements are quite nice, but are hard to notice at a first glance. I like how you're slowly introduced into the mechanics until you see multiple together in one puzzle. Below are some of my more specific thoughts.
The movement feels a bit "heavy", you don't get started immediately on moving and once you jump it feels like there is a slight delay before you can move again, which makes it all just feel a tad slow.
In general, because you have to wait for a lot of moving parts, the game feels a bit slow to play. There were parts where I was just jumping and moving around waiting for the platform to move. I suggest either speeding things up a bit or making the rooms smaller, so platforms have to move less.
The throwing mechanic is interesting, but doesn't feel very necessary in the puzzles. It also feels like there's a disconnect between going into aiming mode (hold trigger) and then having to press another button to throw it. I kept forgetting to press the final throw button during the final puzzle, for example.
During the final puzzle I got stumped until I got the hint that the spikes were part of the puzzle. An object getting destroyed because of a death zone feels so mundane in comparison to the rest of the puzzle element that it just fades into the background, especially because the other elements are all bright blue, red and green, while the spikes are just grey like other level elements.
I'd suggest making the laser beams instant-death. I managed to skip past puzzles twice once I figured out the timing for the magnet to block the laser, but a reset would've blocked that path.
I agree with a lot of the other commenters on the movement needing some tweaking (specifically, the stop when landing from a jump isn't very fun), and needing objects in the environment to move faster so there's less waiting. Overall though this idea has a lot of promise.
On a less feedback-related note, I got stuck on 4-3 (the level in the picture) and didn't quite finish the game as a result. Does anyone here have any tips? I'd rather not leave it unfinished.
This one was very difficult, my advice is not to try to use "platforming timing" to try to solve it. You know where the magnet needs to be, when it needs to be there, and there is only one way to do that...
Thanks, this helped! Your comment confirmed for me that I knew the right spot for the magnet, and after that it was just a matter of pulling it off... which I don't think I did the way it was intended after all lmao. But hey, a solution's a solution :P
Nice job so far! I found myself playing for quite a while and had a good time doing it :)
Few additional thoughts...
I enjoyed solving the puzzles and it felt good to crack some of the more tricky ones.
I appreciated that there are no enemies / moving threats (at least in these early stages), so there's time to assess and think about each area
I got stuck on the puzzle room with the red block in the middle - I felt like I got trapped between the blocks and had to die on the spikes to retry? (the comment below about adding numbers to the rooms during development is a great idea... could even be baked into the art)
I felt the character movement was a little slow to get started, and also would have appreciated a little more control over jumping, and letting go of the magnet
The throwing mechanic felt a little unreliable as noted in other comments; feels like perhaps there's a hold-to-power aspect to it which isn't visualised in the throwing arc?
Art-wise, it could be good to use colours more immediately communicate object relationships - for example if the magnet had blue tips, it'd be really clear it gets attracted to blue blocks. This could apply more widely with the green connectors and so forth, and might help the player get a more immediate 'read' on the whole room.
Some larger overarching goal would go a long way to maintaining motivation; I found myself wanting to have a sense of progression
Thanks for sharing this, been enjoying following your progress on the videos too.
The idea with the magnet is nice, and, overall, the puzzles were alright, but here's a couple of things that I didn't like:
- most of all, the character controls are not good; the jump felt floaty, the movement was unresponsive; throwing the magnet felt junky; whenever you fall on the ground, you slow down for some reason... a big room for improvement in my opinion
- a lot of time is wasted on waiting for all the mechanisms to move; please, make them move faster!
- in the later part of the game there were a couple of puzzles that solved themselves for me; I simply jumped on some buttons in a random order to see what they did and found myself solving the puzzle, not realizing what exactly I did to solve it; maybe it's just luck though
- the last puzzle was quite easy for me, I feel like it should've been harder
The puzzle design and the way you teach mechanic is really nice, never stuck in one screen for too long but not feel like it is too easy.
Only think I don't like in this game is most of the moving block is too slow and I feel like I have to wait for too long for it to go back in place to try a new solution.
I don't know if this is a bug or a feature but player character cannot jump while stand on the moving blue block, and horizontal momentum seem to reset on landing.
Overall this is the start of a solid puzzle game. Already the pacing and available mechanics were great. I felt clever solving some of the later puzzles, and never bored that I was re-using the same tools to work my way to a solution.
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Observations
Previous games have taught me that I can probably pass through one-way platforms horizontally.
I could imagine speed running a puzzle game like this, and while its possible managing your weight and momentum might ultimately be part of the puzzle, losing speed when landing after a jump didn't feel fun.
First puzzle with pull down lever seemed to be directing me to puck up the magnet again, but then nothing happens. Maybe it needs a stronger hint? Button indicator next to the pull switch?
In one of the first puzzles with with a one-way platform, I was surprised I couldn’t throw the magnet through the platform, but ultimately accepted that behavior. In the next puzzle, the passing through a one-way platform while holding the magnet is the solution.
One puzzle has you hold a magnet to ride up in the magnetic field, then the expectation is to release the magnet to get to a nearby platform. Visually it looked as if I was running into an invisible wall, and not that the magnet was being pulled towards the nearby electromagnet.
On occasion I felt a bit of frustration related to the magnet getting hung up on low platforms while carrying it, or in having to setup a puzzle multiple times after failing the final step. In those moments I wanted platforms and drills to move a bit faster. I think those frustrations let to me sitting and staring at the puzzle a little longer as opposed to experimenting with a solution.
Aiming a throw felt unreliable. The indicator often didn't show the actual path and a precise throw never really felt necessary. I started to ignore the indicator and mostly just threw up and to the right, or up and to the left and it worked.
Bugs
Holding left trigger without pressing a direction can show the throw indicator, but then the magnet does not get thrown without holding a direction as well.
Suggestions
In QA builds at least, adding an on-screen label to each puzzle would make it easy to provide feedback on specific puzzles.
Pressing a button to leave a level would allow more opportunity to explore and possibly discover secrets.
Allowing a small jump (maybe only horizontally) while hanging from a magnet would make some of the later puzzles less tedious since they require setup before attempting the jump.
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Thanks for inviting this community to take a look at an early build. Keep up the momentum, this game is going to be great!
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Comments
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not very good. Nothing special. At least to the point I've played
Absolutely stunning. This game is only in early development, but you introduced seven or so game mechanics over the course of only so many levels. This game could become really difficult really fast, and is an excellent puzzler. I'd love to see speed runs of this game when it's fully released. Fantastic job.
Amazing game! I really enjoyed the level design and how you gradually add each mechanic of the game. The levels will get complex focusing on one mechanic and then get easy to teach you how another works. I think this way of level design works great! The whole concept of the game is great and having a strong mechanic makes the game so much more enjoyable. The magnet is a great idea and I think you’ve executed it really well. I have nothing bad to say about this. I watched your Dev Logs and couldn’t wait to play it. Amazing job!
I pretty sure this is not what I'm supposed to do by the way. But I think I got the jiff of the level.
I have only just found this community like 4 months ago, but you've inspired me to make video games. I've always loved making board games (and I still do), but a video game would be an interesting challenge.
After watching your video, I knew I shouldn't give any criticism, because you've probably heard everything by now, (plus it's hard to get me frustrated so anything I bring up will have already be covered).
Keep up the amazing work you do.
Congradulations on your mvp. Although it has bugs, and may not work properly in particular cenarios. you have proven your worth to the game development community. and got something infront of us that we can all enjoy.
cant wait to see the final game ;)
just noitced the first part try to make the fan sound fading not just cut once you leave its trigger area its a very good atmmospheric design
My only suggestion is do not take all the criticisms to heart its almost a great game, you essentially asked for negative feedback.
This was good. Part of the puzzling is how to use the platforms etc I played using a keyboard and had no issues with the platforming bits.
My only frustration is that it should be one puzzle one room or checkpoint, having to reset and re-do puzzles I already knew the answer to because I got stuck in a trap 3 puzzles over was no good.
My first run through took about 15min.
Linux? Pls?
I concur! Should be simple enough to compile a build for Linux.
In the mean time you can try running it with bottles https://github.com/bottlesdevs/Bottles
Controller support not working on MacOS. Xbox One controller connected over Bluetooth to MacBook Pro 14" with M1 Pro.
Overall, I think the game is good. I can't think of any problems besides the ones you mentioned in your video.
The one suggestion I have as far as iterating on the idea is that you make the magnet a permanent part of the character's equipment. You could take the magnet with you between levels and, prior to introducing the recall mechanic, you could use a level element to give the player back the magnet at the end of the level. That and making the robot visually match the magnet would help show that the magnet is the key element of the game.
I'm playing through at the moment, and as far as bugs go at least, one I see coming up is in the level Electro Magnet. During it, when you jump from being pulled with the magnet to the level's end, if you position yourself to be pulled on the edge and leave the beam with the magnet, landing on the top, the magnet will still want to finish its pull to the electro magnet, making it unable to be taken more than two tiles towards the door. In this particular level it isn't an issue, but were it to be used as a movement tool, it would be shut down because of it not checking if it should finish that pull. Setting the magnet down also does not stop its (unintended) tether.
I really want to play this on my Switch Pro Controller, but it doesn't seem to work with this game immediately, and I'm not too good with this stuff. Can you post some sort of instructions so that we know what to do to get our gamepads working?
All I've done so far is connected my controller via bluetooth to my laptop, I haven't set up a drive or anything. That's usually all I need to do for Steam, not sure about this. The player character keeps jumping and a keyboard occasionally opens up, which responds to my inputs but the player character doesn't.
Some random specs I think I'm supposed to include:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6300U CPU @ 2.40GHz 2.50 GHz
Installed RAM: 4GB
System Type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Edition: Windows 10 Pro
if you insert the game into steam, i belive the inputs will be carried through. also, if you are gonna use nintendo controllers often, try wiinupro
Try using XBOX 360 controller emulator tho
Oh, it's nearly impossible to play using keyboard. Especially when you need to throw a magnet on the fly
What are you taking about? I did it with only keyboard.
But the game was amazing and unique !!!
i cant move with magnet it stucks there
a small bug if i throw a magnet upwards and pick it up ,this happens
There are a few bugs I have found with the game. The most notable of which I will describe now: in the second or third level (Please make an indicator to show the level number) when you are supposed to drop the magnet you can pick it back up again just inside of its pickup field and you get stuck.
Here’s an image of what happens
You can drop the magnet and then grab it again and just keep doing that until it gets unstuck.
Could not play becuase the game did not adjust to my screen size though i could not see some buttons which were of screen.
Just played through the game a few times and here are some observations. I was playing on a mouse and keyboard because I don't own a controller.
First the good. The mechanic is solid and enjoyable. There is a ton of potential with it! Finding the solution always felt fair, even when it took me a minute to get there. A big part of that was that each puzzle room fit in a single screen, which meant I could take in the entire picture as I went. The progression of new mechanics and their introduction was spot on. I really liked the little robot.
The critique. Sorry it's so much longer than the praise xD It's very easy to sum up what you like without going into detail, but critiquing always feels like it needs more precision to convey exactly what you mean, you know?
Bugs!
All that said, this was very fun to play and honestly really impressive to me. It's super cool that you were able to put this game together and get it out there for other people to play. I kinda hope you keep working on it because I would play the hell out of a longer version! Keep up the good work!
WARNING: SPOILERS
On the last puzzle, I'm pretty sure that's how to do it. In stead, what I did was I got to the other side by riding the plug with the magnet. Then I waited for the plug to stop right below the magnet dropper and stepped on the Orange Button. Then I threw the magnet into the spikes and the magnet got on top of the plug.
So, in my opinion, the puzzle was fair, just a little tricky.
smh no linux
hey just wanted to say i found a bug, nothing major just wanted to let you know, the magnet can get stuck on the side of the pull lever's wall, thankfully you're able to get the magnet here by just jumping down from above, but this may impact gameplay in the future
How do you reset the level on a keyboard?
you can click space button to restart the level and K to quit the game.
Magnetism is literally everywhere and in everything, your idea of magnets so far feels... simplistic. As in not doing magnetism true justice, where are the magnetic fields? A game is creation where anything can be possible, so let the real world keep magnetic fields invisible to the naked eye. Thankfully this is not the real world, why not show off some of the magic that is usually impossible to see in real life?
What if you develop some kind of toggle between normal vision, and "magnetic-fields-vision." In this "magnet-vision" the robot senses magnetic fields, revealing their rippling interference and interaction between, say, player magnet hands (pro-tip: add tiny magnet hands to ya Boi) and the magnetic fields between everything else on-screen, including platform sections, magnets, and even repellent zones to simplify a level, while also enabling your initial no-go areas, without having to butcher the once elegant and simple level. Having to stop and view the magnetic fields also helps put the brakes on some of that information overload, making the use of the magnetic fields view mode a rewarding one by showing the next order of information only once the player feels ready to tackle it. I hope this made sense as it is difficult to explain the idea, basically picture a magnetic field diagram, with the concentric expanding rings with arrows along those lines showing direction, they could be moving in their respective directions perhaps, but having the field lines warp and change with respect to all other magnetic fields in real-time will not only place heavy focus on MAGNETS, but also enable clearer communication to the player regarding the next step they should take. We all look forward to a reworked, reimagined demo version 2 release, in time that is 😀👍
Maybe start off with your magnet-vision-sensor getting broken, and briefly needing to use a compass, but holding it messes it up to point at your hands, so you have to drop it and move away to help indicate a field near by, helping you locate the replacement for the broken part to your magnetic fields sensor, this starting off strong on the theme of magnets and magnetism.
I feel that making magnetic fields visual and interactive would be extremely satisfying to play with already, then using it to help understand and overcome challenges would only build upon that satisfaction. It would surely allow for plenty of those "Eureka" moments where the player has that moment of noticing their new and unexpected understanding of the game world.
I love that idea, it could definitely make some interesting puzzles and art.
Hi Mark, I accidentally managed to throw the magnet from the bottom to the second platform, when I tried to grab it, it clipped and got stuck in the wall where the arrow shows.
Hello, Mark; and thanks for sharing your game with us! It was really fun to watch how did you planned out and built your game on Youtube, and it feels great to finally see it for ourselves.
Controls:
Now, I've played this game on Windows. The game didn't recognized my gamepad, so I used the keyboard controls . I found it wasn't as bad; I think it is sufficient for basic character movement. However, when it comes to throwing the magnet and/or flinging the character, it IS clunky, since it lacks the precision of the analog sticks.
Now, I am mostly a Keyboard and Mouse fan, primarily due to its quick and accurate response, so I'd personally prefer that set of controls over gamepad. Since there are 2D platformers which use Keyboard and Mouse, it may be a viable way to follow, at least for aiming.
However, if you don't want to have a single mouse cursor roaming around the screen, just for the sake of throwing things around, and not much else (I'm assuming there won't be any shooting?) here is another throwing mechanic, for the keyboard:
While pressing and holding the "Aim" key:
Level Design & Gameplay:
I liked the way you've introduced and expanded on the new concepts as the game progresses, so the gameplay progression was good. I only truly stumped once, at the end...
...which brings me to the visual design. It communicates what is what quite well (Researching for those GMTK videos really did paid off to you! Kudos!) without filling the screen with too many details. But I'd maybe change the spikes into, say, rotating sawblades? I mean, the spikes are an universal danger, allright, but it feels a little weird when those static spikes destroy our robot character, a hunk of *metal*; and even our magnet like it is made of porcelain - which can withstand the red laser, and getting thrown around in magnetic fields... I think that was mostly why I got stumped at the end, even though the game did taught me how the magnet and the spikes react... My 2 cents for visuals.
I personally think the one-way platforms are allright, it forces your character to move in a certain direction, and act as a valve. The game isn't an action game, but a puzzle game, so I'd say considering your movement actions should be a part of it as well. (Think of Portal 2, for example, the excursion funnels, at their core, force you to go towards one direction when you are using them. You can change the direction, or redirect it with portals, but you cannot travel against its flow).
Finally, the sound. The sound does feel juicy, however I've noticed a few quirks here and there. The most apparent one was that the sound sources didn't fade in/out, they stop abruptly once you go a certain distance away. In addition, they also seem to add up on one another - it is very apparent in the chamber with the 3 slow magnetic-lifters-in-a-row, their sound effects overlap and add-up.
In real life, the sound energy (Decibels, or dB) *does* add up, but it adds up logarithmically - base 10, if I recall - meaning to have the twice the amount of dB one unit produces (without altering the loudness of an unit), you need 10 of them, not 2; and 100 of them, if you want to triple the amount, and vice versa.
Anyways, there are my thoughts on the game so far. I am looking forward to see where this game evolves into, and I wish you good luck and a fulfilling creative experience!
Sincerely;
Shroudeye
Tried a few levels this morning. There's some fun here, but I did note few issues that made me struggle to get a good feeling in game:
Sound and graphics look nice. Maybe don't have the particles effect following the wheel of the character, when we jump we can see it follow it weirdly.
I think the character should not loose as much momentum when landing. I find it a bit frustrative to be slowed down after each jump.
I liked to grab the magnet in midair because it repositioned the character a bit. It made me think about the mirror temple in Celeste where you can throw and catch a big crystal and it repositioned the character in an interesting way. Maybe you could play with this mechanic also ?
Sorry I did not finish the game, I really don't like puzzle games in general...
Have a nice day !
Oh also I find it really polished so it's cool
I recorded my second playthrough, but to save time I muted and sped up the sections where I didn't have too much to say:
I had a lot of fun with this today. I look forward to following the project. Good luck!Overall, the game is very neat and already has a solid amount of polish to it. Love all the small details like the lights to show the magnetic radius and colour coding. The way the magnet snaps to objects also feels very juicy already.
With that said, onto the nitpicks:
Lastly, one thought about the level design: The best levels are those that only work because of the magnet physics of the magnet itself. The one where you need to place a magnet along the path of a magnetic block so it attaches itself for example. On the other hand, the levels where the magnet basically acts like a glorified crate, mostly in the beginning, aren’t nearly as interesting.
(Played on Windows V1.2)
Thank you! The comment "the levels where the magnet basically acts like a glorified crate aren’t nearly as interesting" is really key feedback, cheers
I think the big RED crate had to be red in order to attract to the BLUE magnetism, just like the little magnet. Also, gray objects haven't been seen to be magnetic.
Edit:
Here is my v1.2 playthrough. I attempted to speed run v1.2
I did find a new bug. At the title screen if you pause then reset the level, there will be a overlapping second music track that starts.
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First of all I love the art style. I think giving the robot a single wheel instead of legs adds a lot of character to it. I liked the majority of the puzzles and how well you taught new mechanics . The one puzzle that gave me the most trouble was the one with the big red box. Once I figured it out I had that "ahh haa" moment and also "I'm an idiot" feeling.
There were some puzzles that after solving it, the pacing felt a bit sluggish having to wait for a platform to move or a door to open.
On my second play through I looked for bugs and short cuts. I found a few, some you might already be aware of. I recorded my third play though showing some of them. Testing GMTK's Untitled Magnet Game.
I really hope you eventually turn this into a full game :)
Amazing project! Hard enough to just complete something and feel good about it. Left lots of thoughts in the survey, but the biggest note is that while the puzzles were good, I found several situations I knew what I had to do, but it felt like it was taking too long to set it all up.
Would love to see some bigger spaces to traverse. There's potential for where the magnet can take you... I guess the closest and easiest comparison would be sonic style-level design. Where you're leading us through space. I know you're focused on a puzzler, and I think this would still nicely complement your puzzles.
Picturing a small puzzle room, you solve the puzzle, then you have some easy traversal rewards that let you see a bigger open space (hopefully giving some storytelling in the process). Then during that point veterans and curious players may catch "challenge" opportunities to sneak away from the main road and solve more problems using the mechanics.
I'll upload an atrocious screenshot-edit, but just some possible directions to consider. Loved playing this and hope there were some helpful thoughts here. (would be so excited if we got to build levels using your project on GitHub or something)
Hi Mark, I'm also a game dev with 4 years experience, and I'm making an indie puzzle game too (Epiphany City comes out in under 2 months)!
I left feedback and a video of my playthrough here. Thanks so much for the opportunity to play this game, I really loved it and I can't wait to play the full game!
Thank you David!
That game looks pretty cool.
Hey thanks! I can't wait to see how people react to the full game =)
Very lovely game to play, it feels very charming in general, like how the 'robopal' gives a smile when you're attached to something. I immediately want the best for the little robot.
The grey accentuates the part of the puzzles that really matter, but on the other hand also makes it look a bit drab. The little icons next to puzzle elements are quite nice, but are hard to notice at a first glance. I like how you're slowly introduced into the mechanics until you see multiple together in one puzzle. Below are some of my more specific thoughts.
Cheers for the comment, helpful feedback
I agree with a lot of the other commenters on the movement needing some tweaking (specifically, the stop when landing from a jump isn't very fun), and needing objects in the environment to move faster so there's less waiting. Overall though this idea has a lot of promise.
On a less feedback-related note, I got stuck on 4-3 (the level in the picture) and didn't quite finish the game as a result. Does anyone here have any tips? I'd rather not leave it unfinished.
This one was very difficult, my advice is not to try to use "platforming timing" to try to solve it. You know where the magnet needs to be, when it needs to be there, and there is only one way to do that...
Thanks, this helped! Your comment confirmed for me that I knew the right spot for the magnet, and after that it was just a matter of pulling it off... which I don't think I did the way it was intended after all lmao. But hey, a solution's a solution :P
Nice job so far! I found myself playing for quite a while and had a good time doing it :)
Few additional thoughts...
Thanks for sharing this, been enjoying following your progress on the videos too.
Thank you! Really helpful feedback
The idea with the magnet is nice, and, overall, the puzzles were alright, but here's a couple of things that I didn't like:
- most of all, the character controls are not good; the jump felt floaty, the movement was unresponsive; throwing the magnet felt junky; whenever you fall on the ground, you slow down for some reason... a big room for improvement in my opinion
- a lot of time is wasted on waiting for all the mechanisms to move; please, make them move faster!
- in the later part of the game there were a couple of puzzles that solved themselves for me; I simply jumped on some buttons in a random order to see what they did and found myself solving the puzzle, not realizing what exactly I did to solve it; maybe it's just luck though
- the last puzzle was quite easy for me, I feel like it should've been harder
Cheers Pavel, will work on that - I don't want players to accidentally solve stuff, that's for sure!
The puzzle design and the way you teach mechanic is really nice, never stuck in one screen for too long but not feel like it is too easy.
Only think I don't like in this game is most of the moving block is too slow and I feel like I have to wait for too long for it to go back in place to try a new solution.
I don't know if this is a bug or a feature but player character cannot jump while stand on the moving blue block, and horizontal momentum seem to reset on landing.
Thank you! Yep, waiting for the block to get into position is definitely not fun
Overall this is the start of a solid puzzle game. Already the pacing and available mechanics were great. I felt clever solving some of the later puzzles, and never bored that I was re-using the same tools to work my way to a solution.
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Observations
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Thanks for inviting this community to take a look at an early build. Keep up the momentum, this game is going to be great!
Thanks for this, especially the suggestions at the end. Really appreciate it