The puzzles were nice and achievable, though definitely hard at points. I did all of them. Determining when to put myself in a "do or die"-type position was probably the hardest hurdle to get over, because for many puzzles, if you did not do it right, you would have to reset because the path backwards was closed. Making checkpoints (or letting the user make checkpoints) might help with that.
The keyboard setup was... alright. I don't normally play on keyboard, so I don't really have any room to complain there. I learned how to pair my Switch Pro controller with my computer and played everything past the tutorial that way.
The options menu could do with having a keybind on controller that lets you out. I ended up pressing the Esc key on my keyboard to leave it whenever I wanted to change something. Plus (+) let me in, but it did not let me leave.
The "Enter Aim Mode" keybind could use an explanation; after a few tries at figuring out the function, I gave up and put it on a button I wasn't likely to press. I found that the method that made the most sense to me was to put picking up and throwing the magnet on the left trigger, and changing polarity on the right trigger. Still, for that configuration, it might have been nice to use the right analogue stick to aim the throw, rather than having to hold down the left trigger the whole time and use the left analogue stick to aim. Essentially, I tried to aim the same way you do in CrossCode.
I've been following the progress on your YT channel, and I think this is shaping up to be pretty great. The controls feel (mostly) great. More on that below. The mechanics are fantastic and even with zero instructions it's really intuitive to figure out exactly how each object works and the little tricks that are possible in order to solve the levels. At least, so far.
The downsides are few, but I think important. First, the jumping is a bit... odd at times. It seems your jump height is determined by your forward velocity. This is common in this kind of game, but there's a few places where if you aren't going at max speed and jump at just the right point, you're going to miss the jump and in these levels at least, the two or three spots where this was an issue, I fell down to a point where I had to restart the level (through the retry system or just having to go through all the obstacles again, it's the same result.) I'm sure you've heard of the game design philosophy of Coyote Time? I wonder if you might implement something in the reverse? If your forward momentum is high enough, missing a ledge by a few pixels will place you on the ledge anyway. It would make up to higher ledges where there's a pit if you miss feel a whole lot better.
Finally I wonder if it's possible to have you exit from the pipe above the level you have just completed rather than all the way back to the start of the hub? I know it's a small thing, but over the time spent in one hub this can add up, especially if hubs ever get bigger than this one. Just something else to keep the flow of the game going without any more downtime than necessary.
Hey Mark! Hope you find some of this feedback helpful.
- While keys can be rebound, I recommend having right-click be set for Magnet Action. If you decide that the m+K gameplay is specifically left/right mouse to pickup/toss/swap polarization I think it will allow for quicker and easier play for folks. Having to stop movement in order to click a button to swap polarization isn't so fun.
- Movement to/from places that require the magnet is fun. Do more of that.
- For the hub world it might be fun to have each level door (or eventual subset of levels) be opened utilizing the key method that will be explored. Hub 1 can be throwing the magnet, but then eventually you need to step on a switch, get across a gap, etc etc.
- Up and Over: This is a good intro level that establishes what magnets can get through which you can't, how these switch doors work, and throwing/switching to accomplish goals. You might be able to make it less subtle that the particular asset can't be moved through in that particular direction by placing one that players need to jump over first.
- Not a Drill: This also establishes some good basics with switching the magnet to have it do multiple things away from you. I have an issue with the drill covering the shelf that the magnet can ultimately fall through. It's kind of a weird surprise vs being an established item that the magnet can go through these assets (despite what the last level accomplishes). Is there a way to create an asset that is clearly a platform/wall but has an element that indicates it's not a surface the magnet will settle on?
- Up and Away: This level might be able to help drive the above point home if the player were forced to throw the magnet from the top of the section, have it slide down and drop through the platforms and then get pulled into the switch door. It helps further emphasis that the magnet completely ignores these assets.
- Lift Up: No notes, this is a solid level for establishing the cancelling gateways.
- Weight and Pull-Me: Maybe a little too easy, but I like that it shows that there are switch gates that don't require magnets, which my brain defaulted to thinking I needed for a moment. Also it's really fun to have puzzles that require simply placing the magnet somewhere and then swapping polarization repeatedly to cause things to react as you navigate. Do more of that.
- Blocked by Block: Despite there being a quick level restart, might be nice to throw a small block in the pit next to the switch so players can jump out without needing to reset.
- Left Shift = sprint/movement boost? Yes please!
- When a Switch Pro Controller is plugged in the character jumps repeatedly and moves left. I found no way to stop this and had to just unplug and use m+k.
Really enjoyed the demo! The first few levels do a great job of teaching without words, and the last level in particular had me stumped for a good while. Great puzzle design and level design all around.
Some things I noticed with regards to gameplay:
There's no real way to replay levels. If you enter a level you've already beaten, there's no way to complete it because the key is gone. This isn't a huge issue because there's no real reason to replay levels, I just wanted to replay one of them to make sure I'd properly understood the mechanic it was teaching me.
Throwing the magnet into a pipe to open a door isn't terribly intuitive. At first I thought I had to jump into the attraction beam while carrying the magnet to go through the pipe myself. Took me a hot second to realize the pipe functioned more like a button for the door than a Mario-style pipe.
Some things I noticed with regards to visuals:
It wasn't immediately obvious to me that the magnet can pass through the thin platforms. The first time I finished level 2, I thought I had maybe encoutered a bug. It wasn't until I tried to replay level 2 that I realized that was probably an intended mechanic.
In the hub, the background doesn't scroll at the same speed as the signs / doors, creating an unintended paralax effect.
In the hub, the doors and signs are on a higher layer than the magnet and the trajectory.
Last level is too difficult. I think I cheesed it by throwing my magnet under the block so when it fell back down it blocked the button. I would like to move around while aiming to be more accurate and to speed up the gameplay.
I would like some visual feedback for how long I need to hold to reset the level.
Even though I have 7 keys, the hub says I have 6.
I loved the way the puzzles work, sometimes the gates felt useless. learning curve is good although last level is bit too much. The Hub feels alright, but something feels missing / wrong, but I can't put my finger on it.
Yes I also found that level incredibly hard. I personally cheesed it by throwing the magnet onto the button in the back of the room and then running to the other side before the big block went up.
I also want to add that there are multiple dumb ways to be softlocked in this room like falling under the blue attractor when you don't have the magnet with you.
UI: In the main menu, one button is always highlighted even if I don't hover anything. This felt a little weird.
Controls (mouse/keyboard): The character movement was really nice. I definitely noticed the Coyote Time. To throw the magnet, my first instinct was to hold E and then click, which did nothing. Of course I figured it out quickly, but this might be something to consider. The behavior when simply pressing E/clicking is interesting. I don't know if dropping the magnet might be more useful than a short throw.
Hub World: I don't know how to feel about the pipes. I appreciate the "use the magnet for everything" mentality, but maybe a simple button to enter a level would suffice. It's also kind of annoying that you always spawn at the start of the hub world and need to walk all the way to the next level.
Levels: Level 1 actually took me a minute to figure out. I just stumbled onto the fact that the magnet could slide by accident. Maybe the sliding mechanic could be introduced in a simpler scenario. Level 2 was nice and simple. An good introduction for the "transport magnet by switching by switching polarity" concept. I discovered level 3's solution by accident when trying to jump across the gap while the magnet was in the perfect position. Level 4 was not too difficult because there was pretty much a single path you could take without getting stuck. I probably liked level 5 the most. It had a cool concept and finally figuring out that you needed to press the buttons in the opposite order felt really satisfying. During the final level, it took quite some time before I noticed that part of the door could stop the blue box from moving up. Maybe the door could be moved a bit to the left to make that more obvious. One more thing: I had to retry some levels several times. A few more ways to get yourself unstuck after making a mistake, which aren't simply restarting the level would me nice.
Bugs: The largest bug I noticed is the fact that holding Ctrl for a few seconds during the "Thanks for playing" section causes some, let's say, interesting behavior. The magnet physics under low ceilings can be a bit wonky and I got stuck briefly at one point. Letting go off the magnet when it was stuck to the ceiling didn't always work reliably. I'm also pretty sure that hitting a button once caused it to toggle twice one time.
Conclusion: I really liked it and I definitely see the potential of the game concept. The graphics are functional but still nice to look at. The levels generally have a good size and difficulty. In case some platforming under time pressure is still an option: An Ori-style escape sequence could be really cool.
I actually recorded my first-time experience (including commentary). I don't know if that might be something of interest.
Yes, I like watching people play demos and small games for the first time. I don't know what it is, but I just like to see how they look at the puzzle or task at hand.
i'm not sure if it's possible to contact you anywhere directly, so i'll just leave this here and hopefully it doesn't break any rules of commenting. played through the demo and found it very sad there was no sound or music so i made a quick sketch for what i think the soundtrack could sound like :)
I did not have the time to get the last level, i think the concept don't hype me enough to get the "Haha moment". But i am not a player of this type of game, i only played baba is you ( but i do said "haha !" in Baba is you. )
I do feel it's because i always don't know if i have to speed it up, or just think a lot. And so i am mostly trying to do the same thing but more quickly.
So to me, the mix is weird.
The lack of sound was a bit weird, but overall i am very impressed, i had great feeling playing it, maybie sometimes characters feel slow a bit, especially in the lobby
I hope i am not too harsh, this is good please keep doing this :) Have a great day !
Okay some people do have sounds, weird but ok i might be dumb
I play a lot of puzzle games, and the last level was the only one to really hit the "Aha moment" for me. The rest felt like tutorials, which I think is fine once more levels get added, but they do feel a little weird in the demo.
But yeah I agree the overall experience was impressive and I think it will be even better once sound gets added. The animations felt spot-on to me.
It's shaping up well Mark! I didn't played the previous demo, just fyi.
I don't know if it's intentional but the throw mechanic feels smooth with analog stick but suddenly starts to snap and that feels really bad. If this isn't intentional I'd suggest you to design everything around D-Pad maybe? If it is intentional and you want to enforce certain angles at high throw force I'd suggest you to interpolate the line instead of it just instantly snapping to the desired state.
The movement feels good but maybe it can be improved a bit by speeding it up a bit while retaining the jump arc as is. The high jump feels a bit too floaty in comparison to the tap jump.
The only other things I've noticed is the magnet going through platforms but the character not being able to jump down through and the character starting without the magnet on the hub, it's better if he's already holding it for ease of use. It happened to me a bunch of times that I moved without grabbing it and had to walk back to get it, hah.
I think the aim/fire mechanic would be way more fluid if you separated aiming and firing (as in, RMB aims, and releasing it cancels the shot, and LMB fires). It would be a lot more intuitive to me because a lot of games work that way. Maybe changing polarity could be done with the mouse wheel or MMB?
Also, I thought needing to throw the magnet upwards to enter a level was clunky and cumbersome. I would much rather it just be a simple door.
I liked that there was a grace period for jumping after leaving a platform, but I feel like there should be one for jumping onto platforms as well.
You should definitely be able to aim while moving. I know it'd break some puzzles, but I think it would add a lot of depth.
The levels aren't really re-playable, which might help with retention. For example, games like Angry Birds, Cut The Rope and others were sticky because they had more than just the linear path from start to finish; you could improve your score by trying levels repeatedly until you attained a 'perfect' score.
My new game (Paladin's Passage) had the same problem initially: once you completed a level, the only reason to go back would be to get a better time, which wasn't really incentivized. I completely revamped the level progression, eliminated the idea of lives, letting players replay levels as often as they wanted, and put non-linear goals (partially-hidden collectible 'secrets') in each level to incentivize replay to try to get a perfect score.
I agree with some of the other comments as well; the controls are still a bit janky. It is tough to get 'flow' going. Also definitely needs some sounds: music, environmental, etc.! Even a placeholder of something royalty-free would be an improvement.
As a fellow video and tactile game designer I didn’t find any major problems, it was a solid puzzle experience. If there are any notes, it’s on things you’re probably already working on fixing.
Hub is boring, but I’m sure you’re working on what it will eventually look like
Fonts are inconsistent, but those are placeholders
The black-swipe screen transition into a level works, but it doesn’t do one on level reset which is kinda jarring
The Puzzles were good, not too hard. I finished the game in 6 minutes, the 6th one took a disproportionate amount of time (the one where you have to stop the rising box with the door), but once I figured it out I went “ohhhhhhhh” out loud, which is a good sound.
I liked how all of the solutions were obvious once they were solved. Like, once you figured out what you needed to do, it wasn’t like “alright, now let me try this 6 times to see if it works” it was more “does this work… Yes! Awesome, next puzzle”
I thought the player moved and jumped pretty satisfyingly, it needs to move a little slow to keep the slow, methodical puzzle-solving theme going.
I'm not a puzzle player but I thought the levels were generally very good, nice difficulty curve. However, the last level I solved by doing random things until it worked. Felt slightly different to the other levels, I didn't feel lead to the answer.
The movement and mechanics seem very well designed, I like all the unique items and the magnet felt very emphasised. However, the jump felt kinda floaty? The peak of the jump he feels weightless, although this may be an animation thing not the actual mechanic.
You should definitely be able to aim while moving, its jarring to be locked while aiming, as you cant make minor adjustments and I often ended up having to be forced to restart even though I knew it wouldn't work. I also think you should be able to cancel the throw. Not sure if this is a function already but super frustrating to not be able to cancel a throw I know isn't going to work.
Everything looks amazing and very clean. Possibly the hub world should be changed? It feels a lil clunky to get into worlds by throwing magnet, maybe just auto open doors or require no aiming for level selection.
Overall, felt very fun to play and the concept is super interesting, could definitely go places with more timing related puzzles. Keep up the good work :D
I really liked this demo. Overall it feels very good and is very fun playing. Although it weren't implemented I was able to feel the heavy "thumb" sound of the magnets falling to the ground. Very good job with this especially considdering this game does not even have sound yet. Regarding the difficulty : for me at least most levels were quite easy. I were able to solve them after a few trials. Only the last level was very difficult. It took me some time until I finally figured it out.
Now to what I noticed while playing it:
SUGGESTIONS:
- Why do I have to press a button to pick up the magnet, but auto-pickup the key?
- Why do I let go of the magnet upon entering a magnetized revolving door, but I keep the hold on the magnet whilst getting pulled towards another large magnet.
- Maybe start AND end aiming with right mouse button and throw with the left mouse button. This is more intuitiv since that's what is being used in most games: RMB: zoom/aim LMB: shoot/trigger (Also while the game tells you that you can throw with E, but it doesn't tell you that you can shoot with the mouse. I only found out through the options menu)
- Maybe add the possibility to go downwards through semi-solid objects usind the "down" key. Similar to how Super Mario can jump up through floors and falls back down by ducking.
For example the ladder in Lvl 3. One can climb it by jumping upwards but one can not go down by pressing "down". By this you don't need to leave space to get down.
- Keyboard options: When using a non-english keyboard the depicted button might differ from the actual button pressed: I have a QWERTZ keyboard so compared to the standard english keyboard "Y" and "Z" are swapped. So if I want to rebind an action e.g. "Jump" to my Z key it shows that I have bound the action to my Y key. The problem is worse for more different keyboards like a cyrillic or greek Keyboard.
- It is not possible to spam the "magnet action" key. One can only use the key again until after the animation has played. Because of this one can not use the blue magnetic beams to quickly turn the magnet red and back to blue mid air so that it gets some additional height.
- On keyboard controll it feels a bit weird having the left hand pointer finger do the job for three actions: Move right, swap polarization and throw magnet. Furthermore one can not simultaneously move right whilst pressing "swap polarization" or "throw magnet".
(Also like others have already said, it would be nice to be able to move while aiming, maybe it would be nice to move only slowly while aming such that minor corrections are easily possible.)
MINOR DETAILS:
level design:
- The ladder in Lvl 3 could use an additional stair, so that it is shut with the floor to the sides of it. As it currently is one needs to do an awkward jump.
- The chain in Lvl feels a bit janky. Whilst the magnet and the box go up and down, the length of the chain varies. Thus it feels more like a rubber band than a solid iron chain.
MINOR BUGS:
- (Windows) Holding down LMB to aim. Alt-Tab out of the game and back into it. The robot thorws the magnet and you can drive around. But you cannot pick the magnet up (using "E"). You have to click into the game window to be able to pick it up again.
- Credit Level: when driving to the far right side the level shifts up and down a few pixel.
The path shown is not neccesarily the path the magnet takes:
Here (Lvl 7) it looks as if one could throw the magnet through the hole between the block and the ground. But the magnet gets blocked by the big block:
For some reason, resetting the tutorial level took 3-5 seconds, but was almost instant on every other level
On the hinge wall in the tutorial, I noticed that if I try to go back the other way too quickly, it sometimes doesn't activate until I move away from the wall and try again
The aiming trail doesn't always line up with my mouse (usually it's below where my mouse is) - not a huge issue but kinda annoying at times
On my second playthrough I noticed a pretty big bug in that I could no longer throw the magnet (this happened on the "lift up" level - my arms would fall parallel to the ground and I wouldn't be able to do anything, even after dropping and re-grabbing the magnet)
JokerDBlue posted this below (or above, wherever this shows up), but on the hub world and thank you level, holding the ctrl button causes the reset icon to grow infinitely in size
If you hold F, the magnet will switch polarity twice: on the initial press and whenever you lift the key
Some nitpicks:
It took me a hot minute to figure out that I was supposed to hold ctrl to reset the level instead of just tapping it, and part of that was that tapping it still caused the animation to start (I actually thought it was being buggy until I figured it out). I think it might be better to either make the animation more varied (so like a little meter that fills the arrow the longer you hold) or just hold off on the animation until the button's been held for a little bit to make it less confusing
I like the art style of the game a lot, but I feel like there's some weird disconnect between the cartoony feel of the world and the crispness of the ui (the reset and polarity buttons and the text) - I think it'd look better if you just made the ui feel less polished (that's not the exact word I'm looking for but hopefully you understand what I mean)
I feel like the current levels are too short, as in they each only have one gimmick. They work perfectly as introductory levels since they're not too difficult and give a good view as to what to expect from later levels, but later on I'd like to see either some larger levels (spacially) or some more complex levels (as in they have more steps crammed into a smaller area - Baba Is You did this a lot and I absolutely loved it)
I completely missed the level names on my first playthrough, so I think it'd be nice if they either appeared above the door in the hub world or showed up for a few seconds upon starting a level
Praise:
The art style is amazing - everything looks very cute and cartoonish but at the same time is extremely well-polished
The existing levels are difficult without being infuriating - I love the outside-the-box solutions on some of them, and the sixth level was my favorite just because it took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to do and even then it still felt like I was cheesing the system
I really like the inclusion of the hub area - it makes it feel more casual and gives it a more of a "these puzzles are sort of on par with each other difficulty-wise" vibe, whereas with linear progression I would have expected each new level to be strictly more difficult than the previous one
Movement feels really good - it's nice and snappy while still keeping its fluidity
I generally really enjoyed it, for an early demo its overall pretty good. I liked the idea with the hub, however i felt that i had no incentive to skip a level, and there it felt a bit (tiny bit) tideous to run through the hub level every time.
I played on my macbook, and the window was really big, when in windowed mode (i suspect that you have the standard resolution set to something that fits on your monitor), so big that i couldn't see the fullscreen button that you had implemented in the main menu. I did get it to fit my screen, but a resizeable window would be very nice.
But overall great job with this demo, i also really liked the graphics and the feel of the character.
Just watched your video and decided to try the game as soon as possible. Overall, great work, game feels very good and even juicy in some parts (love the impact of rotating doors, heavy metallic hit sound will acompany it perfectly, when you'd get to sounds). Got myself a few Aha moments, which were quite satisfying. Really loking forward to future game progress and videos on it.
Now for what I felt need some tweaking:
Character feels a bit lacking in speed, was finding myself pressing harder on A/D buttons while moving. Or maybe it's just me;
Character stopping while aiming might be a bit inconvinient, when you need to adjust position a little. May be you can make it just slow down, and not full stop;
6th level was quite a spike in difficulty, had me scratching my head for a good 5 minutes, before I figured what was I meant to do. Having to get cube stopped by a door wasn't really intuitive;
Platforming has still crawled in your levels - this part in 6th level when you need to quicly jump over the pit and go under the press. Took me at least 10 tries to do I thought that was the solution. Look at previous point then;
Starting at the begining of the hub each time gets kinda boring. Maybe you can make character start at the level player just have finished and use starting point only on first enter and game load;
Openning levels' doors with throwing magnet at the pipe feels new, but gets a bit annoying after some time;
That's said, I can close my eyes on all of this, just for how juicy magnet interactions feel. Really love it! <3 <3
P.S. love hand drawn settings icons, really felt your love for the game :)
After dropping the cube from the door, you need to jump over the hole you drop the cube in and then go under descending press to get to the key before press lowers to the platform. Maybe it’s just me (I’m not good in platforming), but this bit was the second most challenging for me
I thought the same about your first two points. Maybe one could raise the driving speed in the hub level since it is far more spacious. For me it was neither too fast nor too slow while inside the levels.
The background parallax looks strange, especially when there are doors. The doors also cover up the smoke effects and aiming lines, which feels and looks a bit weird.
The fact the hub is non-linear is cool, but it's hindered a bit by the fact that you basically pick levels at random, and you have no incentive to play all of them once you have enough keys to progress.
You also have no insight on what is within the level before you select it, so you're essentially picking stages at random until you get enough keys. This works in other games where the hub is presented as a map with branching paths, because it somehow makes deciding which path you pick feel more meaningful, and some levels are locked behind others. Maybe some levels could give out multiple keys? Or maybe the hub itself could be more interesting or complex to navigate, to make picking and choosing levels more interesting? Maybe certain levels could unlock keys to other areas of the hub? Dunno, just throwing out some ideas off the top of my head.
The tutorial introduced a pipe as the solution to the level, and I made a mental note that this would be the objective of the game throughout, but it turned out not to be true, even though pipes appeared later on in stages.
I think the movement feels good, jumping feels nice. But there is a weird gap between pressing the throw button and the player character actually beginning their wind up. This makes initiating a throw feel really awkward.
I think it actually plays quite nicely on mouse and keyboard, but the default controls need a little work - the less I have to move my hand all over the keyboard, the better.
The visuals are nice. I like the facial expression on the character when you aim, If you wanted to expand on that, the magnet's expression could change while it is in mid-air (it might already, but it's kind of hard to tell?), and also immediately after a collision. Maybe on the anticipation before the throw as well. The colour palette is good.
This is a bit of a weird one - technically returning to the hub being in the main menu makes sense, but for some reason it felt kinda weird.
Great job! love the video series. I hope my feedback is useful!
Hi Mark first things first: You did a really good job and this demo is really great so far.
I made note of some good things and some things that either weren´t that good or just of some little issues.
1. To start with the good things first:
There were no things I found that were that broken or really bugy
The control of the character feels really smooth and you really feel like you are in control of that robot
You introduced every main mechanic great by making the playerexperience that and introducing more advanced mechanics
You have many versital level concepts and you make the player think of an individual solution for each one (not by presentating an obvious solution but by making the player testing everything out and as I said thinking)
You introduced interesting objects that interact differently with the player and the magnet
Two other things that were positiv is that you can´t change the magnet to +/- before it is completely attracted by an active source nearby
and that the player gets attracted by a "magnetic push gate" if he´s holding the magnet
2. The things that weren´t that great:
After holding E for throwing and then entering and closing the menu you insta throw the magnet (would be better if it completely cancels the throw or just doesn´t throw it and you have to aim as before)
If you pass a "push gate" and then instantly turn to the side you came from the gate doesn´t let you through until you moved a bit (just a tiny issue)
The throw dot line of the magnet goes through the edge of the pipe however it is solid
After selecting fullscreen closing and opening the game it is still in fullscreen but on the button is the wrong selection. The button would normaly say windowed if everythig was correct but it says fullscreen however you already are in fullscreen
Before the loading screen is completely gone you can move (I think it would be more enjoyable if you can´t start before the loading screen is gone)
Sometimes it would be way better if the player could drop the magnet instead of having to throw it so it doesn´t bounces away from the players target
I only found out on accident that you can actually cancel a throw. So if there is a way to tell the player that mechanic I would love to see it in a future game or demo or wathever.
3. To come to a conclusion:
Even if the length of the good and bad sections are more or less even I would say that the sections with the good points absolutely outweights the negative points with no doubt. It already feels like a demo with a finished game waiting to be released. Everything looks and feels great. You really are in control of everything. You have really good puzzles and great objects you can use in those puzzles. To be in control of which level you play is also great for example if you are completely stuck somewhere and don´t know what to do you can just come back at another time.
I hope I could make you feel proud of yourself for what you accomplished and feel great because YOU really deserved that.
Feels quite good! Controls are intuitive, though I did map my magnet so I could use it with just the mouse. I would love to see some longer puzzles in future versions, but otherwise I think this is very inventive! I really liked the solution to level 7, but it is a bit finicky to get right without getting the magnet stuck out of reach.
The character feel is much improved which was nice, however I feel like it could use a bit more "snappiness". Maybe move just a bit faster, change directions a bit quicker, etc. That being said, I believe sound will greatly improve this or possibly completely solve it altogether.
The puzzle design was good and I felt a few "aha" moments, but overall the puzzles just feel good, not great.
To be fair, I just played through Baba Is You so maybe take this with a grain of salt, but after completing this demo nothing really felt memorable to me. To compound this problem most of the levels felt very samey.
In my opinion, this game totally has the foundation it needs to be something special, but I can't shake the feeling that something is missing that would take it to the next level. Unfortunately, I have no idea what that is.
The controls feel good. I like that the player stops and then the animation has a follow though. To me this makes it feel realistic without having the control feel sloppy. You also had a good balance between puzzle and platform. Me and my chat think you could use another run at level four, as it was a little too confusing. Other than that some audio would also really make this thing shine. Either way, very solid MVP 2. Cheers!
I really liked the demo. The puzzles were difficult enough to maintain me entertained, but not too much to be frustrating.
The game next demo definitely needs some sound effects, specially for secondary feedback of things happening in the level, like magnet changing polarity, or platforms moving.
In the hub, it feels weird how the background moves a different speed than the gates (that one would think that are in the same depth as the background)
Also, I would change the way the trow button works. Because for a short demo it's no such big deal, but for a full release game, it would be annoying how you have to maintain pressed the trow button to see the path of the magnet.
The other thing I don't like, is how the "double state buttons" (or levers) works. It doesn't always change to the side I like, or it is difficult to trow the magnet specifically to one half of the button.
What I really liked is the feel of the magnet. It feels heavy, but with powerful attraction at the same time. Also, the movement feels great, i had to habituate to the "long" delay making the biggest jumps, but once learned, i really liked it.
Very nice puzzle game. It plays good and the levels are clever.
I had few issues. The ramps are confusing. You can just drive up any incline in the game, but to me the ramps blend in with the background. I was jumping them up like they were stairs, always took me a moment to realize I don't have to do that.
The tutorial was little confusing at the end. You have to throw the magnet up the green pipe to finish it, which made me think you need to do this at the end of every level. I was fixating on that quite a lot and was sometimes even planning the solution based on the fact that I need to get my magnet back after I get the key to finish the level. Which obviously you don't need to do, so the levels are often impossible to solve with both key and magnet in your possession.
While we are on that topic, selecting levels by aiming and throwing the magnet is too much of a hassle IMO. I wish it was simpler, just pressing a button on a prompt would be nice.
And last, unless you are planning to give R and W some separate function, please make R the default reset key (why is it CTRL ?) and bind jumping to both SPACE and W. Thanks.
Not bad, noticed that if you throw yourself at a ledge while holding a magnet you can get caught slightly, as the character and the magnet have collision but the tether between them doesn't. Might be a space for a new mechanic, a thin floor piece (zip-line) that has to be traversed with a magnet. Maybe having to alternate polarity to progress down the line. Another issue, when holding down for aimed throw, you come to a stop; i.e. no aimed throws on the move. Not sure if it is intentional design, but It might be limiting on design space for puzzles. also, If you go to replay a level, there is no key or placeholder. Only way to leave a level you are replaying is to esc. and return to hub. That maybe fine, but it needs at least a phantom key in the replayed level to show what the objective of the level was, otherwise its a question without an answer. The reset level button might need a better indicator, currently there is a slight delay when pressing control before it engages. There isn't much feedback on if it is registering your button press, it took several seconds to realize that it was a press and hold prompt rather than a simple push. Might need to adjust the level hub or increase the characters move speed. 6 levels was about 1 level too many to walk past to get to the next level. Maybe spawn in the middle with 3 pipes to each side, and next batch of levels is a pipe overhead? Sorry for the wall of text. good luck with the game!
Feedback: The character feels really nice to play and move around with, there's nothing that feels janky or annoying about him at all.
However, I will say the screen resolution is a tab bit annoying; I think the game should open in full screen and have an option to make it a resizable window.
I'm also really grateful for remappable controls because while the game does feel good to play using a controller (thanks to the bumper and trigger buttons) playing on the keyboard wasn't all that fun in the beginning. I wasn't a fan of all the different controls I had to master and keep track of, it all seemed overwhelming whether it was between jumping or switch polarities. It wasn't until thankfully there were remapping controls that I was able to get into it.
Being able to change the magnetic switch to the RMB and jump the MMB helped a lot with keeping everything simple.
Aim and throw with the LMB, jump with MMB, and changed polarities with the RMB.
The first shifty thing you walk into to shift doesn't shift if you are already walking into it when it finishes its animation. Idk how to explain what i mean by shifty thing but it's literally the first game object after the game teaches you what button it is to jump.
Felt much better playing this version (2.0) in regards to control, character movement and progression. Well done!
My main issue was figuring out how to interact with the scenario at some moments, like figuring out at which point I should throw the magnet to interact with a button and change its polarity but accidentally throwing the magnet someplace unreacheable and having to restart the puzzle all over.
Really fun! The character controller is much better and whilst the art may not be final - the magnet and robot have a good amount of expressiveness. The simple act of throwing the magnet to unlock a door for a level is small but makes the game feel more based around the magnet, similar to how in mario odyssey you need the hat to just dispense moons into the ship.
The puzzle elements were great, especially the gate that is moved by the magnet.
I didn't notice any major cons or issues, i think the game plays and looks well and so long as there are fresh mechanics for more puzzles (and sound design) it could go on the market in a moments notice.
The initial tutorial section is well made and I think the idea of needing to throw the magnet into a pipe to unlock a door out the level could be good for other levels, since you would also have to account for retrieving the magnet. However this could complicate things and would require some small tests to see if its positive or negative for the puzzles.
Nice short but (mostly) challenging puzzles! Here's one probably obvious thing I've noticed right away - because I wanted to solve the first level faster:
1) When you replay an already completed level there's no way to exit it aside from using the menu. Maybe add a greyed out key (like the stars in Mario 64) to ensure replayability of levels ;)
2) And the default key bindings for right (D) and switching polarity (F) get in the way when switching and moving to the right at the same time or successively.
One of the things that I got hooked up on was in level-0/totoral I did not know how to get through the final door to the hub for some time. When I saw the pipe all I could think about was Mario and how you would need to go into it even with the other door there, so I kept trying to jump up to it. It would have been nice to have something to say that you need just the magnet to go up it.
Seeing as I'm probably the only person who played this game on a square monitor instead of widescreen like the game was designed for, I'll take it upon myself to tell you that the game is pretty bad in some places when you can't see the leftmost or rightmost parts of a level. Specifically level 2, the same as the fourth screenshot. I couldn't see the switch on the right or the screw on the left. I beat every level in the game before level 2, just cause I couldn't see what I was doing. The loading screen was rendered useless because I could see above and below it, so I could see the levels load in. My suggestion: make it so the view scales down so it is always within the width of the player's monitor (that would mean putting the black bars above and below the frame when it's fit to the monitor. I think you get what I mean.) That's how I solved the issue in my game. Or else give a semi-freecam mode, but I find that a bit overengineered for the problem.
On a positive note: I love everything you've done with this game, it feels so polished that it's fun even when I don't get the aha moment and just brute force things. The art is great, the character feels perfect, and the puzzles felt like puzzles I'd never played before. You have made a very quality game.
Oh and by the way, if you're getting a lot of feedback about the last level it's probably because those people, like me, didn't notice the block would be stopped by the switch. I happened upon it by accident, so making what is and isn't possible more obvious (in cases where most working memory is already taken, like in the last level) is probably the best way to go. Essentially, we stop taking in new minor details when our working memory is already full, so as not to fill it further. So clarity is key.
Great game. Looks good, feels good to play. Nice and smart puzzles.
Two complaints, though. The sloped buttons are difficult to jump on because of that weird angle. I guess they are sloped so that the magnet would slide off once it had pressed the button, but that doesn't mean that the player character has to interact with the button in the same way.
You could make it so that the player character doesn't even collide with the button and they just have to drive over the button hitbox to trigger it. The game would flow much better like that. Of course if the player doesn't want to trigger the button, they can just jump over the hitbox. Easy peasy.
Also, you should be able to aim and throw the magnet while moving. The game would flow way better like that.
It controls really well, and the mechanics are awesome. My main complaint is when you figure out the solution to a puzzle, and accidentally miss a jump you have to re-do the whole thing again. This isn't much of a problem now but when the puzzles get harder and longer it could be very frustrating. Maybe add a baba is you style reverse, just not grid based.
Didn't like the default of 'opposites attract' when mixed with the fields showing the symbol that is attracted to it. For some reason this didn't sit right in my brain
The toggle switches are too touchy. There was quite a few times where I would switch it, go to move, and then accidentally switch it again
Main observations so far: I love the chunkiness of the animations - objects slowly start moving and then rush into place with an inaudible slam - but I do feel a bit frustrated at the start of levels having to wait for the magnet to arrive and pick it up (them up? what are the magnet's pronouns?) manually every time. I kind of wish that the magnet would fall into the robot's hands as the level swipes in so I could just go immediately upon resetting a level or returning to the hub. (Loved that in Celeste, where "start running instantly" was always a correct timing for timed puzzles.)
The feel of resetting a level is good, though - it's not instant but it's quick. Which I appreciate, because I had to do that a lot.
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The puzzles were nice and achievable, though definitely hard at points. I did all of them. Determining when to put myself in a "do or die"-type position was probably the hardest hurdle to get over, because for many puzzles, if you did not do it right, you would have to reset because the path backwards was closed. Making checkpoints (or letting the user make checkpoints) might help with that.
The keyboard setup was... alright. I don't normally play on keyboard, so I don't really have any room to complain there. I learned how to pair my Switch Pro controller with my computer and played everything past the tutorial that way.
The options menu could do with having a keybind on controller that lets you out. I ended up pressing the Esc key on my keyboard to leave it whenever I wanted to change something. Plus (+) let me in, but it did not let me leave.
The "Enter Aim Mode" keybind could use an explanation; after a few tries at figuring out the function, I gave up and put it on a button I wasn't likely to press. I found that the method that made the most sense to me was to put picking up and throwing the magnet on the left trigger, and changing polarity on the right trigger. Still, for that configuration, it might have been nice to use the right analogue stick to aim the throw, rather than having to hold down the left trigger the whole time and use the left analogue stick to aim. Essentially, I tried to aim the same way you do in CrossCode.
I've been following the progress on your YT channel, and I think this is shaping up to be pretty great. The controls feel (mostly) great. More on that below. The mechanics are fantastic and even with zero instructions it's really intuitive to figure out exactly how each object works and the little tricks that are possible in order to solve the levels. At least, so far.
The downsides are few, but I think important. First, the jumping is a bit... odd at times. It seems your jump height is determined by your forward velocity. This is common in this kind of game, but there's a few places where if you aren't going at max speed and jump at just the right point, you're going to miss the jump and in these levels at least, the two or three spots where this was an issue, I fell down to a point where I had to restart the level (through the retry system or just having to go through all the obstacles again, it's the same result.) I'm sure you've heard of the game design philosophy of Coyote Time? I wonder if you might implement something in the reverse? If your forward momentum is high enough, missing a ledge by a few pixels will place you on the ledge anyway. It would make up to higher ledges where there's a pit if you miss feel a whole lot better.
Finally I wonder if it's possible to have you exit from the pipe above the level you have just completed rather than all the way back to the start of the hub? I know it's a small thing, but over the time spent in one hub this can add up, especially if hubs ever get bigger than this one. Just something else to keep the flow of the game going without any more downtime than necessary.
Looking forward to what's to come.
Hey Mark! Hope you find some of this feedback helpful.
- While keys can be rebound, I recommend having right-click be set for Magnet Action. If you decide that the m+K gameplay is specifically left/right mouse to pickup/toss/swap polarization I think it will allow for quicker and easier play for folks. Having to stop movement in order to click a button to swap polarization isn't so fun.
- Movement to/from places that require the magnet is fun. Do more of that.
- For the hub world it might be fun to have each level door (or eventual subset of levels) be opened utilizing the key method that will be explored. Hub 1 can be throwing the magnet, but then eventually you need to step on a switch, get across a gap, etc etc.
- Up and Over: This is a good intro level that establishes what magnets can get through which you can't, how these switch doors work, and throwing/switching to accomplish goals. You might be able to make it less subtle that the particular asset can't be moved through in that particular direction by placing one that players need to jump over first.
- Not a Drill: This also establishes some good basics with switching the magnet to have it do multiple things away from you. I have an issue with the drill covering the shelf that the magnet can ultimately fall through. It's kind of a weird surprise vs being an established item that the magnet can go through these assets (despite what the last level accomplishes). Is there a way to create an asset that is clearly a platform/wall but has an element that indicates it's not a surface the magnet will settle on?
- Up and Away: This level might be able to help drive the above point home if the player were forced to throw the magnet from the top of the section, have it slide down and drop through the platforms and then get pulled into the switch door. It helps further emphasis that the magnet completely ignores these assets.
- Lift Up: No notes, this is a solid level for establishing the cancelling gateways.
- Weight and Pull-Me: Maybe a little too easy, but I like that it shows that there are switch gates that don't require magnets, which my brain defaulted to thinking I needed for a moment. Also it's really fun to have puzzles that require simply placing the magnet somewhere and then swapping polarization repeatedly to cause things to react as you navigate. Do more of that.
- Blocked by Block: Despite there being a quick level restart, might be nice to throw a small block in the pit next to the switch so players can jump out without needing to reset.
- Left Shift = sprint/movement boost? Yes please!
- When a Switch Pro Controller is plugged in the character jumps repeatedly and moves left. I found no way to stop this and had to just unplug and use m+k.
Really enjoyed the demo! The first few levels do a great job of teaching without words, and the last level in particular had me stumped for a good while. Great puzzle design and level design all around.
Some things I noticed with regards to gameplay:
Some things I noticed with regards to visuals:
Heyo!
I want to keep it short to spare you some time:
Last level is too difficult. I think I cheesed it by throwing my magnet under the block so when it fell back down it blocked the button. I would like to move around while aiming to be more accurate and to speed up the gameplay.
I would like some visual feedback for how long I need to hold to reset the level.
Even though I have 7 keys, the hub says I have 6.
I loved the way the puzzles work, sometimes the gates felt useless. learning curve is good although last level is bit too much. The Hub feels alright, but something feels missing / wrong, but I can't put my finger on it.
Keep up the good work!
Yes I also found that level incredibly hard. I personally cheesed it by throwing the magnet onto the button in the back of the room and then running to the other side before the big block went up.
I also want to add that there are multiple dumb ways to be softlocked in this room like falling under the blue attractor when you don't have the magnet with you.
I believe this is the proper way:
Note: I have not played version 1.
UI:
In the main menu, one button is always highlighted even if I don't hover anything. This felt a little weird.
Controls (mouse/keyboard):
The character movement was really nice. I definitely noticed the Coyote Time. To throw the magnet, my first instinct was to hold E and then click, which did nothing. Of course I figured it out quickly, but this might be something to consider. The behavior when simply pressing E/clicking is interesting. I don't know if dropping the magnet might be more useful than a short throw.
Hub World:
I don't know how to feel about the pipes. I appreciate the "use the magnet for everything" mentality, but maybe a simple button to enter a level would suffice. It's also kind of annoying that you always spawn at the start of the hub world and need to walk all the way to the next level.
Levels:
Level 1 actually took me a minute to figure out. I just stumbled onto the fact that the magnet could slide by accident. Maybe the sliding mechanic could be introduced in a simpler scenario.
Level 2 was nice and simple. An good introduction for the "transport magnet by switching by switching polarity" concept.
I discovered level 3's solution by accident when trying to jump across the gap while the magnet was in the perfect position. Level 4 was not too difficult because there was pretty much a single path you could take without getting stuck.
I probably liked level 5 the most. It had a cool concept and finally figuring out that you needed to press the buttons in the opposite order felt really satisfying.
During the final level, it took quite some time before I noticed that part of the door could stop the blue box from moving up. Maybe the door could be moved a bit to the left to make that more obvious.
One more thing: I had to retry some levels several times. A few more ways to get yourself unstuck after making a mistake, which aren't simply restarting the level would me nice.
Bugs:
The largest bug I noticed is the fact that holding Ctrl for a few seconds during the "Thanks for playing" section causes some, let's say, interesting behavior. The magnet physics under low ceilings can be a bit wonky and I got stuck briefly at one point. Letting go off the magnet when it was stuck to the ceiling didn't always work reliably. I'm also pretty sure that hitting a button once caused it to toggle twice one time.
Conclusion:
I really liked it and I definitely see the potential of the game concept. The graphics are functional but still nice to look at. The levels generally have a good size and difficulty.
In case some platforming under time pressure is still an option: An Ori-style escape sequence could be really cool.
I actually recorded my first-time experience (including commentary). I don't know if that might be something of interest.
Yes, I like watching people play demos and small games for the first time. I don't know what it is, but I just like to see how they look at the puzzle or task at hand.
i'm not sure if it's possible to contact you anywhere directly, so i'll just leave this here and hopefully it doesn't break any rules of commenting. played through the demo and found it very sad there was no sound or music so i made a quick sketch for what i think the soundtrack could sound like :)
That sounds really good. The ukulele took me by surprise.
I did not have the time to get the last level, i think the concept don't hype me enough to get the "Haha moment". But i am not a player of this type of game, i only played baba is you ( but i do said "haha !" in Baba is you. )
I do feel it's because i always don't know if i have to speed it up, or just think a lot. And so i am mostly trying to do the same thing but more quickly.
So to me, the mix is weird.
The lack of sound was a bit weird, but overall i am very impressed, i had great feeling playing it, maybie sometimes characters feel slow a bit, especially in the lobby
I hope i am not too harsh, this is good please keep doing this :) Have a great day !
Okay some people do have sounds, weird but ok i might be dumb
I play a lot of puzzle games, and the last level was the only one to really hit the "Aha moment" for me. The rest felt like tutorials, which I think is fine once more levels get added, but they do feel a little weird in the demo.
But yeah I agree the overall experience was impressive and I think it will be even better once sound gets added. The animations felt spot-on to me.
It's shaping up well Mark! I didn't played the previous demo, just fyi.
I don't know if it's intentional but the throw mechanic feels smooth with analog stick but suddenly starts to snap and that feels really bad. If this isn't intentional I'd suggest you to design everything around D-Pad maybe?
If it is intentional and you want to enforce certain angles at high throw force I'd suggest you to interpolate the line instead of it just instantly snapping to the desired state.
The movement feels good but maybe it can be improved a bit by speeding it up a bit while retaining the jump arc as is.
The high jump feels a bit too floaty in comparison to the tap jump.
The only other things I've noticed is the magnet going through platforms but the character not being able to jump down through and the character starting without the magnet on the hub, it's better if he's already holding it for ease of use.
It happened to me a bunch of times that I moved without grabbing it and had to walk back to get it, hah.
I think the aim/fire mechanic would be way more fluid if you separated aiming and firing (as in, RMB aims, and releasing it cancels the shot, and LMB fires). It would be a lot more intuitive to me because a lot of games work that way. Maybe changing polarity could be done with the mouse wheel or MMB?
Also, I thought needing to throw the magnet upwards to enter a level was clunky and cumbersome. I would much rather it just be a simple door.
I liked that there was a grace period for jumping after leaving a platform, but I feel like there should be one for jumping onto platforms as well.
You should definitely be able to aim while moving. I know it'd break some puzzles, but I think it would add a lot of depth.
PS: That was cheeky at the "bonus" level.
The levels aren't really re-playable, which might help with retention. For example, games like Angry Birds, Cut The Rope and others were sticky because they had more than just the linear path from start to finish; you could improve your score by trying levels repeatedly until you attained a 'perfect' score.
My new game (Paladin's Passage) had the same problem initially: once you completed a level, the only reason to go back would be to get a better time, which wasn't really incentivized. I completely revamped the level progression, eliminated the idea of lives, letting players replay levels as often as they wanted, and put non-linear goals (partially-hidden collectible 'secrets') in each level to incentivize replay to try to get a perfect score.
I agree with some of the other comments as well; the controls are still a bit janky. It is tough to get 'flow' going. Also definitely needs some sounds: music, environmental, etc.! Even a placeholder of something royalty-free would be an improvement.
As a fellow video and tactile game designer I didn’t find any major problems, it was a solid puzzle experience. If there are any notes, it’s on things you’re probably already working on fixing.
The Puzzles were good, not too hard. I finished the game in 6 minutes, the 6th one took a disproportionate amount of time (the one where you have to stop the rising box with the door), but once I figured it out I went “ohhhhhhhh” out loud, which is a good sound.
I liked how all of the solutions were obvious once they were solved. Like, once you figured out what you needed to do, it wasn’t like “alright, now let me try this 6 times to see if it works” it was more “does this work… Yes! Awesome, next puzzle”
I thought the player moved and jumped pretty satisfyingly, it needs to move a little slow to keep the slow, methodical puzzle-solving theme going.
I'm not a puzzle player but I thought the levels were generally very good, nice difficulty curve. However, the last level I solved by doing random things until it worked. Felt slightly different to the other levels, I didn't feel lead to the answer.
The movement and mechanics seem very well designed, I like all the unique items and the magnet felt very emphasised. However, the jump felt kinda floaty? The peak of the jump he feels weightless, although this may be an animation thing not the actual mechanic.
You should definitely be able to aim while moving, its jarring to be locked while aiming, as you cant make minor adjustments and I often ended up having to be forced to restart even though I knew it wouldn't work. I also think you should be able to cancel the throw. Not sure if this is a function already but super frustrating to not be able to cancel a throw I know isn't going to work.
Everything looks amazing and very clean. Possibly the hub world should be changed? It feels a lil clunky to get into worlds by throwing magnet, maybe just auto open doors or require no aiming for level selection.
Overall, felt very fun to play and the concept is super interesting, could definitely go places with more timing related puzzles. Keep up the good work :D
I really liked this demo. Overall it feels very good and is very fun playing. Although it weren't implemented I was able to feel the heavy "thumb" sound of the magnets falling to the ground. Very good job with this especially considdering this game does not even have sound yet. Regarding the difficulty : for me at least most levels were quite easy. I were able to solve them after a few trials. Only the last level was very difficult. It took me some time until I finally figured it out.
Now to what I noticed while playing it:
SUGGESTIONS:
- Why do I have to press a button to pick up the magnet, but auto-pickup the key?
- Why do I let go of the magnet upon entering a magnetized revolving door, but I keep the hold on the magnet whilst getting pulled towards another large magnet.
- Maybe start AND end aiming with right mouse button and throw with the left mouse button. This is more intuitiv since that's what is being used in most games: RMB: zoom/aim LMB: shoot/trigger (Also while the game tells you that you can throw with E, but it doesn't tell you that you can shoot with the mouse. I only found out through the options menu)
- Maybe add the possibility to go downwards through semi-solid objects usind the "down" key. Similar to how Super Mario can jump up through floors and falls back down by ducking.
For example the ladder in Lvl 3. One can climb it by jumping upwards but one can not go down by pressing "down". By this you don't need to leave space to get down.
- Keyboard options: When using a non-english keyboard the depicted button might differ from the actual button pressed: I have a QWERTZ keyboard so compared to the standard english keyboard "Y" and "Z" are swapped. So if I want to rebind an action e.g. "Jump" to my Z key it shows that I have bound the action to my Y key. The problem is worse for more different keyboards like a cyrillic or greek Keyboard.
- It is not possible to spam the "magnet action" key. One can only use the key again until after the animation has played. Because of this one can not use the blue magnetic beams to quickly turn the magnet red and back to blue mid air so that it gets some additional height.
- On keyboard controll it feels a bit weird having the left hand pointer finger do the job for three actions: Move right, swap polarization and throw magnet. Furthermore one can not simultaneously move right whilst pressing "swap polarization" or "throw magnet".
(Also like others have already said, it would be nice to be able to move while aiming, maybe it would be nice to move only slowly while aming such that minor corrections are easily possible.)
MINOR DETAILS:
level design:
- The ladder in Lvl 3 could use an additional stair, so that it is shut with the floor to the sides of it. As it currently is one needs to do an awkward jump.
- The chain in Lvl feels a bit janky. Whilst the magnet and the box go up and down, the length of the chain varies. Thus it feels more like a rubber band than a solid iron chain.
MINOR BUGS:
- (Windows) Holding down LMB to aim. Alt-Tab out of the game and back into it. The robot thorws the magnet and you can drive around. But you cannot pick the magnet up (using "E"). You have to click into the game window to be able to pick it up again.
- Credit Level: when driving to the far right side the level shifts up and down a few pixel.
Edit:
The path shown is not neccesarily the path the magnet takes:
Here (Lvl 7) it looks as if one could throw the magnet through the hole between the block and the ground. But the magnet gets blocked by the big block:
Just as a note, the last level is actually solvable by throwing the magnet through the box, that's actually how I solved it during my playthrough lol
This way is a lot easier:
A few things I noticed:
Some nitpicks:
Praise:
I generally really enjoyed it, for an early demo its overall pretty good. I liked the idea with the hub, however i felt that i had no incentive to skip a level, and there it felt a bit (tiny bit) tideous to run through the hub level every time.
I played on my macbook, and the window was really big, when in windowed mode (i suspect that you have the standard resolution set to something that fits on your monitor), so big that i couldn't see the fullscreen button that you had implemented in the main menu. I did get it to fit my screen, but a resizeable window would be very nice.
But overall great job with this demo, i also really liked the graphics and the feel of the character.
Hello, Mark!
Just watched your video and decided to try the game as soon as possible. Overall, great work, game feels very good and even juicy in some parts (love the impact of rotating doors, heavy metallic hit sound will acompany it perfectly, when you'd get to sounds). Got myself a few Aha moments, which were quite satisfying. Really loking forward to future game progress and videos on it.
Now for what I felt need some tweaking:
Platforming has still crawled in your levels - this part in 6th level when you need to quicly jump over the pit and go under the press. Took me at least 10 tries to doI thought that was the solution. Look at previous point then;That's said, I can close my eyes on all of this, just for how juicy magnet interactions feel. Really love it! <3 <3
P.S. love hand drawn settings icons, really felt your love for the game :)
Idk which timed jump you’re talking about in the 6th level. This is the same level where the metal box is stopped by the door, right?
Even if it isn’t, I didn’t find any solutions that relied on speed and/or timing.
After dropping the cube from the door, you need to jump over the hole you drop the cube in and then go under descending press to get to the key before press lowers to the platform. Maybe it’s just me (I’m not good in platforming), but this bit was the second most challenging for me
Oh man, that wasn’t the solution to the puzzle.
And then you can take all the time in the world to get the key
Oh, it seems I did it wrong way around :) Oops
I thought the same about your first two points. Maybe one could raise the driving speed in the hub level since it is far more spacious. For me it was neither too fast nor too slow while inside the levels.
The background parallax looks strange, especially when there are doors. The doors also cover up the smoke effects and aiming lines, which feels and looks a bit weird.
The fact the hub is non-linear is cool, but it's hindered a bit by the fact that you basically pick levels at random, and you have no incentive to play all of them once you have enough keys to progress.
You also have no insight on what is within the level before you select it, so you're essentially picking stages at random until you get enough keys. This works in other games where the hub is presented as a map with branching paths, because it somehow makes deciding which path you pick feel more meaningful, and some levels are locked behind others. Maybe some levels could give out multiple keys? Or maybe the hub itself could be more interesting or complex to navigate, to make picking and choosing levels more interesting? Maybe certain levels could unlock keys to other areas of the hub? Dunno, just throwing out some ideas off the top of my head.
The tutorial introduced a pipe as the solution to the level, and I made a mental note that this would be the objective of the game throughout, but it turned out not to be true, even though pipes appeared later on in stages.
I think the movement feels good, jumping feels nice. But there is a weird gap between pressing the throw button and the player character actually beginning their wind up. This makes initiating a throw feel really awkward.
I think it actually plays quite nicely on mouse and keyboard, but the default controls need a little work - the less I have to move my hand all over the keyboard, the better.
The visuals are nice. I like the facial expression on the character when you aim, If you wanted to expand on that, the magnet's expression could change while it is in mid-air (it might already, but it's kind of hard to tell?), and also immediately after a collision. Maybe on the anticipation before the throw as well. The colour palette is good.
This is a bit of a weird one - technically returning to the hub being in the main menu makes sense, but for some reason it felt kinda weird.
Great job! love the video series. I hope my feedback is useful!
Hi Mark first things first: You did a really good job and this demo is really great so far.
I made note of some good things and some things that either weren´t that good or just of some little issues.
1. To start with the good things first:
Two other things that were positiv is that you can´t change the magnet to +/- before it is completely attracted by an active source nearby
and that the player gets attracted by a "magnetic push gate" if he´s holding the magnet
2. The things that weren´t that great:
3. To come to a conclusion:
Even if the length of the good and bad sections are more or less even I would say that the sections with the good points absolutely outweights the negative points with no doubt. It already feels like a demo with a finished game waiting to be released. Everything looks and feels great. You really are in control of everything. You have really good puzzles and great objects you can use in those puzzles. To be in control of which level you play is also great for example if you are completely stuck somewhere and don´t know what to do you can just come back at another time.
I hope I could make you feel proud of yourself for what you accomplished and feel great because YOU really deserved that.
Greetings Daniel
Feels quite good! Controls are intuitive, though I did map my magnet so I could use it with just the mouse. I would love to see some longer puzzles in future versions, but otherwise I think this is very inventive! I really liked the solution to level 7, but it is a bit finicky to get right without getting the magnet stuck out of reach.
The character feel is much improved which was nice, however I feel like it could use a bit more "snappiness". Maybe move just a bit faster, change directions a bit quicker, etc. That being said, I believe sound will greatly improve this or possibly completely solve it altogether.
The puzzle design was good and I felt a few "aha" moments, but overall the puzzles just feel good, not great.
To be fair, I just played through Baba Is You so maybe take this with a grain of salt, but after completing this demo nothing really felt memorable to me. To compound this problem most of the levels felt very samey.
In my opinion, this game totally has the foundation it needs to be something special, but I can't shake the feeling that something is missing that would take it to the next level. Unfortunately, I have no idea what that is.
Good work and best of luck!
The controls feel good. I like that the player stops and then the animation has a follow though. To me this makes it feel realistic without having the control feel sloppy. You also had a good balance between puzzle and platform. Me and my chat think you could use another run at level four, as it was a little too confusing. Other than that some audio would also really make this thing shine. Either way, very solid MVP 2. Cheers!
I really liked the demo. The puzzles were difficult enough to maintain me entertained, but not too much to be frustrating.
The game next demo definitely needs some sound effects, specially for secondary feedback of things happening in the level, like magnet changing polarity, or platforms moving.
In the hub, it feels weird how the background moves a different speed than the gates (that one would think that are in the same depth as the background)
Also, I would change the way the trow button works. Because for a short demo it's no such big deal, but for a full release game, it would be annoying how you have to maintain pressed the trow button to see the path of the magnet.
The other thing I don't like, is how the "double state buttons" (or levers) works. It doesn't always change to the side I like, or it is difficult to trow the magnet specifically to one half of the button.
What I really liked is the feel of the magnet. It feels heavy, but with powerful attraction at the same time. Also, the movement feels great, i had to habituate to the "long" delay making the biggest jumps, but once learned, i really liked it.
I hope this feedback helps you in some way.
Very nice puzzle game. It plays good and the levels are clever.
I had few issues. The ramps are confusing. You can just drive up any incline in the game, but to me the ramps blend in with the background. I was jumping them up like they were stairs, always took me a moment to realize I don't have to do that.
The tutorial was little confusing at the end. You have to throw the magnet up the green pipe to finish it, which made me think you need to do this at the end of every level. I was fixating on that quite a lot and was sometimes even planning the solution based on the fact that I need to get my magnet back after I get the key to finish the level. Which obviously you don't need to do, so the levels are often impossible to solve with both key and magnet in your possession.
While we are on that topic, selecting levels by aiming and throwing the magnet is too much of a hassle IMO. I wish it was simpler, just pressing a button on a prompt would be nice.
And last, unless you are planning to give R and W some separate function, please make R the default reset key (why is it CTRL ?) and bind jumping to both SPACE and W. Thanks.
Not bad, noticed that if you throw yourself at a ledge while holding a magnet you can get caught slightly, as the character and the magnet have collision but the tether between them doesn't. Might be a space for a new mechanic, a thin floor piece (zip-line) that has to be traversed with a magnet. Maybe having to alternate polarity to progress down the line. Another issue, when holding down for aimed throw, you come to a stop; i.e. no aimed throws on the move. Not sure if it is intentional design, but It might be limiting on design space for puzzles. also, If you go to replay a level, there is no key or placeholder. Only way to leave a level you are replaying is to esc. and return to hub. That maybe fine, but it needs at least a phantom key in the replayed level to show what the objective of the level was, otherwise its a question without an answer. The reset level button might need a better indicator, currently there is a slight delay when pressing control before it engages. There isn't much feedback on if it is registering your button press, it took several seconds to realize that it was a press and hold prompt rather than a simple push. Might need to adjust the level hub or increase the characters move speed. 6 levels was about 1 level too many to walk past to get to the next level. Maybe spawn in the middle with 3 pipes to each side, and next batch of levels is a pipe overhead? Sorry for the wall of text. good luck with the game!
Feedback: The character feels really nice to play and move around with, there's nothing that feels janky or annoying about him at all.
However, I will say the screen resolution is a tab bit annoying; I think the game should open in full screen and have an option to make it a resizable window.
I'm also really grateful for remappable controls because while the game does feel good to play using a controller (thanks to the bumper and trigger buttons) playing on the keyboard wasn't all that fun in the beginning. I wasn't a fan of all the different controls I had to master and keep track of, it all seemed overwhelming whether it was between jumping or switch polarities. It wasn't until thankfully there were remapping controls that I was able to get into it.
Being able to change the magnetic switch to the RMB and jump the MMB helped a lot with keeping everything simple.
Aim and throw with the LMB, jump with MMB, and changed polarities with the RMB.
The first shifty thing you walk into to shift doesn't shift if you are already walking into it when it finishes its animation. Idk how to explain what i mean by shifty thing but it's literally the first game object after the game teaches you what button it is to jump.
I soft lock myself in the tutorial by throwing the magnet to the door at the left LOL
in general the puzzles were nice
Felt much better playing this version (2.0) in regards to control, character movement and progression. Well done!
My main issue was figuring out how to interact with the scenario at some moments, like figuring out at which point I should throw the magnet to interact with a button and change its polarity but accidentally throwing the magnet someplace unreacheable and having to restart the puzzle all over.
Really fun! The character controller is much better and whilst the art may not be final - the magnet and robot have a good amount of expressiveness. The simple act of throwing the magnet to unlock a door for a level is small but makes the game feel more based around the magnet, similar to how in mario odyssey you need the hat to just dispense moons into the ship.
The puzzle elements were great, especially the gate that is moved by the magnet.
I didn't notice any major cons or issues, i think the game plays and looks well and so long as there are fresh mechanics for more puzzles (and sound design) it could go on the market in a moments notice.
The initial tutorial section is well made and I think the idea of needing to throw the magnet into a pipe to unlock a door out the level could be good for other levels, since you would also have to account for retrieving the magnet. However this could complicate things and would require some small tests to see if its positive or negative for the puzzles.
Great demo, thank you Mark!
Nice short but (mostly) challenging puzzles! Here's one probably obvious thing I've noticed right away - because I wanted to solve the first level faster:
1) When you replay an already completed level there's no way to exit it aside from using the menu. Maybe add a greyed out key (like the stars in Mario 64) to ensure replayability of levels ;)
2) And the default key bindings for right (D) and switching polarity (F) get in the way when switching and moving to the right at the same time or successively.
Yeah point 1 was unexpected!
Overall a good start.
One of the things that I got hooked up on was in level-0/totoral I did not know how to get through the final door to the hub for some time. When I saw the pipe all I could think about was Mario and how you would need to go into it even with the other door there, so I kept trying to jump up to it. It would have been nice to have something to say that you need just the magnet to go up it.
Seeing as I'm probably the only person who played this game on a square monitor instead of widescreen like the game was designed for, I'll take it upon myself to tell you that the game is pretty bad in some places when you can't see the leftmost or rightmost parts of a level. Specifically level 2, the same as the fourth screenshot. I couldn't see the switch on the right or the screw on the left. I beat every level in the game before level 2, just cause I couldn't see what I was doing. The loading screen was rendered useless because I could see above and below it, so I could see the levels load in. My suggestion: make it so the view scales down so it is always within the width of the player's monitor (that would mean putting the black bars above and below the frame when it's fit to the monitor. I think you get what I mean.) That's how I solved the issue in my game. Or else give a semi-freecam mode, but I find that a bit overengineered for the problem.
On a positive note: I love everything you've done with this game, it feels so polished that it's fun even when I don't get the aha moment and just brute force things. The art is great, the character feels perfect, and the puzzles felt like puzzles I'd never played before. You have made a very quality game.
Oh and by the way, if you're getting a lot of feedback about the last level it's probably because those people, like me, didn't notice the block would be stopped by the switch. I happened upon it by accident, so making what is and isn't possible more obvious (in cases where most working memory is already taken, like in the last level) is probably the best way to go. Essentially, we stop taking in new minor details when our working memory is already full, so as not to fill it further. So clarity is key.
Resizeable window on OSX would be great! I was messing with the fullscreen buttons and got the game stuck in a sort of unplayable resolution.
That last level is a doozy, but overall i enjoyed my time with the game. best of luck!
Great game. Looks good, feels good to play. Nice and smart puzzles.
Two complaints, though. The sloped buttons are difficult to jump on because of that weird angle. I guess they are sloped so that the magnet would slide off once it had pressed the button, but that doesn't mean that the player character has to interact with the button in the same way.
You could make it so that the player character doesn't even collide with the button and they just have to drive over the button hitbox to trigger it. The game would flow much better like that. Of course if the player doesn't want to trigger the button, they can just jump over the hitbox. Easy peasy.
Also, you should be able to aim and throw the magnet while moving. The game would flow way better like that.
Cheers.
It controls really well, and the mechanics are awesome. My main complaint is when you figure out the solution to a puzzle, and accidentally miss a jump you have to re-do the whole thing again. This isn't much of a problem now but when the puzzles get harder and longer it could be very frustrating. Maybe add a baba is you style reverse, just not grid based.
There is one problem I found, that you can go back to previous levels, but you cannot get out without using the menu and that's a little bit weird
But it's a really fun game so far and I liked it
The Good
The Bad
Oooh, nice puzzles!
Main observations so far: I love the chunkiness of the animations - objects slowly start moving and then rush into place with an inaudible slam - but I do feel a bit frustrated at the start of levels having to wait for the magnet to arrive and pick it up (them up? what are the magnet's pronouns?) manually every time. I kind of wish that the magnet would fall into the robot's hands as the level swipes in so I could just go immediately upon resetting a level or returning to the hub. (Loved that in Celeste, where "start running instantly" was always a correct timing for timed puzzles.)
The feel of resetting a level is good, though - it's not instant but it's quick. Which I appreciate, because I had to do that a lot.