We really enjoyed the game! Challenging and felt satisfying when the solution was found.
We felt the character moved a bit slow especially on repeat tries, and the aiming felt a little difficult to line up exactly where we wanted it to point at times. Not difficult to do so, just a bit clunky.
Really enjoyed the animations, and art style of the characters. Thanks for letting us play!
Great demo Mark! The character feels great to control, I found myself wanting a little bit of a higher top speed on him. But the start/stop and jumping feels really good.
I didn't quite understand the rules around what I could throw the magnet through and what I couldn't (also what I could throw the magnet through vs jump through myself). These screenshots show 2 throws which have different outcomes (the top one being that the magnet goes straight through the barrier, while in the second one it bounces off the thicker barrier). Maybe an idea would be to stop displaying the arc of dots beyond the impassible barrier?
The last level is very unintuitive and I'm not even sure that the way I did it is correct. I basically raised the giant block shot the magnet through the tiny gap to try to get it to land in the little pit where the block is to prevent it from hitting the button so I could jump across and get the key. The problem with this is that sometimes, the magnet hitbox is too large and doesn't go through the hole or doesn't get into the right spot because it requires a really precise angle.
So not sure if you know this or not but you can do a weird double jump with the magnet. Basically aim the magnet straight up and spam jump and throw and sometimes after catching/throwing the magnet the jump will twice the height. I couldn't get it consistent but thought that'd be a bug you'd want to be aware of if you weren't already.
Very interresting game :-) I can see lots of potential. I think the robot is cool.
Here are my remarks :
* you should put numbers on level, so it's easier to give you our feedback on specific level
* For the control, in the begining, I had my right hand on the arrows and my left hand on the "F" and "E" keys, so I didn't understand how to aim (because I didn't use the mouse). In the tutorial, you should say "aim with the mouse".
* A option could be move the robot with A, D and aim with the arrows ?
* I changed the jump to W because I find it easier. And maybe down arrow or S to cancel a throw
* I tried to replay a level, and as there is no more key, there is no more way to exit the level. Maybe put a "ghost" key ? Or put an exit door or a teleporter in the same place as the key ? In fact, I think a teleporter should be great at the end of each level because now, we don't know how we did to get back to the hub ;-)
* In Level 5 there is a magnet attached to a block with a chain. I found the chain very bouncy and not in a realistic way. It a good thing the the blocks and the magnet bounce a little, but they should do it accordinly to each other. For the moment, it's more like they are attached with soft rubber instead of a chain.
* For me, there should be no red or blue smoke when we throw the magnet. The smoke for the wheel of the robot makes sense, we lift up some dust while rolling, but where the smoke from the magnet come from ?
* In the last level, I have found the solultion, put every thing in it's place, the path to the key is open, but I fall in the whole under the magnet and I cannot jump to the left plateform. I had to get the magnet back to reset everything. While letting me jump to that plateform wouldn't have change anything to the puzzle or the difficulty of the level. I was juste annoyingly stuck down there.
Cool puzzles. Mainly the last one. It gave me a while but I feel accomplished after solving it. Different possibilities came to my mind but after trying it execute it was clearly not it (like the fact that the magnet is not a solid object and can't hold the box over the button). Last puzzle is definitely my favourite.
Only problem I had was in the first level where I didn't know that magnets can go through the metal bar. I felt a little bit cheated. It would be maybe good idea to introduce them in the introduction level too.
Second paragraph is the English version of the first.(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧ 在不需要用钥匙解锁的最后一关中，在已经把磁铁放在右侧的高台的情况下没有办法跳上左侧的高台，这种情况下似乎只能重置关卡。这种情况是因为磁铁和装置触碰时更改+/—没有使装置正常运作。总体来说游戏还不错，可以把难度再提高些，每一关做得更大些，再加上音效，音乐就更好了。 In the last level, which doesn't require a key to unlock, there is no way to jump on the high platform on the left when the magnet has been placed on the platform on the right, which seems the only way is to reset the level. This happens because changing +/- does not make the device work properly when the magnet and the device are touching . Overall the game is very funny, the difficulty could be increased a bit, each level could be bigger, it would be even better if it was accompanied by sound effects and music.
Great feel on the character mark, 2 main things though. Most of the levels aside from the last one were a bit too easy to simply do the obvious thing and solve the puzzles without really thinking .In the last level there's some inconsistency in the rules where you can use the magnet to block the big moving magnet but it gets squashed when you place it under the block that's attached to the chain.
I don't have much to say (but I am someone who thinks that then ends up writing an essay-like comment), but I do want to put forth my thoughts.
Fresh in my mind right now is the "last level" (the level closest to the "exit" or number locked door): this sumped me. I felt like I breezed through all the others (such that I only remember at least one other). I had to "see" how others solved it. I saw the problem but just could not see a good solution. I kept wanting to throw my magnet friend to hit the switch. Then I tried to race gravity. I saw a possibility of using Mag-Friend to block big blue/negative block from hitting to button (and later noticed that someone else did exactly that), but that felt like that was cruel to Mag-Friend and not what you intended. As I skimmed this comment section, I did find a comment that pointed to a better solution of using the swing door.
My "block" of text above shows that the last level seems like a significant step up from the others. I don't know how or why, but I feel that there were no connective lessons from the previous level(s) that adequately prepared me for that last one.
While the hub idea is a good concept, gating the player at critical points helps ensure you, the designer, know the player has the base of skills and knowledge needed to do "the thing." Baba is You does this well (in its cruel way).
Another thing that struck me was the nature of the relationship between the player and Mag-Friend. Especially with the levels just ending once you got the key, I felt I was using Mag-Friend as if they did not have a face. I don't have any solutions except some story reasons that justify that relationship dynamic. (Or I'm overthinking all that in some way.)
Otherwise, the visuals are clean and clear about what is going on. I was not too fond of the parallax effect in the hub. ... Other than that; I like the style you got here.
As I thought I would, I made an essay of a comment. Thank you for reading this, and I hope it helps.
PS: I should mention that I exclusively used my Xbox One controller to play the game. I did not feel the need to change any of the settings.
I honest to goodness didn't realize I needed to use my mouse to aim the throw. Perhaps adding that to the tutorial level's button/action popups could help.
Also any placeholder sounds would help I think, just to line up with actions. I felt a bit disconnected from the game without sounds.
Unfortunately, I'm running into graphical problems with V2.0. I have a nonstandard monitor resolution (1280x1024), which cuts off the edges of the screen. If you could add a way to adjust resolution, that would be handy.
I've only done one puzzle so far (the rightmost one) but I think V2.0 is a big improvement! Movement is much more fluid and I love how bouncy and expressive the character is, especially giving the magnet a face. I also think that throwing the magnet into the pipes to open doors is really neat, and helps explain how the magnet travels with you.
One thing is that I find the level reset a little clunky. It only draws a black bar across the middle of the screen, rather than the whole window. At first I thought it was opening a menu. (This might be due to the aforementioned resolution issue, I'm not sure.)
Very fun challenging puzzles. I do think the control defaults could use some work. In my opinion, W for jump and Q for polarization is more for comfortable than the defaults.
This was genuinely really fun. Great graphics and character, the levels are mostly quite simple but as you mentioned in your video they're only for testing so they could easily be made more complicated or used as early levels.
Bar the last one, that one was a nice head scratcher and I think if you tighten the space under the large block so that the magnet can't be forced in it would make for more of a challenge and force people to work out the puzzle based on purely game mechanics.
Finishing a level by grabbing a key only felt ok. What if you needed to move to a particular spot after getting the key? This opens up possibilities where you have to leave the magnet somewhere in order to reach the key (as in the last puzzle) but then once you have the key, there's a further challenge of how to get the magnet back in order to leave the level. Or might even allow for a Metroid Dread-esque level development where one puzzle could in fat be a way to open the door to other puzzles, perhaps by having multiple areas of a puzzle with their own magnets, some of which are only reachable by manouvering other magnets.
On the last level, I understand a lot of people jammed the magnet under the large block and I'll admit I did try that too but the game overall doesn't feel like the sort of game that wants you to do that sort of thing so I kept looking, I tried launching the magnet at the switch by perfectly timing a polarity reversal in order to use the the upward magnetic stream to give the magnet extra height an make it go farther which seemed like it could be a fun thing for other levels but again was far too difficult with this level so eventually I figured out the solution of having the door hold up the block until I was right next to it, giving me time to move past the second block before it dropped -which did fill me with a bit of panic the it might kill me for being to slow and reset the level.
Overall some really impressive work and a truely enjoyable game.
Hi Mark, I loved the game - the graphics were splendid, the puzzles were challenging and the character felt great to control. I did have a few thoughts however:
-As other people have said: many of the puzzles feel quite cluttered and it is difficult to understand what is going on in a level before you actually try to interact with it. I have a couple of suggestions that could help:
-Colour code the wires - you could use the same accessibility settings as you did with changing the polarity colours for the wire colours as well
-Try to keep the puzzles on one screen that doesn't move, I found that I felt a little overwhelmed when the camera started to scroll
- Also, I'm not sure how well this would translate to your game but I found myself sometimes wanting a Baba Is You-like rewind as occasionally I would press the wrong button and have to restart the level because I threw the magnet somewhere where I couldn't get it or I accidentally messed something up. This is just something I thought might be handy.
-As for bugs, I didn't find any except in the "Thanks for Playing" screen, if you press and hold the restart level button then the restart icon just appears from the corner and slowly gets bigger the longer you press it and then disappears when you let go -- A clip is attached demonstrating this
-Lastly, (this is also to do with the restart level button ). I am hopeless when it comes to remembering what button does what in video games so I found myself randomly accidentally restarting the level, it might be nice to have to press and hold the restart button and this could be accompanied by a little animation on the restart button - maybe something similar to this : Reset Animation Idea
This bind makes you control the robot with one hand and the magnet to the other. You can now struggling with the new cool puzzle instead of struggling with the control of the game.
LMB for Aim is by default, but the game is loudly suggesting you to use the keyboard on the tutorial, the HUD and with the windows- basic mouse skin.
Great job Mark, these mechanics can build plenty of cool advanced levels and good luck for the next part
Hey Mark, this is quite impressive, especially for someone's first proper game. Here are a few things I noticed: - The visuals are appealing and clean, which help to make the different puzzle rooms readable.
- Despite that, I felt the puzzle layouts were more complex and visually busy than they needed to be. Crisscrossing wires and pulleys make the rooms more difficult to parse, making me have to spend more time thinking "how is this room setup exactly?" before I can start trying to formulate potential solutions.
- I felt like the puzzles overall weren't quite hitting that sweet spot for "eureka" moments. I didn't feel like I was uncovering fundamentals of the systems usually, just reasons why the level was laid out the way it was or why the systems work the way they do (the magnet being able to pass through the one-way platforms felt confusing to me). Said another way, none of these puzzles felt like the natural consequences of the systems, but more-so puzzles forced onto the systems.
- I had no issue with the controls, but my natural inclination with a 2D platformer is to use the D-Pad on my controller, but doing so made the aiming the magnet toss awkward. Switching to use the control stick ended up being totally fine, however.
- I was confused for a second when grabbing the key immediately ended the level; I didn't expect that for some reason. Also, replaying an already completed level won't end naturally because there isn't a key to collect. Going to the pause menu and going back to the hub works perfectly fine, but having key outline or something to collect (a la the stars in Super Mario 64) would be very nice.
- I don't think I figured out how to solve the last puzzle correctly. I solved by precisely tossing the magnet to fit under the big minus block so that it could be in the down state (and thus not blocking the way) but not pressing the button since the magnet was in the way. This did not feel like the intended method of solving the puzzle, but I wasn't seeing any other way.
- The magnet deleting tractor beam area seemed odd. I couldn't tell what it was until I tried bringing the magnet past it. I can understand the desire to have a tool in your toolbelt to prevent the magnet from going in a particular areas, but it felt more like a cudgel solution, so a more elegant solution might be out there.
Thanks so much for making this game and this excellent series. I hope this feedback is helpful~
You have made a good start and I look forward to more. Most of my suggestions are for things you've already addressed in your logs.
If you are set on the hub idea with door entrances to levels, then I suggest a door at the end of each level that only opens after the key is acquired. This door could next to the key or in a different (hard to reach) location for multilayered levels, and then going through the exit would open back to the hub for a smooth transition.
Glad to play your game, thank you, for that experience.
Perhaps I found a loophole to pass the last level. I was able to block the "minus" square platform with a small magnet model by throwing it through the small hole under the platform on the right side when it was up, so i kept the button unpressed.
I really like this game and showed it to my daughter who is 8. She thoroughly enjoyed it and wants to play more levels. Apart from the critics and everything can always be improved, I think you have something here esp. the character, magnet and puzzles. We would buy it if you made it into a released game. You have a fan waiting for more levels :-).
Great game, absolutely love the concept. Some constructive feedback:
The options menu needs a clickable back button to exit, there's currently no visual to show how to leave the menu, and using the mouse to enter and a keyboard to leave isn't the most intuitive system.
Obviously, this is a demo, but would be nice to have fullscreen as an option in the window itself instead of just the starting menu.
Unsure if it's designed for future level development, but why not have the magnet auto-pick up when the player moves over it? having to click every time seems more tedious than anything.
Levels 1/2 maybe switched around positions? I think 2 has a simpler concept.
I love the player animations, (A old school robot who isn't affected by the magnets is very good. Could play with the idea of the magnets getting stuck or messing with its circuitry)
I think the jump reach feels wrong because the height of the level can make it feel like the player should be jumping higher, maybe increase the size of everything and zoom the camera in a little bit, this could help remove that aspect.
I would suggest a button for the user to call back the magnet, it can be tedious to go and find the magnet again if you have moved around the level. when the user presses 'c' for example, the magnet could fly back to the user.
Overall a great game demo, far more fleshed out than some demos I have played and with a very exciting concept, can't wait to see the next iteration
I'm no good when it comes to constructive criticism, especially when it comes to video games, but I'll give it a shot anyways;
First off, massive step up from the MVP. Our robot hero has a much better visual appeal, and the magnet has a lot more character attached to it. Each level presents a new challenge for the player, where they make use of their environment in different ways every time.
Every time I completed a level, I always got frustrated at myself for not realizing that I should have won the level in that particular method. I am no game design expert, but I think that putting the player in a spot where they have no-one to blame but themselves is really effective in terms of engagement and motivation.
One point I could make is that sometimes, the player has solved the puzzle, but has to apply their platforming skills to win the level. This merge of genres may hinder motivation of some players.
Another thing is that a lot of the times, I found myself restarting levels a lot for say, falling in pits too deep to get out. Unless this is intended, this could be changed in some way to remove the fatality of small mistakes. Whenever it is intended, add spikes so the process is quicker.
I also suggest some minor UI improvements, like for the metal bars that aren't attracted by the magnet, but are attracted by magnetic bars of opposite polarity. I see that you have indicated this by showing a metal outline surrounding the polarity mark, but maybe an arrow showing which way it will attract or different colours may help.
As a few others have pointed out, the beam that destroys magnets definitely needs a visual change. The smiley face will almost certainly confuse players for the first time, especially the colour, which they may mistake for polarity. Another symbol, like an X would do I suppose. However, it is a clever mechanic and something you must include in future levels.
My final point is that on the final level, where the solution is to get the metal box stuck between the levers, I think that it should be made a bit more clear that this is the way to do it. Maybe a player might notice this, but I definitely did not see this as a possibility when I first tried the level. But using mechanics as physically manipulatable objects in levels is quite clever and encourages the player to treat the levels and their objects in another manner.
I'm intrigued to see where you take the game next. I'd love to see you scatter gameplay ideas experimented here in the full release. I also want to know what parts of the game you want to tackle next; when you get to that point, how will you incorporate a story based around your game. How can the music influence the gameplay?
Although this wasn't very comprehensive or informative, I hope it helps in some way in terms of player feedback, and that you see where I'm making my judgement abouts.
I played this demo on a Windows 10 laptop with trackpad and keyboard.
Most satisfying level to beat: 1-4.
Level I skipped: 1-7.
Since I wasn't familiar with the mechanic, it took me a while to figure out how to open a door. I thought I was aiming close enough for the magnet to "catch" the field of the chute, or that there was some other trick like jumping or pressing an interaction button, until I realized you have to stand directly under it and throw the magnet directly up. This was tricky with my trackpad. I did not like opening doors. I also found the hub to be clunky.
The low-sensitivity mode helped with my aiming issues but did not fully alleviate them: sometimes the trackpad would completely lock up while aiming. I thought the aim toggle might help as well, but is there something I'm missing about it or does the toggle not allow precision aiming? All the throws seem equally weak when it's on (I couldn't start a level with it because I couldn't throw the magnet into the chute) and I don't feel like I can aim correctly. Another commenter said they wish throwing worked like Angry Birds, which I would also like, but mostly I wish I could control the entire game with keyboard alone.
I was a little disappointed to find out that throwing the magnet into the chute in normal levels does not return you to the hub.
Sometimes I'd get separated from my magnet when it locked onto something and I was trying to go with it (usually the angle doors), which was jarring.
I was confused by the keybindings not mentioning that the arrow keys are also assigned to motion, as my movement preference is arrows over WASD. Also, for reference, a common Windows accessibility setting is to make a circle around the cursor when pressing Ctrl. If pressed repeatedly, it darkens the entire screen except the cursor. This happened to me a lot trying to reset before I messed with the keybindings, as I didn't understand why pressing Ctrl once wasn't working.
For further a11y options, may I suggest a higher contrast/reduced motion mode? I honestly skipped the last level because it was dizzying to look at and I couldn't follow what was going on.
The demo is pretty good! I'll admit that it's not perfect, but I liked it.
The controls feel okay, although there were some places that made me have to use all of the jump to reach which felt weird.
But the one thing that this demo shines at are the puzzles, funnily enough.
I know this will sound biased (and I guess it kinda' is) but this is no joke the first time in a puzzle game where I feel rewarded for beating a puzzle.
Most puzzle games I play usually make me feel like I finally can get the hell along when I finish a puzzle, because of how abstract the puzzle laws are.
But this game is pretty genius! Because it's based off of physics and magnets, I can understand that, I can understand how these objects work instantly, it's just about figuring out how they work together, and it made me feel super rewarded for beating it.
I got all 7 keys and I feel like Einstein.
Maybe just make some of the places where you jump slightly lower, because as a game developer, I wouldn't worry, but as a gamer, I think I would get irritated.
I did a stupid thing and started with the last puzzle. This was pretty challenging and it felt great to solve it. However, it made the other puzzles seem really easy and/or simple.
A system where you have to at least try the first puzzle to unlock the second one and so forth could give the progression a bit more structure, while still not be punishing to players who gets stuck on a puzzle.
Otherwise a fun demo, the character felt great to control, it was easy to understand all the mechanics and so on. The lack of sound felt a bit awkward.
To me, it would have felt more natural to control the aiming Angry-Birds style, where you pull back to aim, rather than put your cursor where you want the magnet to go.
Also, there was at least one level where the magnet spawns behind where your player starts. Just a little thing, but it was annoying every time I restarted, I'd have to go backwards a bit just to grab the magnet.
Overall, I think you're off to a good start! Definitely love the visuals! The gates were especially fun to play around with!
I loved the demo and level design. The final level was a real treat/trick level, at least the way I solved it. I had to magnet door to hold the magnet block until I was ready to jump onto the other platform while being fast enough to beat the box destroying me. It was a nice combo between puzzle and platformer/speed test level. I really only had 2 major bugs come up when I played:
1. The ctrl reset level required multiple presses up to 5 times before it would reset the level.
2. I couldn't aim the magnet with my touchpad on my laptop while holding E to aim. Though when doing all the aiming using the touchpad it worked perfectly.
For the first bug, I think you have to hold the ctrl button to reset the level, but this could definitely be communicated better to the player by slowly colouring the reset icon.
The main drawback of the game for me was the overload of visual information on every level. It makes too much noise when reading them. This comes from the amount of interactuable special objects (they are too many for a begginer level), the lack of visual hierarchy on the layouts, and (maybe its just me) but the floating symbols and color pallet felt too noisy. All of this not only makes finding the solution more conversome that it needs to be but also makes it difficult to understand the point of the solution even when its already done (because most of the time i just stumbled to it by mistake or by trying random things).
For me the best puzzles do the most with the least amount of things and seeing you relying too much on switches, doors and pulleys not only destroys the clarity of the puzzles but also feels like a wasted opportunity for exploring the full properties of the magnet. I would encourage you to try to choose only one interactuable object (switches and doors also count as one) and come up with as many different scenarios with literally only the magnet and that thing. If you feel like that is not possible or not that interesting, maybe that means that the magnet (at least at its current state) is not that compelling as a mechanic. But don't panic about what I just said, it has potential; the challenge is making puzzles that show with clarity why the magnet is compelling.
Did not play the first demo, so no comparisons to the prior version. Liked what I saw so far. A breakdown of what i think follows:
Movement
Feels fine/good. I like the animations.
Initially I felt like the jump was a little short in terms of overall height, but the floatiness while holding is interesting. It allows for further jumps horizontally while still limiting you vertically. If that was intentional, then it works perfect. I got used to it quickly.
Magnet pushing me off a ledge while aiming caught me off guard
The design elements of the game worked great for me. The only things I can think of that could use attention:
I'm not sure, but weren't the arrow directions of the attractor/repulsor fields changing when switching polarity? Wasn't really an issue.
The tilted switch was weird to interact with. It felt a bit fumbly. It works very well as a visual though!
At one occurrence I felt the option to drop down through the "pass through floors", through which you currently can only traverse upwards, was missing. But only because I was expecting it. Not, because it was particularly necessary.
Level Design (I assume this is supposed to be a puzzle game and judge it as that)
Level difficulty was easy. Which I don't consider a problem: They felt like typical starter levels and maybe one of the reasons why they felt so easy was because of a very clean design language that just clicked and a very distilled level design. I liked that a lot.
One or two levels were a little bit flawed from the logistical perspective, requiring me to do retries though I already knew in my head how to solve them.
The level where the half-square-switch-doorway-thingy did not require a magnet was probably the weirdest. I was thinking for a moment whether something did not work as intended because it basically solved itself just by moving after the first half.
Level 6. Well,... how to start? I feel the need to explain how I solved it, because I'm not sure it was the right answer. That's already a big alarm bell for me. I threw the magnet in the stream, switched polarity in the right moment so that it was flung onto the switch and jumped over the gap in the right moment. I really did not like that. It was probably the easiest level in a weird way but was hard to pull of. And because it was the last level and I expected it to be harder, I was doubting myself all the time: Is *that* really the solution? It felt random, inelegant :(
Luckily I started with level 6 just for fun and after that the other levels were way nicer to tackle, though not a particular thinking challenge, except maybe one for one or two moments.
Just to put this into perspective: I'm not super intelligent and on top lack patience and get frustated easily. I managed to play through games like The Witness and Braid, but had a hard time with them and did not 100% them even remotely. So I am probably pretty average.
Loved the demo, but this review will be pretty critical despite that
The throwing felt a little weird because you can jump but not move left and right, which isn't terrible on it's own, but with slants on the floor and ceiling you can slide down the slants during it, and jump into stuff on the ceiling to move as well.
This could very well just not be what you intend for the game but I'd love some momentum mechanics with the magnet, and maybe another speed to build up to kind of like max speed in Super Mario 3D World
The jump I think could use a little bit more springiness, when you hold it you kind of just end up floating up slowly for a bit, which feels slightly off
You probably already have this on your to-do list, but I think the menus should probably be themed in the pixel art style the rest of the game in. Although, the settings tabs need no changes, they're already beautiful
I think a visual cooldown for the magnet would be helpful if instantly switching it back in forth isn't something you want to ad
Adding multiple magnets could be a very fun mechanic, but would require testing
Great start! I found a couple hitches listed below:
1. If I hold (instead of tap) X to pick up the magnet, I do not expect the throw action to begin. I think it would be more intuitive for the throw preparation state to only be activated after the X button has been released and re-pressed.
2. When holding the magnet, it's collision can be troublesome. First, I got stuck underneath a platform because the magnet jammed against the ceiling. Second, I was pushed off a ledge while aiming because the magnet went too far back. I think it would make sense to cheat the collision or reduce the radius as the magnet collides while being aimed.
3. Needing to restart and re-progress through a puzzle start is demoralizing. As an ultimate challenge this feels like a great way to turn up the heat, but when introducing new mechanics, I would appreciate if it was harder to get stuck.
4. Exiting a level to the hub world from the door (or out the pipe) of the level would put me closer to my next level and would feel more continuous. traversing the hub world started to feel like a chore as it got farther. Though it was great that it was super obvious which levels I had completed
Didn't play the first demo. Movement felt OK, but I was really struggling to gauge how far I was going to be able to jump, and it felt kind of clunky that I could throw while jumping but not moving. Couldn't beat the last two levels of the first hub world and gave up. Having to restart because of how easy it was to get stuck was a pain - I wished I could just call my magnet back to me tbh!
Oh and in the hub, I totally expected that I would go into the tube and do a Mario - didn't even occur to me to throw the magnet until I did it by accident.
Note: I did not play the first demo. Movement is feeling snappy. The dotted lines for throwing are helpful. Other visual aids are good too.
Puzzles are a bit too brainy for me while feeling casual, like I just want to run around and be more platform-y. Got up to Level 3 and it looked more overwhelming than I was feeling like doing. Not a knock on the design, more a matter of my managing expectations.
Didn't like that I could get myself stuck and have to restart, right there on Level 1. Having the ability to recall the magnet like you had previously wanted to do would have fixed that. Having to hit restart is an enthusiasm killer.
However, if players want more of a thinker of a game, this might be headed in the right direction.
Great game. A big improvement over V1.2. Feels very polished to play and it's nice to move around. Also, the slight shaking effect that occurs when rotating the switch is really nice.
I just have a few things to address:
1. Hub traversal and throwing the magnet to enter a level can get tedious after a while once you've completed most of the levels.
2. In the accessibility options, when changing the magnet colour, I thought there was a bug at first when I was trying to change one of the magnets from blue to red. After a while, I realised that it was because the 2 magnets couldn't be the same colour. Perhaps if there was some sort of highlight around one of the magnet colours to clarify which one you can't change to yet, would be easier to understand.
I'm really inspired by your game dev series so far and learning a lot from your game development experience.
Good Luck with the rest of the development and keep up the great work! :-)
Loved the new demo! I think the game currently has a solid foundation to expand upon.
I think one piece of criticism I could bring up regarding the 2.0 demo is about that one fizzler that kills the magnet. I don't think its current design is all that great for its intended purpose.
Firstly, the symbol at the top looks like a smiley face, which is very confusing. I would recommend swapping that for something like the No Waiting road sign.
Secondly, the effect on the fizzler looks too much like the magnetic beams, which adds to the confusion. I'm not sure what solution could be used here, but perhaps it would help to use particles that look like the No Waiting sign.
And lastly, does it even need to be a fizzler that kills the magnet? In that one level where the fizzler appears, its purpose is preventing the player from bringing the magnet to the left. Well, you previously introduced those platforms that the player can stand on, but the magnet passes right through. Why won't you simply introduce a platform that does the opposite, i.e. the magnet can stand on it and be blocked by it, but the player passes right through? That would probably have more puzzle-oriented applications than a fizzler.
I never played v1.2 before playing this V2.0, and I have been watching the whole video series up to this point. I am playing on the windows version. Here are my thoughts; I hope they are helpful.
1. I was confused on the first level on how to get back, and if I had actually solved the puzzle or not.
1.1. I kept trying to use the tube in the level to open up the door to go back just like I did to get to the level. Eventually I just pulled up the pause menu and saw the option to go back to the hub. If they was a in-level way to do that I never found it.
1.2. After the key moved up after capturing it, I wasn't sure that I was done. I kept trying to figure out a way to get to it. Throw the magnet at it, jump at it, jump from a ledge, etc. Eventually I figured out that the key going up meant I had captured it but that was only after going back to the hub and seeing the sign changed.
2. The physicality of the magnet and the fact that it moves around felt a little janky. I was on a narrow ledge and started aiming the magnet, but then the magnet pushed me off the edge (i.e. the magnet extended out toward the wall pushing me off).
3. The the "thanks for playing" level some the block looking elements flash as the character moves.
4. I was a little let down by the "thanks for playing" level as I was expecting a final puzzle that would be a test of everything that I had learned thus far.
5. In the final puzzle, I got stuck (could walk out) from behind the switch in the top right corner. The switch was facing me, so I could in theory walk over it, but I had the jump to get out of that space. This felt like unintentional and not great.
6. This was a fun little 15 minutes! I really enjoyed it. It's really amazing the amount of work that goes into making even a little gem like this game.
Amazed by the last level. I thought I need to throw the magnet to the right button by changing the color in the middle air. And use the gap between the blue huge magnet drop down and the heavy obstacle fall. It turns out the solution is not about timing. But still, feel fun that the button can be thrown so far by flipping the color in the middle air.
The game is fun! Movement is good. Readability is good. The swinging doors(grey/uncolored) are a little bit buggy and the player can have a weird interaction where the door wont open unless your player stops touching the door. its a little strange and clunky.
This series inspired me to start working on my own game and I made a lot of progress. Thanks for doing all of this.
Puzzle 6 was the only puzzle I stumbled on, but I also found a little secondary way to solve this puzzle. Probably not intended..
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Hi Mark,
We really enjoyed the game! Challenging and felt satisfying when the solution was found.
We felt the character moved a bit slow especially on repeat tries, and the aiming felt a little difficult to line up exactly where we wanted it to point at times. Not difficult to do so, just a bit clunky.
Really enjoyed the animations, and art style of the characters. Thanks for letting us play!
Great demo Mark! The character feels great to control, I found myself wanting a little bit of a higher top speed on him. But the start/stop and jumping feels really good.
I didn't quite understand the rules around what I could throw the magnet through and what I couldn't (also what I could throw the magnet through vs jump through myself). These screenshots show 2 throws which have different outcomes (the top one being that the magnet goes straight through the barrier, while in the second one it bounces off the thicker barrier). Maybe an idea would be to stop displaying the arc of dots beyond the impassible barrier?
https://imgur.com/a/SCiraSf
https://imgur.com/a/9VFjfkK
Can't wait to see what's next for this! Looking forward to it
The last level is very unintuitive and I'm not even sure that the way I did it is correct. I basically raised the giant block shot the magnet through the tiny gap to try to get it to land in the little pit where the block is to prevent it from hitting the button so I could jump across and get the key. The problem with this is that sometimes, the magnet hitbox is too large and doesn't go through the hole or doesn't get into the right spot because it requires a really precise angle.
Can you put the platformer level with the cool jumps in it that you mentioned here as a bonus level?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=eE05LjNNenQ?t=556
So not sure if you know this or not but you can do a weird double jump with the magnet. Basically aim the magnet straight up and spam jump and throw and sometimes after catching/throwing the magnet the jump will twice the height. I couldn't get it consistent but thought that'd be a bug you'd want to be aware of if you weren't already.
Very interresting game :-) I can see lots of potential. I think the robot is cool.
Here are my remarks :
* you should put numbers on level, so it's easier to give you our feedback on specific level
* For the control, in the begining, I had my right hand on the arrows and my left hand on the "F" and "E" keys, so I didn't understand how to aim (because I didn't use the mouse). In the tutorial, you should say "aim with the mouse".
* A option could be move the robot with A, D and aim with the arrows ?
* I changed the jump to W because I find it easier. And maybe down arrow or S to cancel a throw
* I tried to replay a level, and as there is no more key, there is no more way to exit the level. Maybe put a "ghost" key ? Or put an exit door or a teleporter in the same place as the key ? In fact, I think a teleporter should be great at the end of each level because now, we don't know how we did to get back to the hub ;-)
* In Level 5 there is a magnet attached to a block with a chain. I found the chain very bouncy and not in a realistic way. It a good thing the the blocks and the magnet bounce a little, but they should do it accordinly to each other. For the moment, it's more like they are attached with soft rubber instead of a chain.
* For me, there should be no red or blue smoke when we throw the magnet. The smoke for the wheel of the robot makes sense, we lift up some dust while rolling, but where the smoke from the magnet come from ?
* In the last level, I have found the solultion, put every thing in it's place, the path to the key is open, but I fall in the whole under the magnet and I cannot jump to the left plateform. I had to get the magnet back to reset everything. While letting me jump to that plateform wouldn't have change anything to the puzzle or the difficulty of the level. I was juste annoyingly stuck down there.
Cool puzzles. Mainly the last one. It gave me a while but I feel accomplished after solving it. Different possibilities came to my mind but after trying it execute it was clearly not it (like the fact that the magnet is not a solid object and can't hold the box over the button). Last puzzle is definitely my favourite.
Only problem I had was in the first level where I didn't know that magnets can go through the metal bar. I felt a little bit cheated. It would be maybe good idea to introduce them in the introduction level too.
Second paragraph is the English version of the first.(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧
在不需要用钥匙解锁的最后一关中，在已经把磁铁放在右侧的高台的情况下没有办法跳上左侧的高台，这种情况下似乎只能重置关卡。这种情况是因为磁铁和装置触碰时更改+/—没有使装置正常运作。总体来说游戏还不错，可以把难度再提高些，每一关做得更大些，再加上音效，音乐就更好了。
In the last level, which doesn't require a key to unlock, there is no way to jump on the high platform on the left when the magnet has been placed on the platform on the right, which seems the only way is to reset the level. This happens because changing +/- does not make the device work properly when the magnet and the device are touching . Overall the game is very funny, the difficulty could be increased a bit, each level could be bigger, it would be even better if it was accompanied by sound effects and music.
Great feel on the character mark, 2 main things though. Most of the levels aside from the last one were a bit too easy to simply do the obvious thing and solve the puzzles without really thinking .In the last level there's some inconsistency in the rules where you can use the magnet to block the big moving magnet but it gets squashed when you place it under the block that's attached to the chain.
I don't have much to say (but I am someone who thinks that then ends up writing an essay-like comment), but I do want to put forth my thoughts.
Fresh in my mind right now is the "last level" (the level closest to the "exit" or number locked door): this sumped me. I felt like I breezed through all the others (such that I only remember at least one other). I had to "see" how others solved it. I saw the problem but just could not see a good solution. I kept wanting to throw my magnet friend to hit the switch. Then I tried to race gravity. I saw a possibility of using Mag-Friend to block big blue/negative block from hitting to button (and later noticed that someone else did exactly that), but that felt like that was cruel to Mag-Friend and not what you intended. As I skimmed this comment section, I did find a comment that pointed to a better solution of using the swing door.
My "block" of text above shows that the last level seems like a significant step up from the others. I don't know how or why, but I feel that there were no connective lessons from the previous level(s) that adequately prepared me for that last one.
While the hub idea is a good concept, gating the player at critical points helps ensure you, the designer, know the player has the base of skills and knowledge needed to do "the thing." Baba is You does this well (in its cruel way).
Another thing that struck me was the nature of the relationship between the player and Mag-Friend. Especially with the levels just ending once you got the key, I felt I was using Mag-Friend as if they did not have a face. I don't have any solutions except some story reasons that justify that relationship dynamic. (Or I'm overthinking all that in some way.)
Otherwise, the visuals are clean and clear about what is going on. I was not too fond of the parallax effect in the hub. ... Other than that; I like the style you got here.
As I thought I would, I made an essay of a comment. Thank you for reading this, and I hope it helps.
PS: I should mention that I exclusively used my Xbox One controller to play the game. I did not feel the need to change any of the settings.
A whole lot of fun, genuinely enjoyed it.
I honest to goodness didn't realize I needed to use my mouse to aim the throw. Perhaps adding that to the tutorial level's button/action popups could help.
Also any placeholder sounds would help I think, just to line up with actions. I felt a bit disconnected from the game without sounds.
Unfortunately, I'm running into graphical problems with V2.0. I have a nonstandard monitor resolution (1280x1024), which cuts off the edges of the screen. If you could add a way to adjust resolution, that would be handy.
I've only done one puzzle so far (the rightmost one) but I think V2.0 is a big improvement! Movement is much more fluid and I love how bouncy and expressive the character is, especially giving the magnet a face. I also think that throwing the magnet into the pipes to open doors is really neat, and helps explain how the magnet travels with you.
One thing is that I find the level reset a little clunky. It only draws a black bar across the middle of the screen, rather than the whole window. At first I thought it was opening a menu. (This might be due to the aforementioned resolution issue, I'm not sure.)
Very fun challenging puzzles. I do think the control defaults could use some work. In my opinion, W for jump and Q for polarization is more for comfortable than the defaults.
This was genuinely really fun. Great graphics and character, the levels are mostly quite simple but as you mentioned in your video they're only for testing so they could easily be made more complicated or used as early levels.
Bar the last one, that one was a nice head scratcher and I think if you tighten the space under the large block so that the magnet can't be forced in it would make for more of a challenge and force people to work out the puzzle based on purely game mechanics.
Finishing a level by grabbing a key only felt ok. What if you needed to move to a particular spot after getting the key? This opens up possibilities where you have to leave the magnet somewhere in order to reach the key (as in the last puzzle) but then once you have the key, there's a further challenge of how to get the magnet back in order to leave the level. Or might even allow for a Metroid Dread-esque level development where one puzzle could in fat be a way to open the door to other puzzles, perhaps by having multiple areas of a puzzle with their own magnets, some of which are only reachable by manouvering other magnets.
On the last level, I understand a lot of people jammed the magnet under the large block and I'll admit I did try that too but the game overall doesn't feel like the sort of game that wants you to do that sort of thing so I kept looking, I tried launching the magnet at the switch by perfectly timing a polarity reversal in order to use the the upward magnetic stream to give the magnet extra height an make it go farther which seemed like it could be a fun thing for other levels but again was far too difficult with this level so eventually I figured out the solution of having the door hold up the block until I was right next to it, giving me time to move past the second block before it dropped -which did fill me with a bit of panic the it might kill me for being to slow and reset the level.
Overall some really impressive work and a truely enjoyable game.
Hi Mark, I loved the game - the graphics were splendid, the puzzles were challenging and the character felt great to control. I did have a few thoughts however:
-As other people have said: many of the puzzles feel quite cluttered and it is difficult to understand what is going on in a level before you actually try to interact with it. I have a couple of suggestions that could help:
-Colour code the wires - you could use the same accessibility settings as you did with changing the polarity colours for the wire colours as well
-Try to keep the puzzles on one screen that doesn't move, I found that I felt a little overwhelmed when the camera started to scroll
- Also, I'm not sure how well this would translate to your game but I found myself sometimes wanting a Baba Is You-like rewind as occasionally I would press the wrong button and have to restart the level because I threw the magnet somewhere where I couldn't get it or I accidentally messed something up. This is just something I thought might be handy.
-As for bugs, I didn't find any except in the "Thanks for Playing" screen, if you press and hold the restart level button then the restart icon just appears from the corner and slowly gets bigger the longer you press it and then disappears when you let go -- A clip is attached demonstrating this
-Lastly, (this is also to do with the restart level button ). I am hopeless when it comes to remembering what button does what in video games so I found myself randomly accidentally restarting the level, it might be nice to have to press and hold the restart button and this could be accompanied by a little animation on the restart button - maybe something similar to this : Reset Animation Idea
PLEASE TRY THIS BIND IF USING MOUSE/KEYBOARD
Aim/Pick up :
E->LMBSwitch Magnet :
F-> RMBCancel Aim :
Q-> FThis bind makes you control the robot with one hand and the magnet to the other. You can now struggling with the new cool puzzle instead of struggling with the control of the game.
LMB for Aim is by default, but the game is loudly suggesting you to use the keyboard on the tutorial, the HUD and with the windows- basic mouse skin.
Great job Mark, these mechanics can build plenty of cool advanced levels and good luck for the next part
(sorry for my english)
Hey Mark, this is quite impressive, especially for someone's first proper game. Here are a few things I noticed:
- The visuals are appealing and clean, which help to make the different puzzle rooms readable.
- Despite that, I felt the puzzle layouts were more complex and visually busy than they needed to be. Crisscrossing wires and pulleys make the rooms more difficult to parse, making me have to spend more time thinking "how is this room setup exactly?" before I can start trying to formulate potential solutions.
- I felt like the puzzles overall weren't quite hitting that sweet spot for "eureka" moments. I didn't feel like I was uncovering fundamentals of the systems usually, just reasons why the level was laid out the way it was or why the systems work the way they do (the magnet being able to pass through the one-way platforms felt confusing to me). Said another way, none of these puzzles felt like the natural consequences of the systems, but more-so puzzles forced onto the systems.
- I had no issue with the controls, but my natural inclination with a 2D platformer is to use the D-Pad on my controller, but doing so made the aiming the magnet toss awkward. Switching to use the control stick ended up being totally fine, however.
- I was confused for a second when grabbing the key immediately ended the level; I didn't expect that for some reason. Also, replaying an already completed level won't end naturally because there isn't a key to collect. Going to the pause menu and going back to the hub works perfectly fine, but having key outline or something to collect (a la the stars in Super Mario 64) would be very nice.
- I don't think I figured out how to solve the last puzzle correctly. I solved by precisely tossing the magnet to fit under the big minus block so that it could be in the down state (and thus not blocking the way) but not pressing the button since the magnet was in the way. This did not feel like the intended method of solving the puzzle, but I wasn't seeing any other way.
- The magnet deleting tractor beam area seemed odd. I couldn't tell what it was until I tried bringing the magnet past it. I can understand the desire to have a tool in your toolbelt to prevent the magnet from going in a particular areas, but it felt more like a cudgel solution, so a more elegant solution might be out there.
Thanks so much for making this game and this excellent series. I hope this feedback is helpful~
You have made a good start and I look forward to more. Most of my suggestions are for things you've already addressed in your logs.
If you are set on the hub idea with door entrances to levels, then I suggest a door at the end of each level that only opens after the key is acquired. This door could next to the key or in a different (hard to reach) location for multilayered levels, and then going through the exit would open back to the hub for a smooth transition.
Just an idea, but thanks for the demo!
Hello!
Glad to play your game, thank you, for that experience.
Perhaps I found a loophole to pass the last level. I was able to block the "minus" square platform with a small magnet model by throwing it through the small hole under the platform on the right side when it was up, so i kept the button unpressed.
I really like this game and showed it to my daughter who is 8. She thoroughly enjoyed it and wants to play more levels. Apart from the critics and everything can always be improved, I think you have something here esp. the character, magnet and puzzles. We would buy it if you made it into a released game. You have a fan waiting for more levels :-).
Great game, absolutely love the concept. Some constructive feedback:
The options menu needs a clickable back button to exit, there's currently no visual to show how to leave the menu, and using the mouse to enter and a keyboard to leave isn't the most intuitive system.
Obviously, this is a demo, but would be nice to have fullscreen as an option in the window itself instead of just the starting menu.
Unsure if it's designed for future level development, but why not have the magnet auto-pick up when the player moves over it? having to click every time seems more tedious than anything.
Levels 1/2 maybe switched around positions? I think 2 has a simpler concept.
I love the player animations, (A old school robot who isn't affected by the magnets is very good. Could play with the idea of the magnets getting stuck or messing with its circuitry)
I think the jump reach feels wrong because the height of the level can make it feel like the player should be jumping higher, maybe increase the size of everything and zoom the camera in a little bit, this could help remove that aspect.
I would suggest a button for the user to call back the magnet, it can be tedious to go and find the magnet again if you have moved around the level. when the user presses 'c' for example, the magnet could fly back to the user.
Overall a great game demo, far more fleshed out than some demos I have played and with a very exciting concept, can't wait to see the next iteration
I'm no good when it comes to constructive criticism, especially when it comes to video games, but I'll give it a shot anyways;
First off, massive step up from the MVP. Our robot hero has a much better visual appeal, and the magnet has a lot more character attached to it. Each level presents a new challenge for the player, where they make use of their environment in different ways every time.
Every time I completed a level, I always got frustrated at myself for not realizing that I should have won the level in that particular method. I am no game design expert, but I think that putting the player in a spot where they have no-one to blame but themselves is really effective in terms of engagement and motivation.
One point I could make is that sometimes, the player has solved the puzzle, but has to apply their platforming skills to win the level. This merge of genres may hinder motivation of some players.
Another thing is that a lot of the times, I found myself restarting levels a lot for say, falling in pits too deep to get out. Unless this is intended, this could be changed in some way to remove the fatality of small mistakes. Whenever it is intended, add spikes so the process is quicker.
I also suggest some minor UI improvements, like for the metal bars that aren't attracted by the magnet, but are attracted by magnetic bars of opposite polarity. I see that you have indicated this by showing a metal outline surrounding the polarity mark, but maybe an arrow showing which way it will attract or different colours may help.
As a few others have pointed out, the beam that destroys magnets definitely needs a visual change. The smiley face will almost certainly confuse players for the first time, especially the colour, which they may mistake for polarity. Another symbol, like an X would do I suppose. However, it is a clever mechanic and something you must include in future levels.
My final point is that on the final level, where the solution is to get the metal box stuck between the levers, I think that it should be made a bit more clear that this is the way to do it. Maybe a player might notice this, but I definitely did not see this as a possibility when I first tried the level. But using mechanics as physically manipulatable objects in levels is quite clever and encourages the player to treat the levels and their objects in another manner.
I'm intrigued to see where you take the game next. I'd love to see you scatter gameplay ideas experimented here in the full release. I also want to know what parts of the game you want to tackle next; when you get to that point, how will you incorporate a story based around your game. How can the music influence the gameplay?
Although this wasn't very comprehensive or informative, I hope it helps in some way in terms of player feedback, and that you see where I'm making my judgement abouts.
I REALLY LIKED THIS VERSION OF THE GAME
I played this demo on a Windows 10 laptop with trackpad and keyboard.
Most satisfying level to beat: 1-4.
Level I skipped: 1-7.
Since I wasn't familiar with the mechanic, it took me a while to figure out how to open a door. I thought I was aiming close enough for the magnet to "catch" the field of the chute, or that there was some other trick like jumping or pressing an interaction button, until I realized you have to stand directly under it and throw the magnet directly up. This was tricky with my trackpad. I did not like opening doors. I also found the hub to be clunky.
The low-sensitivity mode helped with my aiming issues but did not fully alleviate them: sometimes the trackpad would completely lock up while aiming.
I thought the aim toggle might help as well, but is there something I'm missing about it or does the toggle not allow precision aiming? All the throws seem equally weak when it's on (I couldn't start a level with it because I couldn't throw the magnet into the chute) and I don't feel like I can aim correctly.
Another commenter said they wish throwing worked like Angry Birds, which I would also like, but mostly I wish I could control the entire game with keyboard alone.
I was a little disappointed to find out that throwing the magnet into the chute in normal levels does not return you to the hub.
Sometimes I'd get separated from my magnet when it locked onto something and I was trying to go with it (usually the angle doors), which was jarring.
I was confused by the keybindings not mentioning that the arrow keys are also assigned to motion, as my movement preference is arrows over WASD. Also, for reference, a common Windows accessibility setting is to make a circle around the cursor when pressing Ctrl. If pressed repeatedly, it darkens the entire screen except the cursor. This happened to me a lot trying to reset before I messed with the keybindings, as I didn't understand why pressing Ctrl once wasn't working.
For further a11y options, may I suggest a higher contrast/reduced motion mode? I honestly skipped the last level because it was dizzying to look at and I couldn't follow what was going on.
The demo is pretty good! I'll admit that it's not perfect, but I liked it.
The controls feel okay, although there were some places that made me have to use all of the jump to reach which felt weird.
But the one thing that this demo shines at are the puzzles, funnily enough.
I know this will sound biased (and I guess it kinda' is) but this is no joke the first time in a puzzle game where I feel rewarded for beating a puzzle.
Most puzzle games I play usually make me feel like I finally can get the hell along when I finish a puzzle, because of how abstract the puzzle laws are.
But this game is pretty genius! Because it's based off of physics and magnets, I can understand that, I can understand how these objects work instantly, it's just about figuring out how they work together, and it made me feel super rewarded for beating it.
I got all 7 keys and I feel like Einstein.
Maybe just make some of the places where you jump slightly lower, because as a game developer, I wouldn't worry, but as a gamer, I think I would get irritated.
Cool experience!
I did a stupid thing and started with the last puzzle. This was pretty challenging and it felt great to solve it. However, it made the other puzzles seem really easy and/or simple.
A system where you have to at least try the first puzzle to unlock the second one and so forth could give the progression a bit more structure, while still not be punishing to players who gets stuck on a puzzle.
Otherwise a fun demo, the character felt great to control, it was easy to understand all the mechanics and so on. The lack of sound felt a bit awkward.
Keep up the good work.
To me, it would have felt more natural to control the aiming Angry-Birds style, where you pull back to aim, rather than put your cursor where you want the magnet to go.
Also, there was at least one level where the magnet spawns behind where your player starts. Just a little thing, but it was annoying every time I restarted, I'd have to go backwards a bit just to grab the magnet.
Overall, I think you're off to a good start! Definitely love the visuals! The gates were especially fun to play around with!
I loved the demo and level design. The final level was a real treat/trick level, at least the way I solved it. I had to magnet door to hold the magnet block until I was ready to jump onto the other platform while being fast enough to beat the box destroying me. It was a nice combo between puzzle and platformer/speed test level. I really only had 2 major bugs come up when I played:
1. The ctrl reset level required multiple presses up to 5 times before it would reset the level.
2. I couldn't aim the magnet with my touchpad on my laptop while holding E to aim. Though when doing all the aiming using the touchpad it worked perfectly.
For the first bug, I think you have to hold the ctrl button to reset the level, but this could definitely be communicated better to the player by slowly colouring the reset icon.
The main drawback of the game for me was the overload of visual information on every level. It makes too much noise when reading them. This comes from the amount of interactuable special objects (they are too many for a begginer level), the lack of visual hierarchy on the layouts, and (maybe its just me) but the floating symbols and color pallet felt too noisy. All of this not only makes finding the solution more conversome that it needs to be but also makes it difficult to understand the point of the solution even when its already done (because most of the time i just stumbled to it by mistake or by trying random things).
For me the best puzzles do the most with the least amount of things and seeing you relying too much on switches, doors and pulleys not only destroys the clarity of the puzzles but also feels like a wasted opportunity for exploring the full properties of the magnet. I would encourage you to try to choose only one interactuable object (switches and doors also count as one) and come up with as many different scenarios with literally only the magnet and that thing. If you feel like that is not possible or not that interesting, maybe that means that the magnet (at least at its current state) is not that compelling as a mechanic. But don't panic about what I just said, it has potential; the challenge is making puzzles that show with clarity why the magnet is compelling.
My impression from just looking at the screenshots!
Hey there,
Did not play the first demo, so no comparisons to the prior version. Liked what I saw so far. A breakdown of what i think follows:
Luckily I started with level 6 just for fun and after that the other levels were way nicer to tackle, though not a particular thinking challenge, except maybe one for one or two moments.
Just to put this into perspective: I'm not super intelligent and on top lack patience and get frustated easily. I managed to play through games like The Witness and Braid, but had a hard time with them and did not 100% them even remotely. So I am probably pretty average.
Loved the demo, but this review will be pretty critical despite that
The throwing felt a little weird because you can jump but not move left and right, which isn't terrible on it's own, but with slants on the floor and ceiling you can slide down the slants during it, and jump into stuff on the ceiling to move as well.
This could very well just not be what you intend for the game but I'd love some momentum mechanics with the magnet, and maybe another speed to build up to kind of like max speed in Super Mario 3D World
The jump I think could use a little bit more springiness, when you hold it you kind of just end up floating up slowly for a bit, which feels slightly off
You probably already have this on your to-do list, but I think the menus should probably be themed in the pixel art style the rest of the game in. Although, the settings tabs need no changes, they're already beautiful
I think a visual cooldown for the magnet would be helpful if instantly switching it back in forth isn't something you want to ad
Adding multiple magnets could be a very fun mechanic, but would require testing
Great start! I found a couple hitches listed below:
1. If I hold (instead of tap) X to pick up the magnet, I do not expect the throw action to begin. I think it would be more intuitive for the throw preparation state to only be activated after the X button has been released and re-pressed.
2. When holding the magnet, it's collision can be troublesome. First, I got stuck underneath a platform because the magnet jammed against the ceiling. Second, I was pushed off a ledge while aiming because the magnet went too far back. I think it would make sense to cheat the collision or reduce the radius as the magnet collides while being aimed.
3. Needing to restart and re-progress through a puzzle start is demoralizing. As an ultimate challenge this feels like a great way to turn up the heat, but when introducing new mechanics, I would appreciate if it was harder to get stuck.
4. Exiting a level to the hub world from the door (or out the pipe) of the level would put me closer to my next level and would feel more continuous. traversing the hub world started to feel like a chore as it got farther. Though it was great that it was super obvious which levels I had completed
Thanks for the demo and your great series!
Didn't play the first demo. Movement felt OK, but I was really struggling to gauge how far I was going to be able to jump, and it felt kind of clunky that I could throw while jumping but not moving. Couldn't beat the last two levels of the first hub world and gave up. Having to restart because of how easy it was to get stuck was a pain - I wished I could just call my magnet back to me tbh!
Oh and in the hub, I totally expected that I would go into the tube and do a Mario - didn't even occur to me to throw the magnet until I did it by accident.
Note: I did not play the first demo. Movement is feeling snappy. The dotted lines for throwing are helpful. Other visual aids are good too.
Puzzles are a bit too brainy for me while feeling casual, like I just want to run around and be more platform-y. Got up to Level 3 and it looked more overwhelming than I was feeling like doing. Not a knock on the design, more a matter of my managing expectations.
Didn't like that I could get myself stuck and have to restart, right there on Level 1. Having the ability to recall the magnet like you had previously wanted to do would have fixed that. Having to hit restart is an enthusiasm killer.
However, if players want more of a thinker of a game, this might be headed in the right direction.
Hey Mark,
Great game. A big improvement over V1.2. Feels very polished to play and it's nice to move around. Also, the slight shaking effect that occurs when rotating the switch is really nice.
I just have a few things to address:
1. Hub traversal and throwing the magnet to enter a level can get tedious after a while once you've completed most of the levels.
2. In the accessibility options, when changing the magnet colour, I thought there was a bug at first when I was trying to change one of the magnets from blue to red. After a while, I realised that it was because the 2 magnets couldn't be the same colour. Perhaps if there was some sort of highlight around one of the magnet colours to clarify which one you can't change to yet, would be easier to understand.
I'm really inspired by your game dev series so far and learning a lot from your game development experience.
Good Luck with the rest of the development and keep up the great work! :-)
Loved the new demo! I think the game currently has a solid foundation to expand upon.
I think one piece of criticism I could bring up regarding the 2.0 demo is about that one fizzler that kills the magnet. I don't think its current design is all that great for its intended purpose.
Firstly, the symbol at the top looks like a smiley face, which is very confusing. I would recommend swapping that for something like the No Waiting road sign.
Secondly, the effect on the fizzler looks too much like the magnetic beams, which adds to the confusion. I'm not sure what solution could be used here, but perhaps it would help to use particles that look like the No Waiting sign.
And lastly, does it even need to be a fizzler that kills the magnet? In that one level where the fizzler appears, its purpose is preventing the player from bringing the magnet to the left. Well, you previously introduced those platforms that the player can stand on, but the magnet passes right through. Why won't you simply introduce a platform that does the opposite, i.e. the magnet can stand on it and be blocked by it, but the player passes right through? That would probably have more puzzle-oriented applications than a fizzler.
I never played v1.2 before playing this V2.0, and I have been watching the whole video series up to this point. I am playing on the windows version. Here are my thoughts; I hope they are helpful.
1. I was confused on the first level on how to get back, and if I had actually solved the puzzle or not.
1.1. I kept trying to use the tube in the level to open up the door to go back just like I did to get to the level. Eventually I just pulled up the pause menu and saw the option to go back to the hub. If they was a in-level way to do that I never found it.
1.2. After the key moved up after capturing it, I wasn't sure that I was done. I kept trying to figure out a way to get to it. Throw the magnet at it, jump at it, jump from a ledge, etc. Eventually I figured out that the key going up meant I had captured it but that was only after going back to the hub and seeing the sign changed.
2. The physicality of the magnet and the fact that it moves around felt a little janky. I was on a narrow ledge and started aiming the magnet, but then the magnet pushed me off the edge (i.e. the magnet extended out toward the wall pushing me off).
3. The the "thanks for playing" level some the block looking elements flash as the character moves.
4. I was a little let down by the "thanks for playing" level as I was expecting a final puzzle that would be a test of everything that I had learned thus far.
5. In the final puzzle, I got stuck (could walk out) from behind the switch in the top right corner. The switch was facing me, so I could in theory walk over it, but I had the jump to get out of that space. This felt like unintentional and not great.
6. This was a fun little 15 minutes! I really enjoyed it. It's really amazing the amount of work that goes into making even a little gem like this game.
Amazed by the last level. I thought I need to throw the magnet to the right button by changing the color in the middle air. And use the gap between the blue huge magnet drop down and the heavy obstacle fall. It turns out the solution is not about timing. But still, feel fun that the button can be thrown so far by flipping the color in the middle air.
The game is fun! Movement is good. Readability is good. The swinging doors(grey/uncolored) are a little bit buggy and the player can have a weird interaction where the door wont open unless your player stops touching the door. its a little strange and clunky.
This series inspired me to start working on my own game and I made a lot of progress. Thanks for doing all of this.
Puzzle 6 was the only puzzle I stumbled on, but I also found a little secondary way to solve this puzzle. Probably not intended..
UMG Level 6 Cheat