Congratulations on the project, it's a lot of fun, the controls are very responsive (I played using the controller) and the game is giving a lot of feedback, the art is also very beautiful, the puzzles were very well built and executed, just keep it that way, even thougha demo, your game is already a success
Hello, Mark. Thank you for your YouTube series. As a fellow game developer, it's great to watch. I have some thoughts, but they are subjective, so please take this with a grain of salt:
While the gameplay is good, the character controller is well done (acceleration, deceleration, jump, etc), the mechanics are easy to comprehend, the level design is so-so (easy wins should be peppered throughout to give a sense of achievement and flow, i.e. introduce mechanic, next level is easy, then medium, then hard), the game itself is... not fun.
I think to myself, "why am I playing this?". When I play Untitled Magnet Game, I feel like I'm playing a game that's just created for the sake of making a game. The title could just be "Video Game". I don't see the joy in the creativity here. There is loads of creativity, just no joy in it. Perhaps this is done intentionally to just make an MVP, but I feel that joy still make it into an MVP. Joy can be communicated through:
Story (which can give players a reason to finish)
Environment art
Player artwork
Gameplay elements (is there humor to be found in your mechanics?)
Are you having fun making this game? Does it make you smile or chuckle to yourself when you make it? I ask this because it seems like a game someone was obligated to make. Some games are dark, brooding, and serious... but your game here feels like it should have whimsy. There is a whimsical aspect to the character and idea, but there's no whimsy or joy in the gameplay.
Even so, it's still pretty solid as a "video game", it's just not fun to play.
I mean doesn't need to be particularly big. Portal 1 and 2 have very simple stories (barely for the first) but it still makes the game engaging, funny, surprising, etc etc. There's an additional level of engagement. Doesn't have to be super deep you know?
Great stuff! The movement felt smooth and the mechanics are self-explanatory (also nice tutorial! Learn by doing).
Personally, I'm not a fan of 'softlocking' a level, even though there is a reset button it sometimes made me feel there is just a few set-in-stone steps I need to take. Which in essence is true of course... it just feels more like cracking a code (moon-logic in point-and-clicks) than solving a puzzle. Being able to trigger magnet gates without a magnet, or have a path around it, would probably help negate this feeling.
A small bug I found is that in the HUB world, the level reset sprite grows infinitely when holding Ctrl. Easy to fix with e.g. a Mathf.Clamp() on the Sprite transform.localScale, or block the action when in the HUB world.
It took me a couple minutes to realize that I needed to press the bumpers to get through the the options menu with a controller. Also when you go to aim the magnet your character slightly moves as you change angle of your throw which made me fall off of platforms a couple times. I like the single screen puzzles. The puzzles were really fun, the seventh one had me scratching my head for a few minutes.
I liked this a lot better than the initial demo. Solid puzzles, not too difficult, but still satisfying. I personally had no problem understanding mechanics so I could focus on the puzzle solving without being confused.
Just a couple small critiques. I often ended up in a position where I need to reset the level, which I don't think feels super good to be forced to do. Also, the hub - the walk to each level becomes a bit too long, especially later on.
I liked this demo! It feels like you've got a really solid grasp on what you want the game to be, and the puzzles were all excellent.
One minor complaint, regarding the restart system: by default, the control key restarts the level, though 99% of puzzle games (that I play, anyway) map this to the R key. I suppose this could be a problem if the player accidentally presses R, since it's so close to the other keys, but I think it wouldn't be such a big deal if you put up a "Are you sure you want to restart?" screen where the player could cancel the restart. Baba Is You did a similar thing with its restarts, and I think it worked really well.
Anyways, I think you're on the right track, and I'm legitimately excited for where you take this game next!
Overall I enjoyed the game. The game controls well even with a keyboard and mouse. I found the puzzles enjoyable and I was able to complete all the puzzles (aside from the last room) with little frustration. One suggestion I have is to make the hub more interesting. Maybe you could add some platforms or simple puzzles? Also for some reason I kept forgetting to grab the magnet in the hub so I have to go back and get it.
The movement in the V2.0 version of the game feels super good and is super fun to move around, even though you can only jump and change the magnet polarization. The only thing that I didn't like about the controllers is that when you aim to throw the magnet, you can't move around to perfecty aim the way you want, and having to keep pressing the same button to throwing feels odd to me, but maybe is my case because I don't usually play puzzle games. I would put the aim button just one button, the R1 for the PS controllers or the RB for the Xbox controllers.
Some jumps can be a bit tight for a puzzle game, if it were a platform game, it would be fine.
Ending the level just at getting the key, feels odd when you have to enter a room where the key is and it exits the moment you get the key and I feel like this game can benefit from the idea of getting the magnet to get out of the level, but that's up to the developer.
While holding the magnet it's possible to kind of get stuck on a ledge. Holding ctrl (reset) in the hub area is fun. And finally I felt the need for a "Exit" button or just "X" out of the options menu, because the first thing I did in the demo was get stuck in there lol.
I think a separate back button for the controls and the pause menu is definitely needed. Having to press esc in the options menu unpauses the game automatically, which can get annoying.
In addition to that, in my opinion, a "back to main menu" button is missing from the pause button.
2. Controls
Not much to say here, felt great overall after remapping the jump to the W key.
However, when throwing using the mouse, I found it counterintuitive to drag forwards to throw. I think from playing games like Worms and Angry Birds it is engrained in my hands to pull back to throw forwards. While I don't think everyone agrees with me in this regard, an option to toggle between those two would be nice.
3. Gameplay
Once again, good overall, though I do have a few points to consider.
For one, in some levels (or level, I only noticed at the last level) it is annoying that the magnet spawns behind the character. As it took me a while to figure it out, having to run back after each reset made it quite annoying, with me often leaving the magnet behind and having to backtrack again.
Another thing I've noticed is that there is a slight cooldown when changing the polarity, meaning you can't rapidly change it. While it probably makes more sense balancing wise, it would be nice to be able to change the polarities more quickly, without having to wait for the animation to finish.
My last point is to maybe have a dedicated place to give feedback so that it isn't spread out between different platforms. Maybe even putting a link to where you can give feedback in the main menu so that it's easier to give feedback directly after playing.
I really like how the game is coming along. Keep up the good stuff!
THIRD PARAGRAPH CONTAINS SPOILER FOR ONE OF THE PUZZLES
The puzzle mechanics are very inventive, well-designed and fun to use, once you've figured them out. Because the mechanics are so novel you do have to fight your intuition quite a bit, which is pretty tiring if the game were longer.
The game was a lot of fun to play though. Once you're used to the rules of the game world it's just a joy to figure out the quite challenging puzzles! The introduction of new mechanics is also paced well, although the tutorial could be more thorough in showing the player how the character and the magnet interact with al the basic elements in the game world.
A particular example of this: The second puzzle is not very satisfying to solve as I did not know that the magnet falls through the thin platform instead of landing on top of it.
Definitely going to keep an eye on the development progress. Great work so far Mark! :)
Great demo, I enjoyed the puzzles and didn't have any gripes, but one very veeerrrryyyy minor thing I noticed is that in the hub, the magnet trajectory went behind the doors. Obviously, this is something super small, but, although it may have been intentional, I don't imagine it would, so just wanted to let you know. Other than that, again, great demo, I can't wait for more!
Movement feels loads better, and making switching polarity a main mechanic makes the game feel much more magnet-y.
My main criticism is that I really dislike the level automatically ending when you collect a key; it feels like it's taking control away from the player, and training myself to not assume I'll need to find a way out once I've got the key is difficult. It feels strange to knowingly throw the player character into a pit I know it can't get out of just to pick up a key.
There's also a few things that don't work the way I expect them to be looking at them/interacting with them. Throwing the magnet into the pipes is fairly clear what to do but feels disconnected from the rest of the mechanics; perhaps it would be better if pipes are only there to produce magnets and you could throw the magnet onto a switch to open doors or something? Using a mechanic that already exists in the puzzles. Then it felt strange to me that the magnet could fall through certain platforms that the player character can't; I assumed they were solid because the robot stood on them, so didn't think of trying to let the magnet fall through.
Then a few quality of life things could be better; a less tedious hub, puzzles that require less hard resetting, etc.
All in all a really good demo with nice puzzles and a massive step up in terms of it being fun to play.
some of the jumps are a little to tight for a puzzle game. The movement fells alot better.
i feel the exits are not that obvius. I restarted the tutorial level multipule times until i figured out how i was suposed to leave the level.
I found some places that it was posible to get softlocked, i know there is a restart button but it feels kinda bad when you just figured it out just to have to do it all over again.
The hubworld is a good idea. it is kinda bad how you spawn in on the left and all the levels are more and more to the right.
A few minor things but all in all a really good demo.
Definitely enjoyable. One small note - the icon for the magnet fizzler, to steal a Portal term, reads to me as a smiley face, and I did not realize what it was supposed to signify until I walked through it like 3 times.
Controls feel pretty nice. Aiming felt like it was snapping to predetermined paths on controller, but that may have been a result of running the windows version through Wine to play it on Linux.
When I played your old demo, I got frustrated quickly and I did not enjoy the game that much. In this rough demo however, I never really got frustrated and I actually had tons of fun. Got some nice aha moments as well. Very well done, I would love to see this get expanded!
Super fun puzzles but there are some minor problems that whilst not making the game un-fun, are pretty annoying at the very least. The on/off diagonal switches are cute but the collision is a bit weird, you can easily turn them on and while going back turn them off unintentionally, some of them are next to walls and you get "trapped", you can jump out but still. The reset button should have a hotkey because you can easily get soft-locked in almost every puzzle. And the magnet spawning at the same location as you makes it so every time you reset you can't seed your way out of the start of the puzzle, I would probably spawn the player a bit further back or the magnet further in front so as soon as you restart you can just walk forward and grab the magnet on your way. The hub looks good, but going from one extreme to the other the last few levels was a bit tedious. Overall a pretty good demo, loved the color-changing options for the magnet :3.
Just played through the demo and wanted to share a few things. First off the game was very fun. One little technique I found was that you could throw the magnet much further by charging a throw in midair since you could combine the charged throw with the jumps momentum. That was a fun thing I figured out in the endgame lobby... Seems like it could be fun for eventual Speedruns I guess.
Feedback 1. When the game is not in full screen mode the option to make it a maximized window is disabled. This makes it annoying to play if you aren't in fullscreen.
2. Sound Fx would really liven up the gameplay.
3. I notice the magnet trail is rendered behind the metal doors which does not feel right since the doors are rendered behind the magnet. Same for the key signs.
4. In level 1-4 the - is slightly offcenter.
5. On level 1-6 It should be more obvious that the L gate sticks out.
That's All! I had a lot of fun playing this can't wait for the full release.
The hub is a good idea, but it's a bit tedious to spawn at the start and have to walk to and open each level every time. I'd suggest best of both worlds - have you automatically progress from one level to the next with the option to return to the hub and select a different one if you get stuck. Either that or a hub redesign that gets you from one level to the next faster.
I really like the last 2 levels. They do give the "aha" moments.
Only 2 complaints: the rotating doors must be pushed from a far i.e. you step through and can't immediatly turn around. You need to step away. I t would be okay to not show the character moving when stuck on them or walls .
And you can't fall from these platforms, which I'm very used to.
Hey Mark huge fan. Just played through the new demo. Movement is really great. Love the rotating doors as a mechanic. I didn't find any bugs. I really appreciated the feature that let you make the magnet color attract to the same color. In real life opposites attract, but i found that a bit confusing so that setting really helped me. That last level was tricky. I got a mini aha moment for that one for sure. SPOILERS FOR LAST LEVEL SOLUTION---- I think the door that stops the block from rising back up could be a bit longer/ a bit more obvious that its protruding. Other than that i'm super impressed and had fun playing it!
One thing I noticed immediately is that there isn't an obvious exit key for the settings menu — should probably be added or you might see confusion about people being stuck in the menu!
I've been a big fan of your YouTube series, and I'm very glad to see you making your own game!
I don't think I have much to add that wasn't covered in your postmortem video; I agree with most of the feedback. I was particularly bothered by the magnet not being solid when it was on the floor. One thing you didn't mention that bothered me a little is that touching a door automatically forwards you to the next level instead of requiring a button press. I'm just primed to think I have to make characters walk through doors, I guess.
The awkward fusion of action and puzzling was definitely a problem for me. That is something that bothers me a lot in puzzle games, as it's frustrating to not know whether I'm executing the process wrong or if my setup is wrong. I think part of this may also have been the issue with the character controls; I like platform characters that are fast and fluid, with low friction and high acceleration, but this character was very slow and cumbersome, so movement wasn't as fun.
My favorite levels were... uh, I don't remember the names (it might be a good idea to clearly display level names when they start, since it makes it easier for players to give feedback), but the one with the three magnets that could lift the magnet but not the character, and the final one with the moving plug over the spike pit. I found the solutions quite a clever use of the game mechanics.
I did run into an odd bug in the room with the two horizontal lasers, where I threw the magnet above the lower laser when it was in its lower position, and it landed on top of the laser, as if it were solid. Moving the laser eventually made it behave correctly, but that was strange.
I really like the game. the movement is not great, but I like the magnet, and buttons. I think that overall the game is pretty good one other complaint I have is there are to many loading screens. I was wondering if I could have the code for the door and button, or if you used a tutorial a link to it would be really helpful. Thank you for giving it keyboard controls, and releasing the game for people who are not patrons.
Love the concept and the Youtube video series to go with it. Unfortunately I can't get very far as I can't seem to throw the magnet? Controls say aim with Left Shift but that does nothing for me - in fact I tried every key on my keyboard and none of them work for aim?
I got stuck on the last level/last room because I did not know that the magnet could be broken on the spikes. Did never happen to me before that and I it wasn't taught. And i wouldn't expect a metal object to break on some spikes.
Otherwise I had a lot of fun, didn't notice anything that you didn't mention in your video.
The idea is nice, I don't know if you have played Teslagrad before, but it's similar in a way that you have to use magnetic force there too.
The controls feel a bit weird, the player movement could be quicker.
The puzzles were enjoyable in my opinion, they were usually just right - not too easy but not too hard.
For the bugs: I think there was a time when I somehow managed to get the magnet float in the air, next to the side of the wall which had and activated switch in it. When the switch deactivated, the magnet fell back. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but after pressing the button to restart the level, the black background sweeps in from the left (which looks really cool by the way) then it disappears and appears again for loading the level. It might be better if it stayed there.
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ohno.jpg
OMG! It even happened to me in the tutorial section.
In the first image you can change the magnet's polarity to make it go through the door again! In the second one though... yeah...
Congratulations on the project, it's a lot of fun, the controls are very responsive (I played using the controller) and the game is giving a lot of feedback, the art is also very beautiful, the puzzles were very well built and executed, just keep it that way, even though a demo, your game is already a success
Hello, Mark. Thank you for your YouTube series. As a fellow game developer, it's great to watch. I have some thoughts, but they are subjective, so please take this with a grain of salt:
While the gameplay is good, the character controller is well done (acceleration, deceleration, jump, etc), the mechanics are easy to comprehend, the level design is so-so (easy wins should be peppered throughout to give a sense of achievement and flow, i.e. introduce mechanic, next level is easy, then medium, then hard), the game itself is... not fun.
I think to myself, "why am I playing this?". When I play Untitled Magnet Game, I feel like I'm playing a game that's just created for the sake of making a game. The title could just be "Video Game". I don't see the joy in the creativity here. There is loads of creativity, just no joy in it. Perhaps this is done intentionally to just make an MVP, but I feel that joy still make it into an MVP. Joy can be communicated through:
Are you having fun making this game? Does it make you smile or chuckle to yourself when you make it? I ask this because it seems like a game someone was obligated to make. Some games are dark, brooding, and serious... but your game here feels like it should have whimsy. There is a whimsical aspect to the character and idea, but there's no whimsy or joy in the gameplay.
Even so, it's still pretty solid as a "video game", it's just not fun to play.
Keep up the good work and find that joy!
Mark: Hey guys here's a demo for my little puzzle game about a robot who throws a big magnet!
This guy: But where's the lore?
I mean doesn't need to be particularly big. Portal 1 and 2 have very simple stories (barely for the first) but it still makes the game engaging, funny, surprising, etc etc. There's an additional level of engagement. Doesn't have to be super deep you know?
Great stuff! The movement felt smooth and the mechanics are self-explanatory (also nice tutorial! Learn by doing).
Personally, I'm not a fan of 'softlocking' a level, even though there is a reset button it sometimes made me feel there is just a few set-in-stone steps I need to take. Which in essence is true of course... it just feels more like cracking a code (moon-logic in point-and-clicks) than solving a puzzle. Being able to trigger magnet gates without a magnet, or have a path around it, would probably help negate this feeling.
A small bug I found is that in the HUB world, the level reset sprite grows infinitely when holding Ctrl. Easy to fix with e.g. a Mathf.Clamp() on the Sprite transform.localScale, or block the action when in the HUB world.
Looking forward to play more of this!
It took me a couple minutes to realize that I needed to press the bumpers to get through the the options menu with a controller. Also when you go to aim the magnet your character slightly moves as you change angle of your throw which made me fall off of platforms a couple times. I like the single screen puzzles. The puzzles were really fun, the seventh one had me scratching my head for a few minutes.
I liked this a lot better than the initial demo. Solid puzzles, not too difficult, but still satisfying. I personally had no problem understanding mechanics so I could focus on the puzzle solving without being confused.
Just a couple small critiques. I often ended up in a position where I need to reset the level, which I don't think feels super good to be forced to do. Also, the hub - the walk to each level becomes a bit too long, especially later on.
I liked this demo! It feels like you've got a really solid grasp on what you want the game to be, and the puzzles were all excellent.
One minor complaint, regarding the restart system: by default, the control key restarts the level, though 99% of puzzle games (that I play, anyway) map this to the R key. I suppose this could be a problem if the player accidentally presses R, since it's so close to the other keys, but I think it wouldn't be such a big deal if you put up a "Are you sure you want to restart?" screen where the player could cancel the restart. Baba Is You did a similar thing with its restarts, and I think it worked really well.
Anyways, I think you're on the right track, and I'm legitimately excited for where you take this game next!
Overall I enjoyed the game. The game controls well even with a keyboard and mouse. I found the puzzles enjoyable and I was able to complete all the puzzles (aside from the last room) with little frustration. One suggestion I have is to make the hub more interesting. Maybe you could add some platforms or simple puzzles? Also for some reason I kept forgetting to grab the magnet in the hub so I have to go back and get it.
The movement in the V2.0 version of the game feels super good and is super fun to move around, even though you can only jump and change the magnet polarization. The only thing that I didn't like about the controllers is that when you aim to throw the magnet, you can't move around to perfecty aim the way you want, and having to keep pressing the same button to throwing feels odd to me, but maybe is my case because I don't usually play puzzle games. I would put the aim button just one button, the R1 for the PS controllers or the RB for the Xbox controllers.
Some jumps can be a bit tight for a puzzle game, if it were a platform game, it would be fine.
Ending the level just at getting the key, feels odd when you have to enter a room where the key is and it exits the moment you get the key and I feel like this game can benefit from the idea of getting the magnet to get out of the level, but that's up to the developer.
For now is fun overall
While holding the magnet it's possible to kind of get stuck on a ledge. Holding ctrl (reset) in the hub area is fun. And finally I felt the need for a "Exit" button or just "X" out of the options menu, because the first thing I did in the demo was get stuck in there lol.
Most of the levels were too easy, the one level I got that "ah ha" moment in was the last one
Feedback (Keyboard and mouse)
1. Menu
I think a separate back button for the controls and the pause menu is definitely needed. Having to press esc in the options menu unpauses the game automatically, which can get annoying.
In addition to that, in my opinion, a "back to main menu" button is missing from the pause button.
2. Controls
Not much to say here, felt great overall after remapping the jump to the W key.
However, when throwing using the mouse, I found it counterintuitive to drag forwards to throw. I think from playing games like Worms and Angry Birds it is engrained in my hands to pull back to throw forwards. While I don't think everyone agrees with me in this regard, an option to toggle between those two would be nice.
3. Gameplay
Once again, good overall, though I do have a few points to consider.
For one, in some levels (or level, I only noticed at the last level) it is annoying that the magnet spawns behind the character. As it took me a while to figure it out, having to run back after each reset made it quite annoying, with me often leaving the magnet behind and having to backtrack again.
Another thing I've noticed is that there is a slight cooldown when changing the polarity, meaning you can't rapidly change it. While it probably makes more sense balancing wise, it would be nice to be able to change the polarities more quickly, without having to wait for the animation to finish.
My last point is to maybe have a dedicated place to give feedback so that it isn't spread out between different platforms. Maybe even putting a link to where you can give feedback in the main menu so that it's easier to give feedback directly after playing.
I really like how the game is coming along. Keep up the good stuff!
Very, very good game. Good job, very enjoyable to play.
THIRD PARAGRAPH CONTAINS SPOILER FOR ONE OF THE PUZZLES
The puzzle mechanics are very inventive, well-designed and fun to use, once you've figured them out. Because the mechanics are so novel you do have to fight your intuition quite a bit, which is pretty tiring if the game were longer.
The game was a lot of fun to play though. Once you're used to the rules of the game world it's just a joy to figure out the quite challenging puzzles! The introduction of new mechanics is also paced well, although the tutorial could be more thorough in showing the player how the character and the magnet interact with al the basic elements in the game world.
A particular example of this: The second puzzle is not very satisfying to solve as I did not know that the magnet falls through the thin platform instead of landing on top of it.
Definitely going to keep an eye on the development progress. Great work so far Mark! :)
Great demo, I enjoyed the puzzles and didn't have any gripes, but one very veeerrrryyyy minor thing I noticed is that in the hub, the magnet trajectory went behind the doors. Obviously, this is something super small, but, although it may have been intentional, I don't imagine it would, so just wanted to let you know. Other than that, again, great demo, I can't wait for more!
Movement feels loads better, and making switching polarity a main mechanic makes the game feel much more magnet-y.
My main criticism is that I really dislike the level automatically ending when you collect a key; it feels like it's taking control away from the player, and training myself to not assume I'll need to find a way out once I've got the key is difficult. It feels strange to knowingly throw the player character into a pit I know it can't get out of just to pick up a key.
There's also a few things that don't work the way I expect them to be looking at them/interacting with them. Throwing the magnet into the pipes is fairly clear what to do but feels disconnected from the rest of the mechanics; perhaps it would be better if pipes are only there to produce magnets and you could throw the magnet onto a switch to open doors or something? Using a mechanic that already exists in the puzzles. Then it felt strange to me that the magnet could fall through certain platforms that the player character can't; I assumed they were solid because the robot stood on them, so didn't think of trying to let the magnet fall through.
Then a few quality of life things could be better; a less tedious hub, puzzles that require less hard resetting, etc.
All in all a really good demo with nice puzzles and a massive step up in terms of it being fun to play.
I am trying to bind "Move Right" to "E" and it won't let me.
some of the jumps are a little to tight for a puzzle game. The movement fells alot better.
i feel the exits are not that obvius. I restarted the tutorial level multipule times until i figured out how i was suposed to leave the level.
I found some places that it was posible to get softlocked, i know there is a restart button but it feels kinda bad when you just figured it out just to have to do it all over again.
The hubworld is a good idea. it is kinda bad how you spawn in on the left and all the levels are more and more to the right.
A few minor things but all in all a really good demo.
Definitely enjoyable. One small note - the icon for the magnet fizzler, to steal a Portal term, reads to me as a smiley face, and I did not realize what it was supposed to signify until I walked through it like 3 times.
Controls feel pretty nice. Aiming felt like it was snapping to predetermined paths on controller, but that may have been a result of running the windows version through Wine to play it on Linux.
When I played your old demo, I got frustrated quickly and I did not enjoy the game that much. In this rough demo however, I never really got frustrated and I actually had tons of fun. Got some nice aha moments as well. Very well done, I would love to see this get expanded!
Super fun puzzles but there are some minor problems that whilst not making the game un-fun, are pretty annoying at the very least. The on/off diagonal switches are cute but the collision is a bit weird, you can easily turn them on and while going back turn them off unintentionally, some of them are next to walls and you get "trapped", you can jump out but still. The reset button should have a hotkey because you can easily get soft-locked in almost every puzzle. And the magnet spawning at the same location as you makes it so every time you reset you can't seed your way out of the start of the puzzle, I would probably spawn the player a bit further back or the magnet further in front so as soon as you restart you can just walk forward and grab the magnet on your way. The hub looks good, but going from one extreme to the other the last few levels was a bit tedious. Overall a pretty good demo, loved the color-changing options for the magnet :3.
Just played through the demo and wanted to share a few things. First off the game was very fun. One little technique I found was that you could throw the magnet much further by charging a throw in midair since you could combine the charged throw with the jumps momentum. That was a fun thing I figured out in the endgame lobby... Seems like it could be fun for eventual Speedruns I guess.
Feedback
1. When the game is not in full screen mode the option to make it a maximized window is disabled. This makes it annoying to play if you aren't in fullscreen.
2. Sound Fx would really liven up the gameplay.
3. I notice the magnet trail is rendered behind the metal doors which does not feel right since the doors are rendered behind the magnet. Same for the key signs.
4. In level 1-4 the - is slightly offcenter.
5. On level 1-6 It should be more obvious that the L gate sticks out.
That's All! I had a lot of fun playing this can't wait for the full release.
Fun puzzles. Minor thing but holding down the reset level button when in the hub world will cause the offscreen reset icon to expand infinitely.
It also happens in the thanks for playing screen
The hub is a good idea, but it's a bit tedious to spawn at the start and have to walk to and open each level every time. I'd suggest best of both worlds - have you automatically progress from one level to the next with the option to return to the hub and select a different one if you get stuck. Either that or a hub redesign that gets you from one level to the next faster.
I really like the last 2 levels. They do give the "aha" moments.
Only 2 complaints: the rotating doors must be pushed from a far i.e. you step through and can't immediatly turn around. You need to step away. I t would be okay to not show the character moving when stuck on them or walls .
And you can't fall from these platforms, which I'm very used to.
Otherwise it's great.
Found a bug: when you throw the magnet in the hub world, the particles go behind the doors but the magnet goes in front of them.
Hey Mark huge fan. Just played through the new demo. Movement is really great. Love the rotating doors as a mechanic. I didn't find any bugs. I really appreciated the feature that let you make the magnet color attract to the same color. In real life opposites attract, but i found that a bit confusing so that setting really helped me. That last level was tricky. I got a mini aha moment for that one for sure. SPOILERS FOR LAST LEVEL SOLUTION---- I think the door that stops the block from rising back up could be a bit longer/ a bit more obvious that its protruding. Other than that i'm super impressed and had fun playing it!
this looks like you cannot interact with it anymore, but you can
I'm left handed and I set my controls like this:
Move left/right = Left/right arrow
Magnet action = Delete
But in the settings they're all listed as "Print Screen" and everytime I move the magnet changes polarity.
Also, it's not clear that you should throw the key in the pipe at the end of a level.
One thing I noticed immediately is that there isn't an obvious exit key for the settings menu — should probably be added or you might see confusion about people being stuck in the menu!
Man, i've been trying to make a game of this calibre for a long time.
I've been a big fan of your YouTube series, and I'm very glad to see you making your own game!
I don't think I have much to add that wasn't covered in your postmortem video; I agree with most of the feedback. I was particularly bothered by the magnet not being solid when it was on the floor. One thing you didn't mention that bothered me a little is that touching a door automatically forwards you to the next level instead of requiring a button press. I'm just primed to think I have to make characters walk through doors, I guess.
The awkward fusion of action and puzzling was definitely a problem for me. That is something that bothers me a lot in puzzle games, as it's frustrating to not know whether I'm executing the process wrong or if my setup is wrong. I think part of this may also have been the issue with the character controls; I like platform characters that are fast and fluid, with low friction and high acceleration, but this character was very slow and cumbersome, so movement wasn't as fun.
My favorite levels were... uh, I don't remember the names (it might be a good idea to clearly display level names when they start, since it makes it easier for players to give feedback), but the one with the three magnets that could lift the magnet but not the character, and the final one with the moving plug over the spike pit. I found the solutions quite a clever use of the game mechanics.
I did run into an odd bug in the room with the two horizontal lasers, where I threw the magnet above the lower laser when it was in its lower position, and it landed on top of the laser, as if it were solid. Moving the laser eventually made it behave correctly, but that was strange.
I really like the game. the movement is not great, but I like the magnet, and buttons. I think that overall the game is pretty good one other complaint I have is there are to many loading screens. I was wondering if I could have the code for the door and button, or if you used a tutorial a link to it would be really helpful. Thank you for giving it keyboard controls, and releasing the game for people who are not patrons.
Love the concept and the Youtube video series to go with it. Unfortunately I can't get very far as I can't seem to throw the magnet? Controls say aim with Left Shift but that does nothing for me - in fact I tried every key on my keyboard and none of them work for aim?
I got stuck on the last level/last room because I did not know that the magnet could be broken on the spikes. Did never happen to me before that and I it wasn't taught. And i wouldn't expect a metal object to break on some spikes.
Otherwise I had a lot of fun, didn't notice anything that you didn't mention in your video.
I'm not sure if it was the intent of the level, but I solved the puzzle by breaking the magnet 😅
Yeah, I think it is
The idea is nice, I don't know if you have played Teslagrad before, but it's similar in a way that you have to use magnetic force there too.
The controls feel a bit weird, the player movement could be quicker.
The puzzles were enjoyable in my opinion, they were usually just right - not too easy but not too hard.
For the bugs:
I think there was a time when I somehow managed to get the magnet float in the air, next to the side of the wall which had and activated switch in it. When the switch deactivated, the magnet fell back.
I'm not sure if it's intentional, but after pressing the button to restart the level, the black background sweeps in from the left (which looks really cool by the way) then it disappears and appears again for loading the level. It might be better if it stayed there.
Overall, this game has potential, keep it up! :D