Kino game. Charming music, visuals, characters, animations, designs, etc. Combined with a relaxing pace and music, I'm sure fans of puzzle games will eat this up.
I'll try and review the game in order of how things were presented.
First off, the controls are weird. Z to interact, Arrows to move? I don't play puzzle games, well, ever, so I don't know what the standard control scheme is, but this felt weird. I instinctively tried to press Enter to confirm things or end the stage, etc. It took me a while to get used to the controls, and I never felt too comfortable with them.
Cute level transition drawings. Mechanics in play in a puzzle are explained and I didn't get confused as to what my goal was, or how to achieve it.
Switching characters also feels weird. It feels as if there is an extra step involved. While at some point in the game you have 3+ characters to pick, in the early game there's only two. I feel that when you only have 2, you shouldn't need to confirm selection when switching characters. I should be able to press X, and immediately switch characters. I guess the added pause time is nice when strategizing, but it feels like an extra layer of waiting for an otherwise simple mechanic. Maybe I just didn't get used to it enough? Either way, might be worth a look to see if this can be simplified a bit. Perhaps a hotkey system, with numbers above a character's head? So pressing X will enter the switch menu, and following it up with a hotkey (ex: 2) will switch to character labeled 2.
The introduction of new mechanics are done at a nice pace. I don't feel overwhelmed, but I can't say it's very hard yet. Haven't gotten stuck/lost yet. No clue what the difficulty curve of this game is, but perhaps it might be of interest to add a slightly more challenging level early on (and to sprinkle them every now and then), to retain player interest. Otherwise a player might never reach lategame because they feel like they aren't being challenged enough. Or maybe that's just me since I don't play puzzle games often.
I made it to Slumber Party (World 2, level 5ish?) before stopping. Probably due to the amount of switching characters I needed to do?
I haven't encountered any bugs or issues while playing. I again have to give special praise to animations, and how they are used. A character flying through the air not having any animations is actually ridiculously clever and adorable. I threw my blue faery off the stage accidentally, and watching her smug face fall without a single change in expression or posture made me laugh out loud.
Switching between fairies has always been a hot dicussion topic. There is an option for a single key switch in the options menu, one of the later levels explains it. The reason why it is not the default is because on my testings, players struggled with later levels when multiple fairies where around and precise actions where necessary. But it is true that it is cumbersome to press so many keys to switch with the regular system. There is no real perfect answer to the issue, only compromises and giving the player the option.
The levels climb in difficulties starting from Slumber Party. So if you found the first levels too simple, try changing the switch mode and give the later levels a try.
Fairies don't have a flying animation mostly because I didn't have time to add it. I'm not sure if it is necessary to add one, I'm on the fence about it. Some other animations are missing.
The blue and red fairies have proper graphics now! Gray fairies are left for next time
Added a lot more animations to the fairies
Reworked the level tileset system. Levels look much different now
Big changes to most UI, including the options, pause and main menu
Changed the level select and level introduction
New flagpost graphics and effects
New fairy selection circle (animations pending)
Added controller support and extra keyboard controlls (WASD + K + L)
Unified zoom level and fullscreen in a single option. It has: zoom x1, zoom x2, full screen and borderless (full screen)
The game is no longer pixel perfect by default on full screen/borderless. This only affects screens that are not 16:9. They will no longer have black bars, but the pixel art will be slightly distorted
Speed up no longer requires holding down the "z" button. Pressing once will turn it on
"Speed up" prompt on the flag is always given now
Small puzzles tweaks for some level. All puzzles are basically the same to last DD.
Comments
Kino game. Charming music, visuals, characters, animations, designs, etc. Combined with a relaxing pace and music, I'm sure fans of puzzle games will eat this up.
I'll try and review the game in order of how things were presented.
First off, the controls are weird. Z to interact, Arrows to move? I don't play puzzle games, well, ever, so I don't know what the standard control scheme is, but this felt weird. I instinctively tried to press Enter to confirm things or end the stage, etc. It took me a while to get used to the controls, and I never felt too comfortable with them.
Cute level transition drawings. Mechanics in play in a puzzle are explained and I didn't get confused as to what my goal was, or how to achieve it.
Switching characters also feels weird. It feels as if there is an extra step involved. While at some point in the game you have 3+ characters to pick, in the early game there's only two. I feel that when you only have 2, you shouldn't need to confirm selection when switching characters. I should be able to press X, and immediately switch characters. I guess the added pause time is nice when strategizing, but it feels like an extra layer of waiting for an otherwise simple mechanic. Maybe I just didn't get used to it enough? Either way, might be worth a look to see if this can be simplified a bit. Perhaps a hotkey system, with numbers above a character's head? So pressing X will enter the switch menu, and following it up with a hotkey (ex: 2) will switch to character labeled 2.
The introduction of new mechanics are done at a nice pace. I don't feel overwhelmed, but I can't say it's very hard yet. Haven't gotten stuck/lost yet. No clue what the difficulty curve of this game is, but perhaps it might be of interest to add a slightly more challenging level early on (and to sprinkle them every now and then), to retain player interest. Otherwise a player might never reach lategame because they feel like they aren't being challenged enough. Or maybe that's just me since I don't play puzzle games often.
I made it to Slumber Party (World 2, level 5ish?) before stopping. Probably due to the amount of switching characters I needed to do?
I haven't encountered any bugs or issues while playing. I again have to give special praise to animations, and how they are used. A character flying through the air not having any animations is actually ridiculously clever and adorable. I threw my blue faery off the stage accidentally, and watching her smug face fall without a single change in expression or posture made me laugh out loud.
Really excellent game. Well done.
Thanks for the kind comment!
Switching between fairies has always been a hot dicussion topic. There is an option for a single key switch in the options menu, one of the later levels explains it. The reason why it is not the default is because on my testings, players struggled with later levels when multiple fairies where around and precise actions where necessary. But it is true that it is cumbersome to press so many keys to switch with the regular system. There is no real perfect answer to the issue, only compromises and giving the player the option.
The levels climb in difficulties starting from Slumber Party. So if you found the first levels too simple, try changing the switch mode and give the later levels a try.
Fairies don't have a flying animation mostly because I didn't have time to add it. I'm not sure if it is necessary to add one, I'm on the fence about it. Some other animations are missing.
>flying animation
Definitely DON'T add one. It's incredibly charming as-is
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