The robot as some discernible latency when moving, a little hitch before jumping, starting movement or changing direction. In a game where you have to go back and forth a lot, an instant start to your movement would feel better to me than the build up. Don't get me wrong, it feels good, just the little hitch in the start.
It took a few playthroughs to fully grok how the throwing works. I didn't realize you could feather the power of the throw with you stick right away. I think the arc that appears when you first start a throw is a little deceptive, showing an arc, when tweaking that arc requires more movement then you might expect.
Controls
I would like more controller mapping options (I know it's not easy). In particular I'd like to be able to map pickup/drop to a button and throwto another button. For throwing, it feels better to hold a trigger (or paddle) than a button, but a button still feels right for picking something up. It would be also cool if the left stick was mapped to throwing, so just using the stick started a throw, or you could at least use it to aim the throw.
Disclaimer: I have a controller problem.
Softlocks
This a design choice, but I felt a bit vexed by the levels that were easy to softlock in. I am familiar with puzzle games that it is capable to softlock, but if feels uncomfortable in a puzzle platformer, where I felt there should be a way for me to get back. I realize that avoiding this would put a massive constraint on your puzzle design, so maybe making resetting snappier, or make easy softlocks into traps (i.e. if I'm gonna get soft-locked in this pit, put spikes in it.)
Glitch
I tried to break the physics and am really impressed at how the magnet, jumping and everything works without jank! There was a minor graphical glitch were the tiles in the background would flicker as I moved back and forth. You can see it in this video:
Ideas/Nitpicks
Throwing the magnet up to start a level felt a little off to me. I know that you want magnets to be core to the game, and this build's puzzles really did that. It felt like it was about using the magnet well. Throwing the magnet straight up isn't the most comfortable thing to do, and seems a little much to enter a level.
I could see the hub world being a lot more complex, with verticality, and maybe areas gated off by powered magnets, that you need to magnet-jump to get to the next set of levels. You could be collecting batteries to open up new paths.
Please change the look of the pipes. They scream MARIO to me which is discordant in a game that seems much more a puzzler than a platformer. I love the nod, they just stand out a lot, and don't seem to be a major system in the game. Turned-off electro-magnets are dark and blend into the background but the pipes call attention to themselves.
Here's a terrible idea! Have a more difficult to get bonus item in a level that encourages going back, like Celeste's strawberries. You could make these platform challenges, while to get the 'key' you need to puzzle.
I hope some of these are helpful. I'm very impressed with how polished this already feels. And I appreciate your documenting a beginner game developer. It makes me realize I could do something.
Hi! Love the channel, the game is very promising and feels like something I could lose a few hours in without realizing haha
I do have a couple ease-of-use things that I'm having trouble with:
- Having to press E to pick up the magnet manually. An option to automatically pick up the magnet when I'm over it would help a great deal
- Not being able to move while aiming. I feel like I could line up my shot just perfectly if only I could move (perhaps slower than normal) while in aim mode.
- Having to press a separate key to cancel aim mode. More often than not I end up throwing the magnet around and losing my aiming spots. This one might just need some more time spent on my end playing, but who knows
- Visual distinctiveness of the barriers that the magnet can pass through but not the player character. The first real puzzle room took me a few tries before I realized that it wasn't that my jump was too short (though, I did struggle with that in the tutorial when it took me a second to make it out of the first gap); it was a barrier next to the magnet that I couldn't pass.
Despite all that I'm having fun with the game! Keep working at it and hopefully it gets even better :)
you should try and make it so that when you complete a level you spawn back out side the level door instead of going all the way back to the beginning and having to walk all the way back to the next level
I'm loving it so far! The movement feels great and I love the little animations for the PC. I even had a few of those "Ah-ha!" moments you've been talking about! Here's a few observations/recommendations:
- Toggling the polarity symbols in the accessibility menu only seems to apply to the magnet and not the fields, even when entering a new level.
- Another nitpick about the menu I have is that when checking boxes, the last one you click is highlighted in red. This made it slightly confusing when trying to see what options I had selected, though I realize that will probably change once you get to making the menus look pretty anyway.
- I found that the default button for picking up and throwing the magnet (E) felt a little clunky. I noticed in the options that the left and right mouse accomplish the same thing and felt much better, so I think that should be what the tutorial indicates or at least makes more clear.
- I think the tutorial level should be accessible after its completed, just in case players want to go back to see the tips again.
- I noticed some dotted boxes with various symbols showing up in the background beyond the borders of the level. I'm not sure if these are meant to environmental details or are just visual bugs but if it's the former, I think they could probably be implemented better. As they are, they felt out of place and unintentional.
- My only design gripe is about the key/door system. I don't really feel like it fits the theme of the game all that well. It also seemed odd that I was throwing my magnet through a pipe to open a door rather than using the key I collected. I don't have any good alternatives to recommend but I think I saw another comment mention something to with batteries may be more fitting.
- Finally, whether the keys stay or get replaced with something else, I think the item that is collected at the end of the level should still be there if you attempt the level again later. Otherwise it can be difficult to figure out what the objective of the level was originally. Maybe something similar to how Celeste shows strawberries you've already collected as grey?
Overall, this project is very promising and I'm VERY excited to see where it goes! :)
This was a cool demo! Lots of potential. Here's some nitpicks.
-The aim line and smoke go behind certain elements like the doors or the Thanks For Playing but the magnet goes in front of them. Not sure if that's intentional. Certain parts of the hub the magnet also goes behind, like the green key squares.
-From the end screen there's no natural way out besides hitting escape. It's a demo so I'm not sure that matters.
-When I initially went into aim mode, I couldn't actually hit the switch because it wouldn't let me adjust the aim. I was using arrow keys and then pressing E, but the arrows didn't seem to be adjusting the aiming. I only realized you could when I switched to WASD + mouse, which I didn't get an indication was possible initially because there was nothing indicating directional keys.
-When you re-enter a level, the key is gone, so you can't always tell what the goal was unless you remember. And is there even a way to beat the level again?
-With WASD+mouse controls, the F button is the same finger as D, so it's a difficult finger-hopping move to try and get over to the right on the last level. F, move finger over to D, back to F super quickly, back to D super quickly. Maybe in that config right mouse would work better for polarity switch. Different hand.
-On the first level, when I was standing on top of the ramp on in the middle of the screen facing left toward the blue beam, when I pressed E to drop the magnet, not throw it, the magnet zipped back behind me to underneath the pipe. I thought it might have been "rolling" down the ramp really fast, but hovering above it, but I'm not sure what it was. When I loaded back into the level later it didn't happen again.
-If you go back and forth quickly in the flip doors that don't use the magnet, you can get in a position where you're pressing on the door, but you have to go backwards and forwards again to push it open. Not sure if that's meant to be a situation where you need momentum to open the door, but it feels a little off to get blocked like that.
-That flip door also moves slightly before you touch it in certain scenarios. It works just fine visually in most scenarios, but if you're moving back and forth it feels like there's a buffer of air between you and the door that you're pushing on.
-The tail while you're moving is really nice for game feel and conveying a sense of momentum, but it sticks out a little bit amongst all this metal and machinery. Maybe an exhaust cloud would diagetically convey the same thing? Or it would look like the robot is farting all the time.
-It's an interesting touch to make it so the wheel rolls you off corners. Very distinctive and cute. Maybe since you're not going in a hardcore platformer direction anymore it won't matter, but a potential downside under that scenario is I wonder if it's possible to just barely miss a jump and then roll off.
-Pressing left and right at the same time instantly makes you not move and lose all momentum. When hopping back and forth, frolicking almost, it can lead to this awkward grinding to a halt feeling if you happen to still have one direction pressed when you move to another, or queue up your next direction without letting go of the last. You either freeze or freeze in midair and drop straight down. The latter could be a strategy (albeit a physics-breaking one) for more intense platforming, a way to make a huge leap and then just immediately drop with no momentum, but I think it's too easy to accidentally do.
-When you go back to the hub world it would be nice if you came back in the same location that you left from. Outside of the door of the level you just left, for instance.
-I like the solution to level 1 a lot. It did take me a long time because I was familiarizing myself with the momentum of the magnet, figuring out that aforementioned glitch, and a little unclear on how the bar that blocked me worked. Because of the little ramp going left I initially thought I had to get the magnet to drop onto it so that it would roll left onto the other ramp and then roll right before I realized that I just throw it in when it's the other color. It's doable, but a bit of a hardcore first level because there are a lot of new elements to figure out.
-I like how the trick with Levels 2 and 3 really build on Level 1, about changing the polarity when you're far away
-It would be nice if each level had some unique identifier in the hub world. A name, a symbol, because it's hard to remember which is which if you're going back to them.
-The parallax is slick in the hub world, but I initially thought that the tiled background was where the garage doors were attached. So without them being attached to the background it feels like you and the doors to nowhere are floating on a plane half a mile away from the background.
-In level 4 I initally tried to use the magnet to pull the large moving piece to the right because it had a plus on it and it looked like it fit right in that alleyway. I would think that it's just because it's "too big" but the blue magnet doesn't even stick to it, so there's an inconsistency in how the magnet behaves with different magnetized elements.
-In level 4 (it seems) you can soft lock the level by destorying the magnet while the flip door on the right is set to blue, which is really easy to do. So the magnet respawns between the destruction field and the back of the door, which isn't magnetized, then there's no way to get the magnet to where the door can be opened agian. Soft locks I guess are what the reset button is for, but in more complex levels or play scenarios where you're exploring new mechanics and how they interact, it might be hard to know if you're *actually* soft locked or not and just run your head into a wall for a while until realizing that there's no other way. The other major soft lock in this level is if you throw the magnet onto the switch from the alley and then get blocked in. That one's more obvious, if frustrating.
-I like the solution to level 6. I will say when I entered the level I got overwhelmed at the number of mechanics in front of me and just started messing around, because it wasn't clear how they all interacted with each other. If I were playing a fuller game where I had more time with these mechanics I'm sure I would have been less overwhelmed. It introduces an interesting mechanic, blocking the motion of magnetized blocks, that I'm excited to see developed.
Here's couple things I found odd or something to improve.
Odd placement of fullscreen button, I think this should be in the options menu. Now you can't change that setting without exiting game unless you know that alt+enter works.
Options menu should have some indication how to exit it. I found out that ESC works but since some games doesn't save setting when exiting with ESC I had to go back to see if changes are actually saved.
It wasn't obvious that you'll need to use mouse to aim. I tried to aim with keyboard w/s/a/d. Maybe you should add option to play with just the keyboard.
This one is pretty niche problem but when playing with 32:9 aspect ratio, there are huge black borders. I think you should add support for other aspect ratios as well. In this game having wider aspect ratio wouldn't even give player any unfair advantage since there aren't any level designs that rely on hiding stuff by scrolling those out of the view.
First off, I want to say I really enjoyed this demo and love your videos. Feedback:
The tutorial doesn't specify the mouse is used to aim, which left me really confused at first, and I don't think it should be needed. Since the character can't move while throwing the magnet anyway, I'd prefer to use the arrow keys to aim in order to not have to keep moving my hand away from the arrow keys to the mouse each time I wanted to throw the magnet.
The very first thing done with the button was kinda confusing since I had to jump to do it, but maybe it would have been easier knowing I could aim properly.
The number of keys fades out slightly after the actual key itself, and for some reason that's been really bothering me the whole time.
Other than those small nitpicks, I'd say it's going great, and I can't wait to play the next version :)
Love your videos, super insightful, please keep bringing us along for your journey! I'm playing on laptop and don't play PC ever, so others that are more familiar with computer gaming might not agree, but this was my experience:
-I had expected Up to jump, and would've preferred it so I can keep one hand on the arrows and leave it like that.
-The first puzzle, I did not figure out that you aim with mouse , it just said E to aim, so I hit E and tried to use my arrows to aim it, and was stuck for a couple of minutes before I realized the arrow aims it.
-Took me a minute to realize you can reverse the polarity while the magnet is not currently equipped, so I thought I was stuck at the end of the first level, when the magnet zoomed back to the gate thing and the gate closed behind it, leaving me without a magnet and seemingly no way to turn the gate.
-The 5th level (the 4th door) was really tedious to have to get back up by climbing the rows and then trying to time reversing the polarity and jumping at the same time
-don't love the design of the buttons on the ground, the diagonal design makes it so I have jump accurately every time to get it to switch. It has advantages, such as when coming from the correct side, but if you're on the side with the higher part of the button, you have to jump it.
Overall though I still had fun, no serious issues for me. Thanks!
I enjoyed it quite a bit, especially the final two puzzles which did give me the 'a-ha!' moment.
For making the magnet feel more integral to the experience, I think it would be good to have to have the little robot be carrying it in order to (at least) enter a level, it felt weird chucking it away just to open a door. My first move in each level was always to pick up the magnet, even before I looked at the level layout, so if I was already holding the magnet when I spawn in, it might make me feel more connected to it as a mechanic.
I also think that rounding out the player's hitbox on edges may have caused me to think platforming, rather than magnet polarity, was the solution to puzzle six; all the way on the right of the level I could ride the magnet up to the platform with a two way switch, but I could also jump to that platform if I timed it well; that led me pretty far astray from the elegant solution of dropping the magnet, having it naturally slide down-left on the ramp, and only then jumping across platforms to the goal. It led to interesting emergent mechanics, like tossing the magnet on top of the blue (-) block and wedging it between blocks. I also tried tossing the magnet onto the 'pressure switch' at the bottom of the level and then jumping my way back to the two-way switch; even though it felt obvious that wasn't the right solution, I kept trying it thinking 'maybe this time I can get the correct throwing angle,' and reset maybe six times after tossing the magnet to a spot I couldn't reach. So in that stage the jump was just a little too forgiving; perhaps giving the area with the two-way switch a 'lip' might make it clear you can/should only be able to get to it via riding the magnet up.
I also found myself thinking that if I want to hold the magnet as I enter a level, I want to hold it as I exit a level, also, and how messy that could potentially be for completing a level given all the different positions the magnet needs to be in as you collect keys across levels; but then I remembered the way Celeste handled some strawberries; so maybe the robot can collect the key whenever/however the player can accomplish it, but then the level ends when you reconnect with the magnet; I'm not sure! Just a few stray thoughts!
- the mechanics of the magnet (like the turning wall/door thing) are fun to mess around with
- overall the levels are fun to play and do have an aha moment
Negatives:
- The final level has a huge difficulty spike (all other levels took me 5-ish minutes and this one took 20- to 30-ish)
- I'm not sure i found the right solution for the final level, as it was very hard to pull off and very easy to mess up so badly you have to reset (did feel like a badass tho) (solution i found at the bottom of the comment).
- It's very easy to get softblocked in the final level and have to reset
- It's not very clear, but it seems like you need to hold control for a little second to restart. The timing is long enough that if you consciously press it but just too short you don't know why it's not resetting, but the timing is too short to stop you from resetting when you accidentally press control. Maybe make the timer a little longer and have an indication of how long you need to press.
Bugs:
- When finishing the game and going back to the hub, the aim line appeared behind the doors and pipes
- if you go in a level when you already have that key you can only get out by going back to hub
The solution i found (can someone tell me if this is the right thing to do?):
1: go to the right of the screen with the magnet and activate the switch, so the big block is pulled up
2: Go to the middle platform (on the left side of the beam) with the magnet and stand around 1/3rd from the left
3: Switch the polarity of the magnet to red and throw it, when its halfway in the beam you switch it to blue so it is pulled up but not stuck to the beam. then hope it lands on the button
4: if you succeed, RUN to the left and hope you don't get squished
You can block the plaatform with the door thingy! I think the problem is that the part blocking is sticking out to little, so it's hard to see. Once you figure out that though you get through the level fairly easily. It was a great level to end on!
I also found that you can just lift yourself up by jumping onto the door as it flips upwards. Not sure that it matters because your just a step away from the regular solve
That's a very cool solution! In one of the videos in Mark's dev log for this game he said that, due to mixing skill and puzzle based gameplay, the original demo had issues with people trying to do puzzle sections via platforming / skill, and platforming / skill sections via puzzling, and that moving forward he would stick to puzzles much more to avoid this.
This level seems like an example where perhaps the open endedness results in that problem reocurring. I did it a similarly time sensitive way, which I posted a video of in my comment.
You have the middle block be in the up position, then switch the L gate with the magnet so that its in the way of the block's path down. Then you make the middle block fall, so it's resting on the L gate, and finally you set yourself up a bit right of the middle block, change polarities so that the magnet moves the L gate and middle block starts falling out of your way, and then time a jump across the gap really well so you can make it before the middle block hits the button and makes the left block fall on you.
Your developer series has reignited my interest in Unity, and the fact that you made this prototype is really inspiring. The prototype itself plays really nice. I played with mouse and keyboard and everything just felt so smooth and intuitive. What little tutorial you presented was all I needed to figure out the mechanics.
If I had one issue, it would be that I solved some (but not all) of the puzzles more by just trying a bunch of things until something worked than by getting the "Eureka" moment of seeing the big picture. But obviously that's a very high standard to meet and I think you've done a great job building this game so far!
I had my XBox360 controller plugged in and it recognized the buttons menu scheme but took a while before it recognized it in the game and let me use it.
The default XBox controller scheme felt unnatural to me. I know you'll have remapping and different schemes but I kept trying to use my triggers to throw the magnet. Very minor.
Throwing a magnet directly up feels uneven and not as natural as throwing it side to side.
Speaking of throwing a magnet up, using that to go to different levels feels like a placeholder or needs polish for changing levels. It wasn't super intuitive.
Overall, as I said above this game is just plain fun.
My only problem might be a little nitpicky, but I really hate having to restart the levels. I dislike falling into pits and not being able to get out. Every time I get physically stuck or lose the magnet, it breaks the enjoyment.
Here comes a long list of feedback I thought of when playing the game (don't get me wrong though, I still enjoyed your game):
- It's not clear you can press ESC to go back from the Options screen
- A bit awkward using mouse and keyboard when the UI is designed for controllers as well (i.e. the red selected areas), you could probably improve the selection system for both input methods. Stephen's Sausage Roll solves this problem by not having you use the mouse at all, although I don't think that's a very viable option here since the gameplay requires the mouse.
- Use W for jump - I find Space to be very unintuitive (though I haven't played many platformers myself so for all I know Space is the default key) (also I know there is keyboard remapping but still, you might want to consider making W the default key instead)
- I am aware the game is still in development and thus audio can be added later, but still, adding in a few basic sound effects created using sfxr or your voice can make the game feel a lot more "alive". It might also not be such a bad thing to add some audio this early in the game's development, as you can also get some feedback on the audio. Off-topic, but during game jams, sometimes it can also be a good idea to create the audio early on, instead of leaving it till the end, almost as an afterthought (though I haven't followed that advice myself...so feel free to take it with a pinch of salt).
- In the tutorial, the Carry Magnet button shows up as a "question mark" button instead of LMB (maybe it's asking me to...Question Mark?)
- *I feel that the magnet throwing controls can be designed better, it wasn't apparent to me that I could press Q to disable aim mode (so I spent the whole game throwing the magnet around). For me, I might try something like LMB to both carry magnet and release it (press it once to carry it, press it again to release it), and RMB to toggle aim mode (so once you carry the magnet you can press RMB to turn off aim mode, or have aim mode off by default and press RMB to turn it on, though you will have to make it clear in the tutorial). Personally, I think it isn't a good idea to have the player hold the LMB for the whole duration that the player is holding the magnet, which is why I thought of the controls I just mentioned.
- Also, to add on to the previous point, I realised once you press Q or RMB to exit aim mode, you can't toggle it back on unless you release the magnet, as re-entering aim mode requires pressing the LMB, which requires you to release it first and hence drop the magnet.
- I found the magnetic beams a bit confusing at first regarding the charges, I wasn't sure the floating pluses indicate the magnet should be a plus to attract or that the "polarity" is a plus and my magnet thus needs to be a minus to attract - I think that is a consequence of the magnetic beam "source" having a different sign from the signs on the magnetic beam itself (if the source says minus but the beam is filled with pluses, must my magnet be a plus or minus?). Maybe you could show the trajectory in aim mode going towards the magnet beam "source" when it is the right polarity.
- To add on to the previous point, you could also consider switching out the '+' and '-' symbols for 'N' and 'S'. Then it becomes much more intuitive for us since we have all learned in school that unlike poles attract, like poles repel (hey, you could add that as a feature into the game too - if the magnet and something else are the same colour they repel each other). That unfortunately also means you likely have to remove the option that like charges attract, but if this allows players to pick up the concept much better I would say that is a win. (I guess the idea behind this is that if the game uses something they learned in school, then it reduces the information load while learning the game, thus making it easier to learn.) After all, you are making a game about magnets, why not use North and South Poles as well instead of charges?
- Left Ctrl doesn't restart the level for me... (On a side note I think it might be better to use R for restart.)
- The right-angle door mechanic feels very satisfying, and I can see the mechanic's immense potential given how it is used in some of the puzzles.
- The player movement generally felt quite nice, though I might have liked the player speed to be a little faster, but just a little (since this is a puzzle platformer, maybe you could add an option to adjust player speed?). I believe you could do a bit of fine-tuning to get it to Celeste-level smooth, but then again that's up to you.
- The puzzles generally seemed quite nice, I especially liked Levels 2, 5, and 6. Level 3 felt a bit easy to me so maybe you could switch it with Level 2...?
- I suggest you could add checkpoints or design levels with less dead ends, it's too annoying to keep having to restart when you reach a state with no possible moves i.e. the player and magnet both get stuck (this sometimes happens by accident e.g. falling off a platform). Or you could consider implementing an undo system, although that would understandably be very hard for a puzzle platformer.
- An idea I had is to design the whole game's UI around the magnet theme e.g. make the menu screen use a magnet to indicate the currently selected option (like the fork in Stephen's Sausage Roll's menu), have the level transitions involve magnets more so than just a symbol - one idea I have is the magnet character entering from the right, then pulling in a black screen from the left, then making it switch polarity, allowing the black screen to exit from the left revealing the new level (followed of course by the magnet's own departure from the screen).
- Have the magnet fall from the green pipe only when you get close to it, so you know it is there to deposit magnets. A BoxCollider2D with Is Trigger set to true should do the trick.
- I feel that the Level Hub design could be improved, it feels a bit extra to have to throw the magnet into the pipe and then stand next to the door to go into the level (why not just have one action to enter the level? Say, throwing the magnet or standing next to the door and pressing a key.)
These are the feedback I have. I know it's a long list, and most of it is negative, but I hope you can take it constructively, and would like to reiterate that I still enjoyed the game despite its flaws. You should be proud of having created this for your first ever game (you can check out my own games on my itch.io page, I genuinely think your game is better than some of mine.)
With that being said, I remember one of your videos covered something about how to listen to feedback, and it mentioned how players understand the problems but not necessarily the solutions (or something along those lines, I can't really remember). Maybe you could take that to heart, and while I proposed a lot of solutions here you don't have to implement them the way I said it. I hope you can continue to take this game further.
- Make the minus on the magnet a different color or position; it looks like it's an elongated or misaligned pole. Maybe keep it horizontal at all times, like a UI floater.
- Add level numbers. This make it easier to look for walkthroughs or talk about the puzzle online.
- The ...6th? level should have a hoover nozzle that sucks you (or the magnet) out of the pit and deposits you onto the main floor out of a vent. Either that or detect locked states and offer to restart. No, definitely the first thing.
- I'd like to see puzzles based on INDUCTION :-) throw the magnet though a coil. Add springs for continued motion. Add springs on conveyor belts to get them into the right configuration.
- Keyboard input: either make the character movable during aim (might break game mechanics) - or - make the arrow keys change the angle of the throw. No mouse required.
- Please make a key (or tell me how) to cancel a throw. Space or...
- Also the 6th level: when the switch is on, and you're in the corner, you can't drive up the switch. The other way around IS possible.
- Another idea: put the key in a cage that can be moved around somehow. Only at the "end" point can you access it.
- Or make the key red (magnetic) sometimes. Guide it using the magnets.
- Upon finally getting the solution of the 6th level, I find it really awesome! One improvement: move the platform to the left of the tractor beam 1 block to the left. That makes it clear you can't jump across from left to right.
Really liked it overall. I liked the feel of the character and I found the double door really satisfying. Can't wait for the sound design! Just got a few little critiques:
Restarting the level. Wasn't sure if I had to press CTRL or hold it It became obvious eventually but maybe a lil animation that shows you must hold it down could be cool.
Aiming the Magnet. While aiming the magnet and changing the polarity, the trajectory resets. Would be nice if the trajectory of the throw stays the same, while also being able to change between polarities. Also being able to move while aiming the magnet would be nice.
Bug Found a bug, while you're in either the hub or the "Thanks for playing" level. If you hold down CTRL the restart symbol appears, top left, and just keeps growing until you let go of CTRL. Not really major but just letting you know.
Hope this helps you in anyway! Really excited to see how your game develops. It's so cool to watch the development of it!
Options menu has to be navigated with the mouse. Arrow keys do not work. Have to use LB/RB for controller (no indication).
Controller Inputs are wrong. It says B = Aim and X = Cancel Aim, but it's the opposite.
The REVERT buttons do not highlight in Keyboard settings.
Cannot bind the E key for some reason.
In the Pause Menu, you can still make the character face left/right and aim.
Pressing ESC in the Options Menu should bring you back to the Pause Menu.
The above works if you rebind a button, but then ESC no longer works to unpause - and clicking Resume will make the robot throw.
Pressing space on the Resume option will make the robot jump.
DEFAULT KEYBOARD CONTROLS:
I started using arrow keys for movement - because WASD didn't work for menus... This felt a bit strange when combined with E/F/Space, but not terrible.
I got to "Hold E to aim, release to throw" when I realised this would not work at all. The game wanted me to use a mouse to aim (despite not saying it).
One hand on the arrow keys, one hand on E/F/Space, third hand on the mouse? No. Clearly the game wanted me to use WASD instead...
So was WASD a better option? Well, yes and no. It was now awkward to change magnet polarity while moving. Also would be awkward to aim while moving... If not for the fact this has been made impossible.
No aiming while moving. Are there some future puzzles already planned with this limitation in mind? It just doesn't feel good to have your character's motion interrupted. Especially because it takes a second before it even registers.
I was very happy to discover that you can use a left mouse click to aim/throw instead of E. Next thought was it might be nice if the right mouse click changed magnet polarity.
Sadly, Right-Click is permanently bound to Cancel Aim. There should be secondary bindings for each button to prevent these permanent bindings.
Anyway, if both mouse buttons are already bound to aiming and cancelling, it might be worth trying out: Right-Click to aim, Left-Click to throw. This would allow you to cancel aiming just by letting go of RMB. It would also allow you to drop the magnet just by clicking LMB.
As for shifting the magnet's polarity shift - How about SHIFT? Or S, W, CTRL...
Might have to think of left-handed players as well. How are they going to jump? Up key?
MAN, there are so many different options for aiming it's hard to even begin to decide what would be best. Perhaps the cursor could be hidden, and aiming would work like Angry Birds / Ori. Maybe time would slow down while aiming (Ori). Maybe only in mid-air like in BOTW... Too many to contemplate.
Finally, it would be nice to have a "No Mouse" option. So you can play the game with WASD for movement and Arrow Keys for aiming. CTRL/SHIFT for Throw/Polarity. Whichever way around. Might have to test that each puzzle works for this mode. Should be noted that D-Pad aiming works right now.
DEFAULT CONTROLLER CONTROLS:
Fairly good.
If you decide to allow moving while aiming, it might be nice to have it set up this way:
IF IN MOTION: Aiming also moves the robot.
IF NOT IN MOTION: Aiming does not move the robot.
Alternatively, you could experiment with using the Right-Stick for aiming. But this might result in some strange jump bindings.
PUZZLE DESIGN
Quite nice. Some unintended alternate solutions.
This may come down to personal preference, but I tend to prefer puzzle games without unwinnable states.
That said, my favourite puzzle game (Baba Is You) has plenty of them. Of course, you can just rewind time in that game.
I just think there's something elegant about a puzzle that cannot be broken.
It's possible to soft-lock every level here - including the tutorial (2 soft-locks, and possible to die).
Not saying this is necessarily bad though. Every game is different after all. Maybe you want the player to really think about their actions before committing, rather than running around trying everything to brute-force the solution.
Good luck!
BUGS
Cannot fully replay levels due to lack of key.
If you hold down the "change polarity" button, it will change polarity again when the key is released.
It's impossible to jump when perfectly on top of a screw (Level 2).
A large magnet won't crush you if you're on the edge (Level 3/4).
Hold down Ctrl in the hub and the reset icon grows in size.
Skip the tutorial by pausing and selecting "Return to Hub".
oh I did not have the right solution to level 6 (saw solution in comments). It's a much nicer level than I thought that requires no timing skills ;-( But I was so hooked up with Lefel 1 showing me the mechanic I needed I never thought too hard. Why have the delay in the dropping of both the blocks (between first and second to drop) if you are not trying to tempt me to run the gap over one and under the other! At least let it be possible... or maybe its a troll for the hard-core.
It's really neat! But here's a load of long paragraphs of things I found troublesome and sometimes suggestions on how to fix them.
The camera movement can be annoying, especially with larger levels. It keeps falling behind the player character, only showing where the player was, instead of staying centered or moving forward t o show where the player will be, like in Super Mario Bros. That'd be nicer!
The game seems to intentionally disallow switching the magnet polarity too quickly. This can be very annoying if you just want to switch it to + and then back to -: if you do the second switch even just a frame too early, it just ignores the request completely.
Maybe buffering up to one switch would be a nicer strategy, if not removing the polarity switch delay? What about just making the magnet completely unmagnetized for half a second after a switch, ramping up to full power slowly, if you're afraid of players exploiting rapid switching?
I feel like it'd be nice if there was an option to aim far throws using WASD keys instead of (or in tandem with) the mouse when using KB/M, though that's probably personal preference.
I like how SuperFighters Deluxe handles its keyboard-only aiming: you either just shoot without aiming straight forward while walking around, or, when in the aiming mode, you use A/D to turn left/right, and W/S to change altitude.
You also have both aimless throwing and aimed throwing here aswell, so it might be worth using this kind of a system or offering it as an option.
Why such a long and drawn out loading screen with a wholesale prolonged fadeout/fadein animation? It's a very simple 2D game, and we aren't in the 1990s where that was necessary?
In the hub level, it gets progressively more annoying with each level to have to go all the way to the next level from the very start, because the next levels are farther and farther away from it.
Also after completing the levels, the screen above the appropriate garage door just goes blank. Maybe a checkbox is in place there? Or the level ID, like "H1L2" (Hub 1 Level 2)
In H1L6, it feels unfair that the hatch door's attractor does not attract the huge block, but the ceiling attractor does. Upon closer inspection I realize it's because the block is just a tiny tiny amount larger than the space in which it could be attracted in, but it still feels unfair. So far in the game, I hope I won't find that polarized blocks don't get attracted by hatches with attractors!
And in the same level, if you go up to the block while it's still on the ceiling, it also feels unfair that there's enough squeeze space just below the block that the drawn character can most definitely squeeze through, but it doesn't work. Now I just want a crouch function! :(
The last two are probably fixable by different level design that does not raise those questions in the first place lol
Also very slight visual complaint: the pixels of the game sprites (specifically the very edge of the walls) don't always align with the screen pixels, which can produce mismatched pixels. If you aren't going to have anti-aliasing enabled (which I think is better not used in this case), try using some math to keep the camera's position aligned such that for each screen pixel there's exactly one world pixel. Playing in 1920x1080 fullscreen.
Speaking of fullscreen, maybe this is a bug with WINE (I'm playing on Linux; export your game to it too please!), but the game seems to insist to be in 1920x1080 unresizable window when in windowed mode, and then force resizing the window to any sizes not in 16:9 aspect ratio breaks visuals pretty bad.
The game seems to be designed for 16:9 only, with the full UI (retry/switch polarity "buttons", the hint, and everything) being still rendered on the main menu and in the hub, just pushed offscreen.
The long-winded transitions reveal themselves to actually be long-winded and unnecessary (the game world is just sitting there ready while the thing does the whoosh) by not covering outside of the 16:9 region, the main menu's scrolling background magnets appear and disappear, and so on.
From this, a funny bug that affects even normal players: if, while in the hub, you hold R, the restart "button" starts scaling up while no actual restart is happening, so it just keeps creeping onto the screen, growing endlessly bigger in size until you release the key lol
If you accidentally try to start a level you already got all the keys in, I think you should warn the player or better yet have a "ghost" key to replay the level. I initially tried to go back through the pipe at the start. I was stuck until I realized I could pause and exit the level from the menu.
I enjoy your videos on Nebula so I came to have a go.
Feedback (warning spoilers).
Controls:
Holding CTRL to get a level restart becomes intuitive, however a 'bar-filling' animation might help to show how long you have to hold it for (a press is not enough). Just like in Super Smash Bros
You could have two-stages for the hold effect with CTRL. Hold for 2 sec to restart level , hold for 5 sec to go back to Hub. I didn't like there wasn't an 'Exit' in the level screen to go back to the hub.
I never came across a situation where I didn't want the magnet to be picked-up. How about an auto pick-up when I roll-over it? If I don't want to pick it up I can jump over it... (this could be a mechanic aswell)
Level Order:
I tried the levels in Order 4,2,6,1,3,5. Only Level 6 was 'really' challenging. I would overall the difficulty is aimed at kids??
After I failed to figure out level 6 (about 15 mins of trying) I became humble and went back to level 1, which was handy because level 1 gave me the idea to solve level 6.
Level 2 is very easy, an extension of the tutorial more or less.
Favourite level is level 5. Nice fake-out so answer is satisfying.
In level 6 why is the (annoying) switch not angled so that it is facing up close to the wall. If it was angled up at the wall, then a throw of mine would hit the far wall and the magnet would dead-drop onto it, making the throw a lot easier to get right. It's not like the dash not to get squished is easy to time, both together are hair pulling.
I never did level 6, however I think my solution would have worked if only I had perfect timing. It's nice that I didn't have to finish level 6 to get to the 'final' stage.
General Comments:
I like the puzzles are all on one screen. Somehow feels like the puzzle is not cheating by keeping some part of itself hidden (like a good murder mystery, all the clues are there...)
I like you can totally screw up the puzzle and you have to make your own decision to reset. The choice to reset was mine.
Rando ideas:
How about a super-heavy magnet that when you pick it up slows your characters movement and jump, has shorter throw range or can knock over obstacles when it is speedy from a mag field.
If the magnet hits your character on the head, then the character could enter a dazed animation that stops player input for a few seconds. It would be cute, fun to do, and could be a mechanic. Nothing like depolarising a magnet so it hits your bonce for a cheap laugh.
Um, technically a negative and a negative polarity on magnets are repulsive not neutral. Does this mean you want a third 'off' state for the magnet or two 'types' or magnet (positive and negative, and positive and neutral)? I liked how just two states kept the magnet simple though...
My kids play a lot of 'fire boy and water girl' and it feels like it should be similar. I will show my kids this game.
There's a lot to love about this MVP. I did not play the previous one, but it is really enjoyable to move the character around here. The animations complement the physics system to convey a clear sense of your/the magnet's momentum under different effects, where your character can jump to, and so on. Jumping around in particular is a joy and I often found myself doing so as I considered possible solutions.
No puzzle stuck out as a poor inclusion. They definitely got more difficult as they went on, but never so much that I was stuck on a puzzle for longer than a couple of minutes. I felt a number of the click moments you have described as I would attempt a solution, found the limitations, and then laughed when I noticed where I went wrong.
For minor things I appreciated, I thought it was smart to have the switches be angled as they are so you can roll over them to activate them, often pointing me in the direction I wanted to go as I did. Also, I liked that I could cancel a throw after holding X if I didn't use the thumbstick to aim, rather than being locked into throwing the magnet on release. I wasn't sure if that was an intended feature, but it helped nonetheless.
For things I might hope to see in the future, I would love to see an exploration of how you can build momentum to reach places. I've said how I love the physicality of the character and I would like to see that aspect be tested. I got quite excited to think that the 7th level seemed to involve flinging myself/the magnet onto the switch using the field, and while you can fling yourself it was a shame this wasn't part of the solution.
It would be nice to have the key remain in the level after beating it so that the level can be replayed, possibly in a greyed out form so it players don't think they can collect it again. This would definitely help the testing phase at least, as I have to quit and restart the game to replay the levels.
Finally, my biggest complaint is that it is very easy to softlock yourself on many levels. Falling into pits (e.g. the one with the button in level 7), locking yourself on the wrong side of the pushable barriers (e.g. in level 6, passing the barrier, travelling over it and landing behind it) and the magnet landing in an unreachable place (e.g. the flat ground behind the barrier in level 1) were some of the issues I faced. While this wasn't awful as the levels are short and quick to restart without losing any progress, and I think it is an acceptable design decision to demand planning instead of figuring out the puzzle through experimentation, if/when you start adding levels that are longer or require more complex execution this would quickly become very frustrating if not avoided.
I can't believe this is the first game you have ever made from scratch. It motivates me to learn more myself. Amazing job!
One thing I've noticed is the aiming system. The movement is controlled by the arrow keys but the aiming is by the mouse. Each time I wanted to aim at something was a mini "forced-back-to-the-reality" moment since I have to remember to let go of my arrow keys to reach the mouse, then come back to the arrow keys once again after throwing the magnet.
I thought that it'd be better if the movement is also controlled by the mouse since you are disabling the movement while aiming. Click and move toward style.
Overall, the puzzles were pretty satisfying to solve and I really liked the main character's movement. Basic controls like move and jump were pretty smooth as well (I remember you mentioned overhauling the player control system in one of the videos). I played with the Mac version but I didn't notice any bugs.
I always enjoy your video series and learn a lot from them. Keep up the great work you are doing! :D
The puzzles themselves were really satisfying. My main feedback would be that it takes a bit too long to restart the level, and the animation for collecting a key is boring.
Also concerning the keys, what if you made them somehow related to a magnet? Maybe fragments of a big magnet that you could use to reach the last level in the hub? I think it would be cool to lean into the magnet theme with the collectables as well.
The player character feels quite nice to control, and the magnet is very satisfying. Keep up the good work!
Really liked the game ! Here are my two feedbacks on the game :
1) (Maybe it won't really a problem for other players, but i'll mention it just in case) It felt a little annoying to aim with the mouse when the rest of the game is played on keyboard. I initially tried to aim with the arrows which would feel easier and more natural. But maybe that wouldn't be confortable or accurate for other players ?
2) Would be nice to have a power to call back the magnet, like the hammer in God of War. Main reason for that is : in some levels, I had to restart the because the magnet was out of reach. It made me shy to try throwing it in the final levels. Second reason : Sometimes it felt like the levels weren't really complete because i would abandon my little magnet friend behind.
I honestly loved this game! It looks great, feels great, and I enjoyed the learning curve + difficulty. When the MVP ran out I wanted to keep playing!
I also think that some of the accessibility features are great examples of the "curb cut effect" where accessible design benefits everyone! Personally I found the -/+ symbols that supplement the magnet polarity to be a really helpful supplement to the colours to keep the "opposites attract" behaviour in my head.
My only nitpick is that I'm personally not a huge fan of the green pipes. My first issue is that the bright green pipe evokes Mario too strongly for me, and I think it's a bit of a missed opportunity to develop the game's own unique cyber-punk aesthetic.
Second, I don't love that the same pipe plays double-duty for spawning and as a switch for activating doors, and it feels a bit clunky to have two steps to pass through a door. (One way around this would be to have the robot zip up the pipe with the magnet like in the puzzles!)
I'm going to dump a lot of negative feedback at once, but I hope this is helpful:
- The tutorial feels very linear, like you're on a conveyor belt being shown one mechanic after the other - It's never stated how to aim - If you tap to throw the magnet it will be thrown not in the direction you're facing, but the direction the mouse is in. - The initial tutorial seems to end in a different way to the actual levels. In the tutorial you throw a magnet into a pipe whereas the levels end by collecting a key - After collecting a key, there's a period where a key and a number below it is displayed in the middle of a black screen, and the number then goes up by one. This seems a little... off(?) as there's no animation - When using pulleys, the object going up should reach the top at the same time as the object going down reaches the bottom - In the final room the background does some weird things as you're going from one side of the room to the other... almost like you're on a slope?
Otherwise I think it's a solid concept. The animations, artstyle and transitions are generally very good. And the last 3 puzzles were very satisfying. Good luck to you Mark!
This! I know there are compatibility layers, but with Unity being a heavy engine by itself (yes, even for such 2D games) and some people's hardware being slow, it's nicer to have a native version to play.
It comes at no cost with Unity either, to my knowledge you literally just have to click that one additional checkbox to also export it for Linux. Why not?
Apparently according to the comments you are supposed to throw the magnet at a pipe and the pipe is supposed to suck it up. But I was not able to get the pipe to do that for some reason. I did try to throw the magnet in to the pipe a few times and then I got frustrated and gave up. This was on the very first level. Apparently you can click on a button that says "Back to Hub" when you pause the game before you even have seen the hub for the first time. So when I gave up on unlocking the door on the tutorial level, I clicked on the button named Back to Hub (which took me to the hub level) to see if I could enter any levels and I couldn't throw the magnet to enter any other level. How do you aim a magnet so that it sucked up by a pipe? do you need to increase particle field sucking up effect?
Edit: after a few trys and reading a few comments, I realized I needed to change the polarity of the magnet but throwing a magnet into a pipe still feels a bit clunky. And if you manage to throw the magnet into a pipe you didn't intend to throw it into in the hub world there doesn't seem to be any way to get it back.
Also, what does the reset button actually reset programmatically? because I got stuck on this level
and when I pressed the reset button the reset button pressing animation played but the scene wasn't reloaded for some reason and if I wanted to re-attempt the level it seems that I would have to exit to the hub and deal with the clunky hub world design and then go back it the level to try again. (At least I thought that was what I had to do but after opening and closing the game a few times I managed to see the reset level function actually work)
Also, after opening and closing the game a few times I realized that your game starts from level zero each time. Maybe you could implement a function to save the game progress when you quit or something similar.
My first thought when i started playing was that it feel really smooth to control. I loved the jump and it felt right. I don't think it should be much higher if at all.
I struggled a bit with the controls because F and E look so similar I would often change the polarity instead of picking up/dropping/throwing the magnet. That might be because I'm not used to keyboard controls, but accessibility wise it might be hard to differentiate for people with dyslexia.
The tutorial was good, but could afford to be a bit longer. It took me a long time to realise I could jump and throw the magnet because you can only do it if you aim first then jump. Maybe take the time to explain that or change it so you can do it either way as it was really frustrating because I knew what to do, but couldn't work out the way the controls wanted me to do it. I also only realised I could cancel a throw when trying to change the settings and that should definitely be included in the tutorial.
The line when throwing seems a bit redundant if you can't properly aim before you throw. This should definitely be a feature in the final game since it's more based on guess work and doesn't feel as good to control. I'm not sure if this is a feature already, but when I tried to toggle the different options the game stopped working. I don't know which option caused which option but at first I could only throw the magnet in one direction, then I could only drop it or pick it up. I played on the mac version so I'm not sure if it applies on the others, but even when restarting the level the problem persisted so I could only use the default. Whether this was a bug or not or there is actually an angled aiming system, this is another thing that should be included in the tutorial. Maybe it could be mapped to the arrow keys/d-pad or the mouse/right joystick (I think that's the one I mean) to prevent too many buttons overlapping uses.
The levels were all well designed. I managed to get through all of them except final door before the one that required six keys. I'm not great at puzzle games and usually use tutorials, so I'm not sire if it's due to that or if it needed a clearer design, but all of the others definitely gave me the "aha" moment you said you were looking for in your videos.
The door system is good and I like being able to do them in any order (even though I went in order anyway), but I think throwing the magnet to get in definitely felt a bit clunky and weird, especially since I had to jump to throw it each time. Maybe it would be better to press a button prompt to enter it and come out of the level you just entered rather than going back to the start each time because I feel like that will get frustrating as more levels are added into each world. A similar system to New Super Mario Bros on the DS could work instead, but without the birds eye view perspective.
The design is good, but a bit confusing at first. When I couldn't get through the tutorial I thought I was throwing the magnet at the wrong thing seeing "+" and "-" on the walls. I think the blank space around the level could afford to look a bit more mechanical or have the patterns repeated a bit more just to make it clearer to less experienced players.
I have a suggestion for later levels. The polarity changing is a really great feature and the gameplay definitely feels centred around the magnet. I remember you saying in one of your videos that you wanted the magnet to be called to the player and maybe you could include switch the polarity of the player to attract the magnet back to them.
Overall this was a really good and professional feeling demo. Aside from the things I mentioned it was really good and I'm really looking forward to any future demos or the final game. I hope you found my feedback useful and are able to use it for future development.
Just wanted to update I managed to work out the solution to the puzzle I couldn't before, but entirely by accident while trying another solution and it was the least satisfying puzzle aside from the first one in the tutorial (which after doing it again is quite hard to do even when knowing as the movement has to be so specific). I've also just learned that the aiming is controlled by the mouse, but again it was by accident and should be explained in the tutorial. It's still quite hard to throw accurately and could be tweaked further.
I still think it's really promising though and hope my feedback was useful.
Level 6 actually had more aha feeling than level 7 as level 7 felt a bit gotcha.
Jump felt a bit heavy.
Restarting is annoying. I actually think some sort of life/score here would reframe it as instead of an externalish waste of time more of an ingame setback.
Everytime I see the game I think you'll run out of levels and ideas and you never do. So that's a good sign.
Feel like moving forward the combination of elements could massively expand the scope of puzzles.
Firstly, it felt a bit weird to me that the game just immediately kicks you out upon collecting the key. I thought I would have to use the door to exit the level.
Second, it's a bit too easy to get softlocked on some levels (mostly the sixth one). thankfully though, resetting the level is quick
Third, the sixth level seems the require some very precise throws and jumps, which lead to a bit of frustration because despite knowing what to do, I just didn't manage to input it This jump can caused me some trouble, and if you fail it after throwing the magnet down you have to reset the entire level which is a bit annoying Getting the magnet down there was a bit of a hassle - most of the time, it either bounced around and didn't even fall from the platform I was on, or landed above the hole which meant I had to reset the level
Overall, it was fun, My favorite level was the fifth, it hit just the right balance for the 'aha!' moment for me.
PS. Also, I found a minor bug (also in the sixth level) It is possible to get the magnet between the magnetic block and the electromaget, but if we change its polarity to one that is attracted to the electromagnet... ... It starts to vibrate
Took about 20 minutes to complete, and here's my biggest takeaway:
Building the proper tools to help you design your game really let you focus on building fun, compelling levels such that I reached the end and wanted more.
A couple minor curiosities (played with mouse and keyboard) followed by personal thoughts:
1) When starting the game, the HUD shows Q to Jump before replacing it with Space.
2) A matter of personal preference, I find the mouse unnecessary if the aim mode could be mapped to the arrow keys, especially since targets are quite large.
3) Instead of throwing your magnet away into pipes to open a door, I might suggest recycling an earlier idea you had; a magnetic block that completes a circuit when the magnet is attached.
4) Ending the level by grabbing a key feels a bit abrupt. But given the quick tutorial level sets up an expectation to use keys to clear the stage, I suspect these levels were more focused on puzzle iteration rather than stage flow.
5) Super excited to see where this project goes from here. Remember to take care of yourself along the way!
Really fun and definitely so much room for many cool levels. Character feels nice, visuals are really good for the most part and the small short levels are kinda addicting.
Few things that I noticed though.
When I tried to connect a Switch Pro controller to my Mac to play it the game went crazy. It somehow skipped through all menus and then the character just went left and sometimes jumped. Couldn't open options or anything until I disconnect the controller. It can't be the controllers fault since outside of the game it worked fine.
I head a few performance issues which shouldn't really be the case on an M1 Max.
I wish I could move a little while aiming. Especially since you can jump and then you expect to also be able to move to the left and right but not being able to is a bit of an annoyance. Feel like either let the player move and jump or neither.
The buttons at first are a bit confusing. I thought once pressed I can't turn them off again because they where darkened.
Having to pick up the magnet in the hub world is kinda tedious. Most of the time I just went straight right and then need to turn back because I remembered the magnet I just forgot.
Overall definitely a huge improvement to the previous builds with only some minor gripes.
This game has a lot of potential! Can't wait for the next version! Some thoughts: I think adding a reward for completing the level quickly or without having to restart would be cool (in-game perk). I also think there could be some story beyond completing all the levels. This could be told through a) exposition/scenes in between levels or b) by making the world feel more complete by telling some kind of story more indirectly (ie., things in the background etc). Also, I am not sure I beat the 6th level as intended so I attached the screenshot here of my solution.
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Comments
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I'm digging it, and loving your videos.
Feel
The robot as some discernible latency when moving, a little hitch before jumping, starting movement or changing direction. In a game where you have to go back and forth a lot, an instant start to your movement would feel better to me than the build up. Don't get me wrong, it feels good, just the little hitch in the start.
It took a few playthroughs to fully grok how the throwing works. I didn't realize you could feather the power of the throw with you stick right away. I think the arc that appears when you first start a throw is a little deceptive, showing an arc, when tweaking that arc requires more movement then you might expect.
Controls
I would like more controller mapping options (I know it's not easy). In particular I'd like to be able to map pickup/drop to a button and throw to another button. For throwing, it feels better to hold a trigger (or paddle) than a button, but a button still feels right for picking something up. It would be also cool if the left stick was mapped to throwing, so just using the stick started a throw, or you could at least use it to aim the throw.
Disclaimer: I have a controller problem.
Softlocks
This a design choice, but I felt a bit vexed by the levels that were easy to softlock in. I am familiar with puzzle games that it is capable to softlock, but if feels uncomfortable in a puzzle platformer, where I felt there should be a way for me to get back. I realize that avoiding this would put a massive constraint on your puzzle design, so maybe making resetting snappier, or make easy softlocks into traps (i.e. if I'm gonna get soft-locked in this pit, put spikes in it.)
Glitch
I tried to break the physics and am really impressed at how the magnet, jumping and everything works without jank! There was a minor graphical glitch were the tiles in the background would flicker as I moved back and forth. You can see it in this video:
Ideas/NitpicksThrowing the magnet up to start a level felt a little off to me. I know that you want magnets to be core to the game, and this build's puzzles really did that. It felt like it was about using the magnet well. Throwing the magnet straight up isn't the most comfortable thing to do, and seems a little much to enter a level.
I could see the hub world being a lot more complex, with verticality, and maybe areas gated off by powered magnets, that you need to magnet-jump to get to the next set of levels. You could be collecting batteries to open up new paths.
Please change the look of the pipes. They scream MARIO to me which is discordant in a game that seems much more a puzzler than a platformer. I love the nod, they just stand out a lot, and don't seem to be a major system in the game. Turned-off electro-magnets are dark and blend into the background but the pipes call attention to themselves.
Here's a terrible idea! Have a more difficult to get bonus item in a level that encourages going back, like Celeste's strawberries. You could make these platform challenges, while to get the 'key' you need to puzzle.
I hope some of these are helpful. I'm very impressed with how polished this already feels. And I appreciate your documenting a beginner game developer. It makes me realize I could do something.
Really good, my only main complaint is to please make it so if you mess up a level, restarting isnt the only option!
Hi! Love the channel, the game is very promising and feels like something I could lose a few hours in without realizing haha
I do have a couple ease-of-use things that I'm having trouble with:
- Having to press E to pick up the magnet manually. An option to automatically pick up the magnet when I'm over it would help a great deal
- Not being able to move while aiming. I feel like I could line up my shot just perfectly if only I could move (perhaps slower than normal) while in aim mode.
- Having to press a separate key to cancel aim mode. More often than not I end up throwing the magnet around and losing my aiming spots. This one might just need some more time spent on my end playing, but who knows
- Visual distinctiveness of the barriers that the magnet can pass through but not the player character. The first real puzzle room took me a few tries before I realized that it wasn't that my jump was too short (though, I did struggle with that in the tutorial when it took me a second to make it out of the first gap); it was a barrier next to the magnet that I couldn't pass.
Despite all that I'm having fun with the game! Keep working at it and hopefully it gets even better :)
you should try and make it so that when you complete a level you spawn back out side the level door instead of going all the way back to the beginning and having to walk all the way back to the next level
I'm loving it so far! The movement feels great and I love the little animations for the PC. I even had a few of those "Ah-ha!" moments you've been talking about! Here's a few observations/recommendations:
- Toggling the polarity symbols in the accessibility menu only seems to apply to the magnet and not the fields, even when entering a new level.
- Another nitpick about the menu I have is that when checking boxes, the last one you click is highlighted in red. This made it slightly confusing when trying to see what options I had selected, though I realize that will probably change once you get to making the menus look pretty anyway.
- I found that the default button for picking up and throwing the magnet (E) felt a little clunky. I noticed in the options that the left and right mouse accomplish the same thing and felt much better, so I think that should be what the tutorial indicates or at least makes more clear.
- I think the tutorial level should be accessible after its completed, just in case players want to go back to see the tips again.
- I noticed some dotted boxes with various symbols showing up in the background beyond the borders of the level. I'm not sure if these are meant to environmental details or are just visual bugs but if it's the former, I think they could probably be implemented better. As they are, they felt out of place and unintentional.
- My only design gripe is about the key/door system. I don't really feel like it fits the theme of the game all that well. It also seemed odd that I was throwing my magnet through a pipe to open a door rather than using the key I collected. I don't have any good alternatives to recommend but I think I saw another comment mention something to with batteries may be more fitting.
- Finally, whether the keys stay or get replaced with something else, I think the item that is collected at the end of the level should still be there if you attempt the level again later. Otherwise it can be difficult to figure out what the objective of the level was originally. Maybe something similar to how Celeste shows strawberries you've already collected as grey?
Overall, this project is very promising and I'm VERY excited to see where it goes! :)
will we ever get a linux export?
This was a cool demo! Lots of potential. Here's some nitpicks.
-The aim line and smoke go behind certain elements like the doors or the Thanks For Playing but the magnet goes in front of them. Not sure if that's intentional. Certain parts of the hub the magnet also goes behind, like the green key squares.
-From the end screen there's no natural way out besides hitting escape. It's a demo so I'm not sure that matters.
-When I initially went into aim mode, I couldn't actually hit the switch because it wouldn't let me adjust the aim. I was using arrow keys and then pressing E, but the arrows didn't seem to be adjusting the aiming. I only realized you could when I switched to WASD + mouse, which I didn't get an indication was possible initially because there was nothing indicating directional keys.
-When you re-enter a level, the key is gone, so you can't always tell what the goal was unless you remember. And is there even a way to beat the level again?
-With WASD+mouse controls, the F button is the same finger as D, so it's a difficult finger-hopping move to try and get over to the right on the last level. F, move finger over to D, back to F super quickly, back to D super quickly. Maybe in that config right mouse would work better for polarity switch. Different hand.
-On the first level, when I was standing on top of the ramp on in the middle of the screen facing left toward the blue beam, when I pressed E to drop the magnet, not throw it, the magnet zipped back behind me to underneath the pipe. I thought it might have been "rolling" down the ramp really fast, but hovering above it, but I'm not sure what it was. When I loaded back into the level later it didn't happen again.
-If you go back and forth quickly in the flip doors that don't use the magnet, you can get in a position where you're pressing on the door, but you have to go backwards and forwards again to push it open. Not sure if that's meant to be a situation where you need momentum to open the door, but it feels a little off to get blocked like that.
-That flip door also moves slightly before you touch it in certain scenarios. It works just fine visually in most scenarios, but if you're moving back and forth it feels like there's a buffer of air between you and the door that you're pushing on.
-The tail while you're moving is really nice for game feel and conveying a sense of momentum, but it sticks out a little bit amongst all this metal and machinery. Maybe an exhaust cloud would diagetically convey the same thing? Or it would look like the robot is farting all the time.
-It's an interesting touch to make it so the wheel rolls you off corners. Very distinctive and cute. Maybe since you're not going in a hardcore platformer direction anymore it won't matter, but a potential downside under that scenario is I wonder if it's possible to just barely miss a jump and then roll off.
-Pressing left and right at the same time instantly makes you not move and lose all momentum. When hopping back and forth, frolicking almost, it can lead to this awkward grinding to a halt feeling if you happen to still have one direction pressed when you move to another, or queue up your next direction without letting go of the last. You either freeze or freeze in midair and drop straight down. The latter could be a strategy (albeit a physics-breaking one) for more intense platforming, a way to make a huge leap and then just immediately drop with no momentum, but I think it's too easy to accidentally do.
-When you go back to the hub world it would be nice if you came back in the same location that you left from. Outside of the door of the level you just left, for instance.
-I like the solution to level 1 a lot. It did take me a long time because I was familiarizing myself with the momentum of the magnet, figuring out that aforementioned glitch, and a little unclear on how the bar that blocked me worked. Because of the little ramp going left I initially thought I had to get the magnet to drop onto it so that it would roll left onto the other ramp and then roll right before I realized that I just throw it in when it's the other color. It's doable, but a bit of a hardcore first level because there are a lot of new elements to figure out.
-I like how the trick with Levels 2 and 3 really build on Level 1, about changing the polarity when you're far away
-It would be nice if each level had some unique identifier in the hub world. A name, a symbol, because it's hard to remember which is which if you're going back to them.
-The parallax is slick in the hub world, but I initially thought that the tiled background was where the garage doors were attached. So without them being attached to the background it feels like you and the doors to nowhere are floating on a plane half a mile away from the background.
-In level 4 I initally tried to use the magnet to pull the large moving piece to the right because it had a plus on it and it looked like it fit right in that alleyway. I would think that it's just because it's "too big" but the blue magnet doesn't even stick to it, so there's an inconsistency in how the magnet behaves with different magnetized elements.
-In level 4 (it seems) you can soft lock the level by destorying the magnet while the flip door on the right is set to blue, which is really easy to do. So the magnet respawns between the destruction field and the back of the door, which isn't magnetized, then there's no way to get the magnet to where the door can be opened agian. Soft locks I guess are what the reset button is for, but in more complex levels or play scenarios where you're exploring new mechanics and how they interact, it might be hard to know if you're *actually* soft locked or not and just run your head into a wall for a while until realizing that there's no other way. The other major soft lock in this level is if you throw the magnet onto the switch from the alley and then get blocked in. That one's more obvious, if frustrating.
-I like the solution to level 6. I will say when I entered the level I got overwhelmed at the number of mechanics in front of me and just started messing around, because it wasn't clear how they all interacted with each other. If I were playing a fuller game where I had more time with these mechanics I'm sure I would have been less overwhelmed. It introduces an interesting mechanic, blocking the motion of magnetized blocks, that I'm excited to see developed.
I enjoyed this little demo. Thank you for this!
Here's couple things I found odd or something to improve.
First off, I want to say I really enjoyed this demo and love your videos. Feedback:
Other than those small nitpicks, I'd say it's going great, and I can't wait to play the next version :)
Love your videos, super insightful, please keep bringing us along for your journey! I'm playing on laptop and don't play PC ever, so others that are more familiar with computer gaming might not agree, but this was my experience:
-I had expected Up to jump, and would've preferred it so I can keep one hand on the arrows and leave it like that.
-The first puzzle, I did not figure out that you aim with mouse , it just said E to aim, so I hit E and tried to use my arrows to aim it, and was stuck for a couple of minutes before I realized the arrow aims it.
-Took me a minute to realize you can reverse the polarity while the magnet is not currently equipped, so I thought I was stuck at the end of the first level, when the magnet zoomed back to the gate thing and the gate closed behind it, leaving me without a magnet and seemingly no way to turn the gate.
-The 5th level (the 4th door) was really tedious to have to get back up by climbing the rows and then trying to time reversing the polarity and jumping at the same time
-don't love the design of the buttons on the ground, the diagonal design makes it so I have jump accurately every time to get it to switch. It has advantages, such as when coming from the correct side, but if you're on the side with the higher part of the button, you have to jump it.
Overall though I still had fun, no serious issues for me. Thanks!
I enjoyed it quite a bit, especially the final two puzzles which did give me the 'a-ha!' moment.
For making the magnet feel more integral to the experience, I think it would be good to have to have the little robot be carrying it in order to (at least) enter a level, it felt weird chucking it away just to open a door. My first move in each level was always to pick up the magnet, even before I looked at the level layout, so if I was already holding the magnet when I spawn in, it might make me feel more connected to it as a mechanic.
I also think that rounding out the player's hitbox on edges may have caused me to think platforming, rather than magnet polarity, was the solution to puzzle six; all the way on the right of the level I could ride the magnet up to the platform with a two way switch, but I could also jump to that platform if I timed it well; that led me pretty far astray from the elegant solution of dropping the magnet, having it naturally slide down-left on the ramp, and only then jumping across platforms to the goal. It led to interesting emergent mechanics, like tossing the magnet on top of the blue (-) block and wedging it between blocks. I also tried tossing the magnet onto the 'pressure switch' at the bottom of the level and then jumping my way back to the two-way switch; even though it felt obvious that wasn't the right solution, I kept trying it thinking 'maybe this time I can get the correct throwing angle,' and reset maybe six times after tossing the magnet to a spot I couldn't reach. So in that stage the jump was just a little too forgiving; perhaps giving the area with the two-way switch a 'lip' might make it clear you can/should only be able to get to it via riding the magnet up.
I also found myself thinking that if I want to hold the magnet as I enter a level, I want to hold it as I exit a level, also, and how messy that could potentially be for completing a level given all the different positions the magnet needs to be in as you collect keys across levels; but then I remembered the way Celeste handled some strawberries; so maybe the robot can collect the key whenever/however the player can accomplish it, but then the level ends when you reconnect with the magnet; I'm not sure! Just a few stray thoughts!
V2.0 review
Positives:
- the character movement feels great
- the mechanics of the magnet (like the turning wall/door thing) are fun to mess around with
- overall the levels are fun to play and do have an aha moment
Negatives:
- The final level has a huge difficulty spike (all other levels took me 5-ish minutes and this one took 20- to 30-ish)
- I'm not sure i found the right solution for the final level, as it was very hard to pull off and very easy to mess up so badly you have to reset (did feel like a badass tho) (solution i found at the bottom of the comment).
- It's very easy to get softblocked in the final level and have to reset
- It's not very clear, but it seems like you need to hold control for a little second to restart. The timing is long enough that if you consciously press it but just too short you don't know why it's not resetting, but the timing is too short to stop you from resetting when you accidentally press control. Maybe make the timer a little longer and have an indication of how long you need to press.
Bugs:
- When finishing the game and going back to the hub, the aim line appeared behind the doors and pipes
- if you go in a level when you already have that key you can only get out by going back to hub
The solution i found (can someone tell me if this is the right thing to do?):
1: go to the right of the screen with the magnet and activate the switch, so the big block is pulled up
2: Go to the middle platform (on the left side of the beam) with the magnet and stand around 1/3rd from the left
3: Switch the polarity of the magnet to red and throw it, when its halfway in the beam you switch it to blue so it is pulled up but not stuck to the beam. then hope it lands on the button
4: if you succeed, RUN to the left and hope you don't get squished
You can block the plaatform with the door thingy! I think the problem is that the part blocking is sticking out to little, so it's hard to see. Once you figure out that though you get through the level fairly easily. It was a great level to end on!
I also found that you can just lift yourself up by jumping onto the door as it flips upwards. Not sure that it matters because your just a step away from the regular solve
That's a very cool solution! In one of the videos in Mark's dev log for this game he said that, due to mixing skill and puzzle based gameplay, the original demo had issues with people trying to do puzzle sections via platforming / skill, and platforming / skill sections via puzzling, and that moving forward he would stick to puzzles much more to avoid this.
This level seems like an example where perhaps the open endedness results in that problem reocurring. I did it a similarly time sensitive way, which I posted a video of in my comment.
You have the middle block be in the up position, then switch the L gate with the magnet so that its in the way of the block's path down. Then you make the middle block fall, so it's resting on the L gate, and finally you set yourself up a bit right of the middle block, change polarities so that the magnet moves the L gate and middle block starts falling out of your way, and then time a jump across the gap really well so you can make it before the middle block hits the button and makes the left block fall on you.
Your developer series has reignited my interest in Unity, and the fact that you made this prototype is really inspiring. The prototype itself plays really nice. I played with mouse and keyboard and everything just felt so smooth and intuitive. What little tutorial you presented was all I needed to figure out the mechanics.
If I had one issue, it would be that I solved some (but not all) of the puzzles more by just trying a bunch of things until something worked than by getting the "Eureka" moment of seeing the big picture. But obviously that's a very high standard to meet and I think you've done a great job building this game so far!
Version 2.0 test review
+ Positives (Get it!)
- Minor Complaints/Bugs?
Overall, as I said above this game is just plain fun.
My only problem might be a little nitpicky, but I really hate having to restart the levels. I dislike falling into pits and not being able to get out. Every time I get physically stuck or lose the magnet, it breaks the enjoyment.
pretty nice, good work Matt, maybe one or two problems but none I'm smart enough to solve :)
In the last level, when you approach the wall at the end of the room, the camera tilts slightly.
Here comes a long list of feedback I thought of when playing the game (don't get me wrong though, I still enjoyed your game):
- It's not clear you can press ESC to go back from the Options screen
- A bit awkward using mouse and keyboard when the UI is designed for controllers as well (i.e. the red selected areas), you could probably improve the selection system for both input methods. Stephen's Sausage Roll solves this problem by not having you use the mouse at all, although I don't think that's a very viable option here since the gameplay requires the mouse.
- Use W for jump - I find Space to be very unintuitive (though I haven't played many platformers myself so for all I know Space is the default key) (also I know there is keyboard remapping but still, you might want to consider making W the default key instead)
- I am aware the game is still in development and thus audio can be added later, but still, adding in a few basic sound effects created using sfxr or your voice can make the game feel a lot more "alive". It might also not be such a bad thing to add some audio this early in the game's development, as you can also get some feedback on the audio. Off-topic, but during game jams, sometimes it can also be a good idea to create the audio early on, instead of leaving it till the end, almost as an afterthought (though I haven't followed that advice myself...so feel free to take it with a pinch of salt).
- In the tutorial, the Carry Magnet button shows up as a "question mark" button instead of LMB (maybe it's asking me to...Question Mark?)
- *I feel that the magnet throwing controls can be designed better, it wasn't apparent to me that I could press Q to disable aim mode (so I spent the whole game throwing the magnet around). For me, I might try something like LMB to both carry magnet and release it (press it once to carry it, press it again to release it), and RMB to toggle aim mode (so once you carry the magnet you can press RMB to turn off aim mode, or have aim mode off by default and press RMB to turn it on, though you will have to make it clear in the tutorial). Personally, I think it isn't a good idea to have the player hold the LMB for the whole duration that the player is holding the magnet, which is why I thought of the controls I just mentioned.
- Also, to add on to the previous point, I realised once you press Q or RMB to exit aim mode, you can't toggle it back on unless you release the magnet, as re-entering aim mode requires pressing the LMB, which requires you to release it first and hence drop the magnet.
- I found the magnetic beams a bit confusing at first regarding the charges, I wasn't sure the floating pluses indicate the magnet should be a plus to attract or that the "polarity" is a plus and my magnet thus needs to be a minus to attract - I think that is a consequence of the magnetic beam "source" having a different sign from the signs on the magnetic beam itself (if the source says minus but the beam is filled with pluses, must my magnet be a plus or minus?). Maybe you could show the trajectory in aim mode going towards the magnet beam "source" when it is the right polarity.
- To add on to the previous point, you could also consider switching out the '+' and '-' symbols for 'N' and 'S'. Then it becomes much more intuitive for us since we have all learned in school that unlike poles attract, like poles repel (hey, you could add that as a feature into the game too - if the magnet and something else are the same colour they repel each other). That unfortunately also means you likely have to remove the option that like charges attract, but if this allows players to pick up the concept much better I would say that is a win. (I guess the idea behind this is that if the game uses something they learned in school, then it reduces the information load while learning the game, thus making it easier to learn.) After all, you are making a game about magnets, why not use North and South Poles as well instead of charges?
- Left Ctrl doesn't restart the level for me... (On a side note I think it might be better to use R for restart.)
- The right-angle door mechanic feels very satisfying, and I can see the mechanic's immense potential given how it is used in some of the puzzles.
- The player movement generally felt quite nice, though I might have liked the player speed to be a little faster, but just a little (since this is a puzzle platformer, maybe you could add an option to adjust player speed?). I believe you could do a bit of fine-tuning to get it to Celeste-level smooth, but then again that's up to you.
- The puzzles generally seemed quite nice, I especially liked Levels 2, 5, and 6. Level 3 felt a bit easy to me so maybe you could switch it with Level 2...?
- I suggest you could add checkpoints or design levels with less dead ends, it's too annoying to keep having to restart when you reach a state with no possible moves i.e. the player and magnet both get stuck (this sometimes happens by accident e.g. falling off a platform). Or you could consider implementing an undo system, although that would understandably be very hard for a puzzle platformer.
- An idea I had is to design the whole game's UI around the magnet theme e.g. make the menu screen use a magnet to indicate the currently selected option (like the fork in Stephen's Sausage Roll's menu), have the level transitions involve magnets more so than just a symbol - one idea I have is the magnet character entering from the right, then pulling in a black screen from the left, then making it switch polarity, allowing the black screen to exit from the left revealing the new level (followed of course by the magnet's own departure from the screen).
- Have the magnet fall from the green pipe only when you get close to it, so you know it is there to deposit magnets. A BoxCollider2D with Is Trigger set to true should do the trick.
- I feel that the Level Hub design could be improved, it feels a bit extra to have to throw the magnet into the pipe and then stand next to the door to go into the level (why not just have one action to enter the level? Say, throwing the magnet or standing next to the door and pressing a key.)
These are the feedback I have. I know it's a long list, and most of it is negative, but I hope you can take it constructively, and would like to reiterate that I still enjoyed the game despite its flaws. You should be proud of having created this for your first ever game (you can check out my own games on my itch.io page, I genuinely think your game is better than some of mine.)
With that being said, I remember one of your videos covered something about how to listen to feedback, and it mentioned how players understand the problems but not necessarily the solutions (or something along those lines, I can't really remember). Maybe you could take that to heart, and while I proposed a lot of solutions here you don't have to implement them the way I said it. I hope you can continue to take this game further.
- Make the minus on the magnet a different color or position; it looks like it's an elongated or misaligned pole. Maybe keep it horizontal at all times, like a UI floater.
- Add level numbers. This make it easier to look for walkthroughs or talk about the puzzle online.
- The ...6th? level should have a hoover nozzle that sucks you (or the magnet) out of the pit and deposits you onto the main floor out of a vent. Either that or detect locked states and offer to restart. No, definitely the first thing.
- I'd like to see puzzles based on INDUCTION :-) throw the magnet though a coil. Add springs for continued motion. Add springs on conveyor belts to get them into the right configuration.
- Keyboard input: either make the character movable during aim (might break game mechanics) - or - make the arrow keys change the angle of the throw. No mouse required.
- Please make a key (or tell me how) to cancel a throw. Space or...
- Also the 6th level: when the switch is on, and you're in the corner, you can't drive up the switch. The other way around IS possible.
- Another idea: put the key in a cage that can be moved around somehow. Only at the "end" point can you access it.
- Or make the key red (magnetic) sometimes. Guide it using the magnets.
- Upon finally getting the solution of the 6th level, I find it really awesome! One improvement: move the platform to the left of the tractor beam 1 block to the left. That makes it clear you can't jump across from left to right.
Really liked it overall. I liked the feel of the character and I found the double door really satisfying. Can't wait for the sound design! Just got a few little critiques:
Restarting the level.
Wasn't sure if I had to press CTRL or hold it It became obvious eventually but maybe a lil animation that shows you must hold it down could be cool.
Aiming the Magnet.
While aiming the magnet and changing the polarity, the trajectory resets. Would be nice if the trajectory of the throw stays the same, while also being able to change between polarities. Also being able to move while aiming the magnet would be nice.
Bug
Found a bug, while you're in either the hub or the "Thanks for playing" level. If you hold down CTRL the restart symbol appears, top left, and just keeps growing until you let go of CTRL. Not really major but just letting you know.
Hope this helps you in anyway! Really excited to see how your game develops. It's so cool to watch the development of it!
MAIN MENU:
DEFAULT KEYBOARD CONTROLS:
DEFAULT CONTROLLER CONTROLS:
Fairly good.
If you decide to allow moving while aiming, it might be nice to have it set up this way:
Alternatively, you could experiment with using the Right-Stick for aiming. But this might result in some strange jump bindings.
PUZZLE DESIGN
Quite nice. Some unintended alternate solutions.
This may come down to personal preference, but I tend to prefer puzzle games without unwinnable states.
That said, my favourite puzzle game (Baba Is You) has plenty of them. Of course, you can just rewind time in that game.
I just think there's something elegant about a puzzle that cannot be broken.
It's possible to soft-lock every level here - including the tutorial (2 soft-locks, and possible to die).
Not saying this is necessarily bad though. Every game is different after all. Maybe you want the player to really think about their actions before committing, rather than running around trying everything to brute-force the solution.
Good luck!
BUGS
For Visibility:
ps
oh I did not have the right solution to level 6 (saw solution in comments). It's a much nicer level than I thought that requires no timing skills ;-( But I was so hooked up with Lefel 1 showing me the mechanic I needed I never thought too hard. Why have the delay in the dropping of both the blocks (between first and second to drop) if you are not trying to tempt me to run the gap over one and under the other! At least let it be possible... or maybe its a troll for the hard-core.
It's really neat! But here's a load of long paragraphs of things I found troublesome and sometimes suggestions on how to fix them.
The camera movement can be annoying, especially with larger levels. It keeps falling behind the player character, only showing where the player was, instead of staying centered or moving forward t
o show where the player will be, like in Super Mario Bros. That'd be nicer!
The game seems to intentionally disallow switching the magnet polarity too quickly. This can be very annoying if you just want to switch it to + and then back to -: if you do the second switch even just a frame too early, it just ignores the request completely.
Maybe buffering up to one switch would be a nicer strategy, if not removing the polarity switch delay? What about just making the magnet completely unmagnetized for half a second after a switch, ramping up to full power slowly, if you're afraid of players exploiting rapid switching?
I feel like it'd be nice if there was an option to aim far throws using WASD keys instead of (or in tandem with) the mouse when using KB/M, though that's probably personal preference.
I like how SuperFighters Deluxe handles its keyboard-only aiming: you either just shoot without aiming straight forward while walking around, or, when in the aiming mode, you use A/D to turn left/right, and W/S to change altitude.
You also have both aimless throwing and aimed throwing here aswell, so it might be worth using this kind of a system or offering it as an option.
Why such a long and drawn out loading screen with a wholesale prolonged fadeout/fadein animation? It's a very simple 2D game, and we aren't in the 1990s where that was necessary?
In the hub level, it gets progressively more annoying with each level to have to go all the way to the next level from the very start, because the next levels are farther and farther away from it.
Also after completing the levels, the screen above the appropriate garage door just goes blank. Maybe a checkbox is in place there? Or the level ID, like "H1L2" (Hub 1 Level 2)
In H1L6, it feels unfair that the hatch door's attractor does not attract the huge block, but the ceiling attractor does. Upon closer inspection I realize it's because the block is just a tiny tiny amount larger than the space in which it could be attracted in, but it still feels unfair. So far in the game, I hope I won't find that polarized blocks don't get attracted by hatches with attractors!
And in the same level, if you go up to the block while it's still on the ceiling, it also feels unfair that there's enough squeeze space just below the block that the drawn character can most definitely squeeze through, but it doesn't work. Now I just want a crouch function! :(
The last two are probably fixable by different level design that does not raise those questions in the first place lol
Also very slight visual complaint: the pixels of the game sprites (specifically the very edge of the walls) don't always align with the screen pixels, which can produce mismatched pixels. If you aren't going to have anti-aliasing enabled (which I think is better not used in this case), try using some math to keep the camera's position aligned such that for each screen pixel there's exactly one world pixel. Playing in 1920x1080 fullscreen.
Speaking of fullscreen, maybe this is a bug with WINE (I'm playing on Linux; export your game to it too please!), but the game seems to insist to be in 1920x1080 unresizable window when in windowed mode, and then force resizing the window to any sizes not in 16:9 aspect ratio breaks visuals pretty bad.
The game seems to be designed for 16:9 only, with the full UI (retry/switch polarity "buttons", the hint, and everything) being still rendered on the main menu and in the hub, just pushed offscreen.
The long-winded transitions reveal themselves to actually be long-winded and unnecessary (the game world is just sitting there ready while the thing does the whoosh) by not covering outside of the 16:9 region, the main menu's scrolling background magnets appear and disappear, and so on.
From this, a funny bug that affects even normal players: if, while in the hub, you hold R, the restart "button" starts scaling up while no actual restart is happening, so it just keeps creeping onto the screen, growing endlessly bigger in size until you release the key lol
If you accidentally try to start a level you already got all the keys in, I think you should warn the player or better yet have a "ghost" key to replay the level. I initially tried to go back through the pipe at the start. I was stuck until I realized I could pause and exit the level from the menu.
I enjoy your videos on Nebula so I came to have a go.
Feedback (warning spoilers).
Controls:
Holding CTRL to get a level restart becomes intuitive, however a 'bar-filling' animation might help to show how long you have to hold it for (a press is not enough). Just like in Super Smash Bros
You could have two-stages for the hold effect with CTRL. Hold for 2 sec to restart level , hold for 5 sec to go back to Hub. I didn't like there wasn't an 'Exit' in the level screen to go back to the hub.
I never came across a situation where I didn't want the magnet to be picked-up. How about an auto pick-up when I roll-over it? If I don't want to pick it up I can jump over it... (this could be a mechanic aswell)
Level Order:
I tried the levels in Order 4,2,6,1,3,5. Only Level 6 was 'really' challenging. I would overall the difficulty is aimed at kids??
After I failed to figure out level 6 (about 15 mins of trying) I became humble and went back to level 1, which was handy because level 1 gave me the idea to solve level 6.
Level 2 is very easy, an extension of the tutorial more or less.
Favourite level is level 5. Nice fake-out so answer is satisfying.
In level 6 why is the (annoying) switch not angled so that it is facing up close to the wall. If it was angled up at the wall, then a throw of mine would hit the far wall and the magnet would dead-drop onto it, making the throw a lot easier to get right. It's not like the dash not to get squished is easy to time, both together are hair pulling.
I never did level 6, however I think my solution would have worked if only I had perfect timing. It's nice that I didn't have to finish level 6 to get to the 'final' stage.
General Comments:
I like the puzzles are all on one screen. Somehow feels like the puzzle is not cheating by keeping some part of itself hidden (like a good murder mystery, all the clues are there...)
I like you can totally screw up the puzzle and you have to make your own decision to reset. The choice to reset was mine.
Rando ideas:
How about a super-heavy magnet that when you pick it up slows your characters movement and jump, has shorter throw range or can knock over obstacles when it is speedy from a mag field.
If the magnet hits your character on the head, then the character could enter a dazed animation that stops player input for a few seconds. It would be cute, fun to do, and could be a mechanic. Nothing like depolarising a magnet so it hits your bonce for a cheap laugh.
Um, technically a negative and a negative polarity on magnets are repulsive not neutral. Does this mean you want a third 'off' state for the magnet or two 'types' or magnet (positive and negative, and positive and neutral)? I liked how just two states kept the magnet simple though...
My kids play a lot of 'fire boy and water girl' and it feels like it should be similar. I will show my kids this game.
Thanks
There's a lot to love about this MVP. I did not play the previous one, but it is really enjoyable to move the character around here. The animations complement the physics system to convey a clear sense of your/the magnet's momentum under different effects, where your character can jump to, and so on. Jumping around in particular is a joy and I often found myself doing so as I considered possible solutions.
No puzzle stuck out as a poor inclusion. They definitely got more difficult as they went on, but never so much that I was stuck on a puzzle for longer than a couple of minutes. I felt a number of the click moments you have described as I would attempt a solution, found the limitations, and then laughed when I noticed where I went wrong.
For minor things I appreciated, I thought it was smart to have the switches be angled as they are so you can roll over them to activate them, often pointing me in the direction I wanted to go as I did. Also, I liked that I could cancel a throw after holding X if I didn't use the thumbstick to aim, rather than being locked into throwing the magnet on release. I wasn't sure if that was an intended feature, but it helped nonetheless.
For things I might hope to see in the future, I would love to see an exploration of how you can build momentum to reach places. I've said how I love the physicality of the character and I would like to see that aspect be tested. I got quite excited to think that the 7th level seemed to involve flinging myself/the magnet onto the switch using the field, and while you can fling yourself it was a shame this wasn't part of the solution.
It would be nice to have the key remain in the level after beating it so that the level can be replayed, possibly in a greyed out form so it players don't think they can collect it again. This would definitely help the testing phase at least, as I have to quit and restart the game to replay the levels.
Finally, my biggest complaint is that it is very easy to softlock yourself on many levels. Falling into pits (e.g. the one with the button in level 7), locking yourself on the wrong side of the pushable barriers (e.g. in level 6, passing the barrier, travelling over it and landing behind it) and the magnet landing in an unreachable place (e.g. the flat ground behind the barrier in level 1) were some of the issues I faced. While this wasn't awful as the levels are short and quick to restart without losing any progress, and I think it is an acceptable design decision to demand planning instead of figuring out the puzzle through experimentation, if/when you start adding levels that are longer or require more complex execution this would quickly become very frustrating if not avoided.
I can't believe this is the first game you have ever made from scratch. It motivates me to learn more myself. Amazing job!
One thing I've noticed is the aiming system. The movement is controlled by the arrow keys but the aiming is by the mouse. Each time I wanted to aim at something was a mini "forced-back-to-the-reality" moment since I have to remember to let go of my arrow keys to reach the mouse, then come back to the arrow keys once again after throwing the magnet.
I thought that it'd be better if the movement is also controlled by the mouse since you are disabling the movement while aiming. Click and move toward style.
Overall, the puzzles were pretty satisfying to solve and I really liked the main character's movement. Basic controls like move and jump were pretty smooth as well (I remember you mentioned overhauling the player control system in one of the videos). I played with the Mac version but I didn't notice any bugs.
I always enjoy your video series and learn a lot from them. Keep up the great work you are doing! :D
The puzzles themselves were really satisfying. My main feedback would be that it takes a bit too long to restart the level, and the animation for collecting a key is boring.
Also concerning the keys, what if you made them somehow related to a magnet? Maybe fragments of a big magnet that you could use to reach the last level in the hub? I think it would be cool to lean into the magnet theme with the collectables as well.
The player character feels quite nice to control, and the magnet is very satisfying. Keep up the good work!
Really liked the game !
Here are my two feedbacks on the game :
1) (Maybe it won't really a problem for other players, but i'll mention it just in case) It felt a little annoying to aim with the mouse when the rest of the game is played on keyboard. I initially tried to aim with the arrows which would feel easier and more natural. But maybe that wouldn't be confortable or accurate for other players ?
2) Would be nice to have a power to call back the magnet, like the hammer in God of War.
Main reason for that is : in some levels, I had to restart the because the magnet was out of reach. It made me shy to try throwing it in the final levels.
Second reason : Sometimes it felt like the levels weren't really complete because i would abandon my little magnet friend behind.
Thanks and congrats !
I honestly loved this game! It looks great, feels great, and I enjoyed the learning curve + difficulty. When the MVP ran out I wanted to keep playing!
I also think that some of the accessibility features are great examples of the "curb cut effect" where accessible design benefits everyone! Personally I found the -/+ symbols that supplement the magnet polarity to be a really helpful supplement to the colours to keep the "opposites attract" behaviour in my head.
My only nitpick is that I'm personally not a huge fan of the green pipes. My first issue is that the bright green pipe evokes Mario too strongly for me, and I think it's a bit of a missed opportunity to develop the game's own unique cyber-punk aesthetic.
Second, I don't love that the same pipe plays double-duty for spawning and as a switch for activating doors, and it feels a bit clunky to have two steps to pass through a door. (One way around this would be to have the robot zip up the pipe with the magnet like in the puzzles!)
I'm going to dump a lot of negative feedback at once, but I hope this is helpful:
- The tutorial feels very linear, like you're on a conveyor belt being shown one mechanic after the other
- It's never stated how to aim
- If you tap to throw the magnet it will be thrown not in the direction you're facing, but the direction the mouse is in.
- The initial tutorial seems to end in a different way to the actual levels. In the tutorial you throw a magnet into a pipe whereas the levels end by collecting a key
- After collecting a key, there's a period where a key and a number below it is displayed in the middle of a black screen, and the number then goes up by one. This seems a little... off(?) as there's no animation
- When using pulleys, the object going up should reach the top at the same time as the object going down reaches the bottom
- In the final room the background does some weird things as you're going from one side of the room to the other... almost like you're on a slope?
Otherwise I think it's a solid concept. The animations, artstyle and transitions are generally very good. And the last 3 puzzles were very satisfying. Good luck to you Mark!
Make your game for linux.Some players are linux gamers
This! I know there are compatibility layers, but with Unity being a heavy engine by itself (yes, even for such 2D games) and some people's hardware being slow, it's nicer to have a native version to play.
It comes at no cost with Unity either, to my knowledge you literally just have to click that one additional checkbox to also export it for Linux. Why not?
Apparently according to the comments you are supposed to throw the magnet at a pipe and the pipe is supposed to suck it up. But I was not able to get the pipe to do that for some reason. I did try to throw the magnet in to the pipe a few times and then I got frustrated and gave up. This was on the very first level. Apparently you can click on a button that says "Back to Hub" when you pause the game before you even have seen the hub for the first time. So when I gave up on unlocking the door on the tutorial level, I clicked on the button named Back to Hub (which took me to the hub level) to see if I could enter any levels and I couldn't throw the magnet to enter any other level. How do you aim a magnet so that it sucked up by a pipe? do you need to increase particle field sucking up effect?
Edit: after a few trys and reading a few comments, I realized I needed to change the polarity of the magnet but throwing a magnet into a pipe still feels a bit clunky. And if you manage to throw the magnet into a pipe you didn't intend to throw it into in the hub world there doesn't seem to be any way to get it back.
Also, what does the reset button actually reset programmatically? because I got stuck on this level
and when I pressed the reset button the reset button pressing animation played but the scene wasn't reloaded for some reason and if I wanted to re-attempt the level it seems that I would have to exit to the hub and deal with the clunky hub world design and then go back it the level to try again. (At least I thought that was what I had to do but after opening and closing the game a few times I managed to see the reset level function actually work)
Also, after opening and closing the game a few times I realized that your game starts from level zero each time. Maybe you could implement a function to save the game progress when you quit or something similar.
My first thought when i started playing was that it feel really smooth to control. I loved the jump and it felt right. I don't think it should be much higher if at all.
I struggled a bit with the controls because F and E look so similar I would often change the polarity instead of picking up/dropping/throwing the magnet. That might be because I'm not used to keyboard controls, but accessibility wise it might be hard to differentiate for people with dyslexia.
The tutorial was good, but could afford to be a bit longer. It took me a long time to realise I could jump and throw the magnet because you can only do it if you aim first then jump. Maybe take the time to explain that or change it so you can do it either way as it was really frustrating because I knew what to do, but couldn't work out the way the controls wanted me to do it. I also only realised I could cancel a throw when trying to change the settings and that should definitely be included in the tutorial.
The line when throwing seems a bit redundant if you can't properly aim before you throw. This should definitely be a feature in the final game since it's more based on guess work and doesn't feel as good to control. I'm not sure if this is a feature already, but when I tried to toggle the different options the game stopped working. I don't know which option caused which option but at first I could only throw the magnet in one direction, then I could only drop it or pick it up. I played on the mac version so I'm not sure if it applies on the others, but even when restarting the level the problem persisted so I could only use the default. Whether this was a bug or not or there is actually an angled aiming system, this is another thing that should be included in the tutorial. Maybe it could be mapped to the arrow keys/d-pad or the mouse/right joystick (I think that's the one I mean) to prevent too many buttons overlapping uses.
The levels were all well designed. I managed to get through all of them except final door before the one that required six keys. I'm not great at puzzle games and usually use tutorials, so I'm not sire if it's due to that or if it needed a clearer design, but all of the others definitely gave me the "aha" moment you said you were looking for in your videos.
The door system is good and I like being able to do them in any order (even though I went in order anyway), but I think throwing the magnet to get in definitely felt a bit clunky and weird, especially since I had to jump to throw it each time. Maybe it would be better to press a button prompt to enter it and come out of the level you just entered rather than going back to the start each time because I feel like that will get frustrating as more levels are added into each world. A similar system to New Super Mario Bros on the DS could work instead, but without the birds eye view perspective.
The design is good, but a bit confusing at first. When I couldn't get through the tutorial I thought I was throwing the magnet at the wrong thing seeing "+" and "-" on the walls. I think the blank space around the level could afford to look a bit more mechanical or have the patterns repeated a bit more just to make it clearer to less experienced players.
I have a suggestion for later levels. The polarity changing is a really great feature and the gameplay definitely feels centred around the magnet. I remember you saying in one of your videos that you wanted the magnet to be called to the player and maybe you could include switch the polarity of the player to attract the magnet back to them.
Overall this was a really good and professional feeling demo. Aside from the things I mentioned it was really good and I'm really looking forward to any future demos or the final game. I hope you found my feedback useful and are able to use it for future development.
Just wanted to update I managed to work out the solution to the puzzle I couldn't before, but entirely by accident while trying another solution and it was the least satisfying puzzle aside from the first one in the tutorial (which after doing it again is quite hard to do even when knowing as the movement has to be so specific). I've also just learned that the aiming is controlled by the mouse, but again it was by accident and should be explained in the tutorial. It's still quite hard to throw accurately and could be tweaked further.
I still think it's really promising though and hope my feedback was useful.
Excellent fun.
Level 6 actually had more aha feeling than level 7 as level 7 felt a bit gotcha.
Jump felt a bit heavy.
Restarting is annoying. I actually think some sort of life/score here would reframe it as instead of an externalish waste of time more of an ingame setback.
Everytime I see the game I think you'll run out of levels and ideas and you never do. So that's a good sign.
Feel like moving forward the combination of elements could massively expand the scope of puzzles.
Some feedback:
Firstly, it felt a bit weird to me that the game just immediately kicks you out upon collecting the key. I thought I would have to use the door to exit the level.
Second, it's a bit too easy to get softlocked on some levels (mostly the sixth one). thankfully though, resetting the level is quick
Third, the sixth level seems the require some very precise throws and jumps, which lead to a bit of frustration because despite knowing what to do, I just didn't manage to input it
This jump can caused me some trouble, and if you fail it after throwing the magnet down you have to reset the entire level which is a bit annoying
Getting the magnet down there was a bit of a hassle - most of the time, it either bounced around and didn't even fall from the platform I was on, or landed above the hole which meant I had to reset the level
Overall, it was fun, My favorite level was the fifth, it hit just the right balance for the 'aha!' moment for me.
PS. Also, I found a minor bug (also in the sixth level)
It is possible to get the magnet between the magnetic block and the electromaget, but if we change its polarity to one that is attracted to the electromagnet...
... It starts to vibrate
After reading a bit of the comments, it has become apparent to me that I didn't beat the sixth level as indented
Took about 20 minutes to complete, and here's my biggest takeaway:
Building the proper tools to help you design your game really let you focus on building fun, compelling levels such that I reached the end and wanted more.
A couple minor curiosities (played with mouse and keyboard) followed by personal thoughts:
1) When starting the game, the HUD shows Q to Jump before replacing it with Space.
2) A matter of personal preference, I find the mouse unnecessary if the aim mode could be mapped to the arrow keys, especially since targets are quite large.
3) Instead of throwing your magnet away into pipes to open a door, I might suggest recycling an earlier idea you had; a magnetic block that completes a circuit when the magnet is attached.
4) Ending the level by grabbing a key feels a bit abrupt. But given the quick tutorial level sets up an expectation to use keys to clear the stage, I suspect these levels were more focused on puzzle iteration rather than stage flow.
5) Super excited to see where this project goes from here. Remember to take care of yourself along the way!
Really fun and definitely so much room for many cool levels. Character feels nice, visuals are really good for the most part and the small short levels are kinda addicting.
Few things that I noticed though.
Overall definitely a huge improvement to the previous builds with only some minor gripes.
Please include a Linux build! Since you're using Unity, it's just a couple more clicks...
This game has a lot of potential! Can't wait for the next version! Some thoughts: I think adding a reward for completing the level quickly or without having to restart would be cool (in-game perk). I also think there could be some story beyond completing all the levels. This could be told through a) exposition/scenes in between levels or b) by making the world feel more complete by telling some kind of story more indirectly (ie., things in the background etc). Also, I am not sure I beat the 6th level as intended so I attached the screenshot here of my solution.