Gameplay: Solid concept, but I experienced a consistent issue where the first stage would have the cube load off grid every session. Aside from that everything behaved as expected and seemingly intended. Good job.
Creativity & Innovation: Cute concept of controllable sliding ice puzzles. Nothing particularly innovative, but an important thing to note is that this would be easily adaptable into a board game.
Theme Adherence: Solid theme adherence. You literally build the connection points through tile movement and placement.
Playability & User Experience: Aside from initial fail bug, gameplay was pretty solid. I would recommend not using the scroll wheel of a mouse as the sole/primary selector for assets though as it is a bit awkward and not all mice have one, which makes the game unplayable for some users due to hardware. Alternatives like "TAB" are a pretty safe bet, and you can always have the scroll wheel as a secondary/alternate.
Art and Design: Minimal, but it works. This is a grid based puzzle game, and the tile approach fits.
Overall Fun Factor: It is as fun as a puzzle game can be without an additional gimmick/motivational factor. Good job.
As an overall comment: This is one of the more direct puzzle as a game submissions that I've seen, so I wanted to provide some insight about this because the puzzle elements used are uncommon so you get some more design focused feedback. A puzzle =/= a game, but most (almost all) games contain puzzles. A lot of what holds back puzzle games is the lack of additional motivational factors, or interactive/variable elements that add complexity. When there is only one solution to each stage, and a lack of other motivational forces, puzzle games run the risk of being more puzzle than game, which in a general sense weakens the gameplay loop. This is because the interactive elements (which provide player agency) become less of the focus as opposed to pattern recognition. SO instead of "playing" it's easy to enter a "solving" state, which will impact the players experience. There are people who this is their ideal sense of fun, but they are a lower population of potential players, so being away of this is important in making future design decisions. (And you can be successful, and this observation/design/development choice will simply influence other factors like allowable budget based on expected returns and what not.) Puzzle design is also really hard, so kudo's and keep up the good work!
Really clever concept and fantastic level design! I had a lot of fun playing through the tutorial stages of Navigator and was a bit sad when I realized that I’d reached the end. The puzzles here are just the right amount of difficult and it was really rewarding to see everything come together to complete a stage. In particular, I really like that you have to both think ahead and react quickly in the moment--not a combination that you see too often in puzzle games like this, so I appreciated the creativity here. It was also interesting to read about your process making this game. I definitely respect that you invested time into making it easy and efficient to create new levels in the future.
Per the UI, I think it’d be nice to allow players to click on tiles they want to drop instead of just cycling through with the spacebar, especially since the mouse is already being used to place tiles on the map. Additionally, I would suggest not removing all of the placed tiles by default when restarting a level and instead just have resetting the map linked to an optional button to be clicked whenever. There were a few times when I forgot to place a particular tile or didn’t react in time during the run, then had to place everything back down again afterward.
This was a lot of fun to play and there’s definitely a ton of potential with this game, so I hope you do continue development! I’d love to play more levels in the future. Best of luck and thanks for sharing!
I really appreciate the criticism here. I was stuck at one point when deciding how to shift between tile options and added the scroll wheel to keep most of the controls solely on the mouse. I can definitely have the player click the options as well to increase the accessibility. I will continue development so I hope that you will keep a look out in the future!
Great game, definitely deserves more love! The last level was challenging, I spent at least 15 minutes trying! Love the concept and as mentioned in the previous comment how easy is to understand the commands and the game itself, very user-friendly! With the right sound effects and music (something trippy!) you can definitely keep people playing for a while!
Wishing there will be even more levels in future! (And maybe a smartphone release? 😏)
Thank you so much for the kind words. I will definitely work on my sfx skills. There will definitely be updates for this game and a smartphone release would be an awesome goal to reach.
Thank you for the feedback! If I had to pick one aspect of game design, sfx and music would probably be my most inexperienced area. I will definitely work on that as I improve on the game.
Comments
Gameplay: Solid concept, but I experienced a consistent issue where the first stage would have the cube load off grid every session. Aside from that everything behaved as expected and seemingly intended. Good job.
Creativity & Innovation: Cute concept of controllable sliding ice puzzles. Nothing particularly innovative, but an important thing to note is that this would be easily adaptable into a board game.
Theme Adherence: Solid theme adherence. You literally build the connection points through tile movement and placement.
Playability & User Experience: Aside from initial fail bug, gameplay was pretty solid. I would recommend not using the scroll wheel of a mouse as the sole/primary selector for assets though as it is a bit awkward and not all mice have one, which makes the game unplayable for some users due to hardware. Alternatives like "TAB" are a pretty safe bet, and you can always have the scroll wheel as a secondary/alternate.
Art and Design: Minimal, but it works. This is a grid based puzzle game, and the tile approach fits.
Overall Fun Factor: It is as fun as a puzzle game can be without an additional gimmick/motivational factor. Good job.
As an overall comment: This is one of the more direct puzzle as a game submissions that I've seen, so I wanted to provide some insight about this because the puzzle elements used are uncommon so you get some more design focused feedback. A puzzle =/= a game, but most (almost all) games contain puzzles. A lot of what holds back puzzle games is the lack of additional motivational factors, or interactive/variable elements that add complexity. When there is only one solution to each stage, and a lack of other motivational forces, puzzle games run the risk of being more puzzle than game, which in a general sense weakens the gameplay loop. This is because the interactive elements (which provide player agency) become less of the focus as opposed to pattern recognition. SO instead of "playing" it's easy to enter a "solving" state, which will impact the players experience. There are people who this is their ideal sense of fun, but they are a lower population of potential players, so being away of this is important in making future design decisions. (And you can be successful, and this observation/design/development choice will simply influence other factors like allowable budget based on expected returns and what not.)
Puzzle design is also really hard, so kudo's and keep up the good work!
Really clever concept and fantastic level design! I had a lot of fun playing through the tutorial stages of Navigator and was a bit sad when I realized that I’d reached the end. The puzzles here are just the right amount of difficult and it was really rewarding to see everything come together to complete a stage. In particular, I really like that you have to both think ahead and react quickly in the moment--not a combination that you see too often in puzzle games like this, so I appreciated the creativity here. It was also interesting to read about your process making this game. I definitely respect that you invested time into making it easy and efficient to create new levels in the future.
Per the UI, I think it’d be nice to allow players to click on tiles they want to drop instead of just cycling through with the spacebar, especially since the mouse is already being used to place tiles on the map. Additionally, I would suggest not removing all of the placed tiles by default when restarting a level and instead just have resetting the map linked to an optional button to be clicked whenever. There were a few times when I forgot to place a particular tile or didn’t react in time during the run, then had to place everything back down again afterward.
This was a lot of fun to play and there’s definitely a ton of potential with this game, so I hope you do continue development! I’d love to play more levels in the future. Best of luck and thanks for sharing!
I really appreciate the criticism here. I was stuck at one point when deciding how to shift between tile options and added the scroll wheel to keep most of the controls solely on the mouse. I can definitely have the player click the options as well to increase the accessibility. I will continue development so I hope that you will keep a look out in the future!
Great game, definitely deserves more love! The last level was challenging, I spent at least 15 minutes trying!
Love the concept and as mentioned in the previous comment how easy is to understand the commands and the game itself, very user-friendly! With the right sound effects and music (something trippy!) you can definitely keep people playing for a while!
Wishing there will be even more levels in future! (And maybe a smartphone release? 😏)
Thank you so much for the kind words. I will definitely work on my sfx skills. There will definitely be updates for this game and a smartphone release would be an awesome goal to reach.
I like the simple art style and how easy it is to understand. Would have loved some background music, but other than that I like it, good job.
Thank you for the feedback! If I had to pick one aspect of game design, sfx and music would probably be my most inexperienced area. I will definitely work on that as I improve on the game.