Untitled Magnet Game

Hi Mark, I'm also a game dev with 4 years experience, and I'm making an indie puzzle game too (Epiphany City comes out in under 2 months)!

I left feedback and a video of my playthrough here. Thanks so much for the opportunity to play this game, I really loved it and I can't wait to play the full game!

Very lovely game to play, it feels very charming in general, like how the 'robopal' gives a smile when you're attached to something. I immediately want the best for the little robot.

The grey accentuates the part of the puzzles that really matter, but on the other hand also makes it look a bit drab. The little icons next to puzzle elements are quite nice, but are hard to notice at a first glance. I like how you're slowly introduced into the mechanics until you see multiple together in one puzzle. Below are some of my more specific thoughts.

• The movement feels a bit "heavy", you don't get started immediately on moving and once you jump it feels like there is a slight delay before you can move again, which makes it all just feel a tad slow.
• In general, because you have to wait for a lot of moving parts, the game feels a bit slow to play. There were parts where I was just jumping and moving around waiting for the platform to move. I suggest either speeding things up a bit or making the rooms smaller, so platforms have to move less.
• The throwing mechanic is interesting, but doesn't feel very necessary in the puzzles. It also feels like there's a disconnect between going into aiming mode (hold trigger) and then having to press another button to throw it. I kept forgetting to press the final throw button during the final puzzle, for example.
• During the final puzzle I got stumped until I got the hint that the spikes were part of the puzzle. An object getting destroyed because of a death zone feels so mundane in comparison to the rest of the puzzle element that it just fades into the background, especially because the other elements are all bright blue, red and green, while the spikes are just grey like other level elements.
• I'd suggest making the laser beams instant-death. I managed to skip past puzzles twice once I figured out the timing for the magnet to block the laser, but a reset would've blocked that path.

I agree with a lot of the other commenters on the movement needing some tweaking (specifically, the stop when landing from a jump isn't very fun), and needing objects in the environment to move faster so there's less waiting. Overall though this idea has a lot of promise.

On a less feedback-related note, I got stuck on 4-3 (the level in the picture) and didn't quite finish the game as a result. Does anyone here have any tips? I'd rather not leave it unfinished.

Nice job so far! I found myself playing for quite a while and had a good time doing it :)

Few additional thoughts...

• I enjoyed solving the puzzles and it felt good to crack some of the more tricky ones.
• I  appreciated that there are no enemies / moving threats (at least in these early stages), so there's time to assess and think about each area
• I got stuck on the puzzle room with the red block in the middle - I felt like I got trapped between the blocks and had to die on the spikes to retry? (the comment below about adding numbers to the rooms during development is a great idea... could even be baked into the art)
• I felt the character movement was a little slow to get started, and also would have appreciated a little more control over jumping, and letting go of the magnet
• The throwing mechanic felt a little unreliable as noted in other comments; feels like perhaps there's a hold-to-power aspect to it which isn't visualised in the throwing arc?
• Art-wise, it could be good to use colours more immediately communicate object relationships - for example if the magnet had blue tips, it'd be really clear it gets attracted to blue blocks. This could apply more widely with the green connectors and so forth, and might help the player get a more immediate 'read' on the whole room.
• Some larger overarching goal would go a long way to maintaining motivation; I found myself wanting to have a sense of progression

Thanks for sharing this, been enjoying following your progress on the videos too.

The idea with the magnet is nice, and, overall, the puzzles were alright, but here's a couple of things that I didn't like:

- most of all, the character controls are not good; the jump felt floaty, the movement was unresponsive; throwing the magnet felt junky; whenever you fall on the ground, you slow down for some reason... a big room for improvement in my opinion

- a lot of time is wasted on waiting for all the mechanisms to move; please, make them move faster!

- in the later part of the game there were a couple of puzzles that solved themselves for me; I simply jumped on some buttons in a random order to see what they did and found myself solving the puzzle, not realizing what exactly I did to solve it; maybe it's just luck though

- the last puzzle was quite easy for me, I feel like it should've been harder

The puzzle design and the way you teach mechanic is really nice, never stuck in one screen for too long but not feel like it is too easy.

Only think I don't like in this game is most of the moving block is too slow and I feel like I have to wait for too long for it to go back in place to try a new solution.

I don't know if this is a bug or a feature but player character cannot jump while stand on the moving blue block, and horizontal momentum seem to reset on landing.

Overall this is the start of a solid puzzle game. Already the pacing and available mechanics were great. I felt clever solving some of the later puzzles, and never bored that I was re-using the same tools to work my way to a solution.

----------

Observations

1. Previous games have taught me that I can probably pass through one-way platforms horizontally.
2. I could imagine speed running a puzzle game like this, and while its possible managing your weight and momentum might ultimately be part of the puzzle, losing speed when landing after a jump didn't feel fun.
3. First puzzle with pull down lever seemed to be directing me to puck up the magnet again, but then nothing happens. Maybe it needs a stronger hint? Button indicator next to the pull switch?
4. In one of the first puzzles with with a one-way platform, I was surprised I couldn’t throw the magnet through the platform, but ultimately accepted that behavior. In the next puzzle, the passing through a one-way platform while holding the magnet is the solution.
5. One puzzle has you hold a magnet to ride up in the magnetic field, then the expectation is to release the magnet to get to a nearby platform. Visually it looked as if I was running into an invisible wall, and not that the magnet was being pulled towards the nearby electromagnet.
6. On occasion I felt a bit of frustration related to the magnet getting hung up on low platforms while carrying it, or in having to setup a puzzle multiple times after failing the final step. In those moments I wanted  platforms and drills to move a bit faster. I think those frustrations let to me sitting and staring at the puzzle a little longer as opposed to experimenting with a solution.
7. Aiming a throw felt unreliable. The indicator often didn't show the actual path and a precise throw never really felt necessary. I started to ignore the indicator and mostly just threw up and to the right, or up and to the left and it worked.

Bugs

1. Holding left trigger without pressing a direction can show the throw indicator, but then the magnet does not get thrown without holding a direction as well.

Suggestions

1. In QA builds at least, adding an on-screen label to each puzzle would make it easy to provide feedback on specific puzzles.
2. Pressing a button to leave a level would allow more opportunity to explore and possibly discover secrets.
3. Allowing a small jump (maybe only horizontally) while hanging from a magnet would make some of the later puzzles less tedious since they require setup before attempting the jump.

----------

Thanks for inviting this community to take a look at an early build. Keep up the momentum, this game is going to be great!