Oh, it's you! I saw your hour one progress on twitter! Going to check out the final result now.

Fun story there. Having to pick up the laser pointer without direction was a bit of an afterthought, but a very intentional decision.

When playtesting, players felt like they were directly controlling coots. This meant when a bird distracted coots it was frustrating (in a different way than it is now). We intentionally created an uncomfortable delay where they CAN'T control coots until you figure out the laser is something to pick up, which solved this problem! Players immediately "buy in" to the concept that coots is inherently outside of their control.

Albeit we may have created a different problem. :)

i.e., players don't automatically assume a game "works" when playing it as part of a jam. So a lot of times players stop and think it's a bug before exploring their options. We probably should've increased the delay before the arrow-hint appears, because, as is, it occurs too closely to the "Coots Can Climb" toast disappearing, and a lot of players miss the visual cue!

Pfft; 1:37. Get good.