Alright best game of the jam I've played so far, perfect ratings from me. It makes me so absolutely sad that the WebGL build is broken since I know so many people won't bother downloading the working version... cause this game is honestly amazing. Long review incoming:
What I loved:
- The gameplay loop is so satisfying and well done. It's a super smart way to implement the theme into a puzzle platformer, and it's executed so so so well. The use of non-grid based system in a grid-based looking world actually creates so many great interactions and sneaky ways to solve rooms that are a bit unconventional. It's great and I'd play a full release without hesitation.
- The game is so clean and polished. Like so so clean. I have no idea how you did this in four days, because man does it feel like a full complete game. There's a bit of jank here and there yeah, but it's nothing impactful.
- I wholeheartedly completely and totally disagree with some of the reviews I read here that the level design gets repetitive. I think it was a more than interesting variety for the length. For a full release, maybe some more mechanics would shine, but for its length, I think it struck a wonderful balance.
Because I loved the game so much, a bunch of feedback too:
- This game would benefit so much from hotkeys for resets and going back to the editor. I also didn't realize until halfway through there even was a "back to editor" button that didn't reset everything. I realized eventually though.
- I think a really good QoL for this game would to make the smallest blocks not have a hitbox when dragging them. I noticed for some of the later levels, not being able to drag bigger blocks through gaps (though they kinda looked like they could fit) seemed like intentional level design, but for the smaller blocks, it seems they were always meant to be able to go anywhere. It would make it so much smoother if I could drag those blocks without navigating whatever course I'd already made or walls or the sometimes janky hitboxes for tight squeezes. On the note above too, maybe for the gaps where it looks like a bigger block would fit perfectly through but they don't, making it more clear they won't fit would be nice too.
- Small blocks are OP. I know I praised the level design, but this point is a double-edged sword for me. Using smaller blocks to create tiny edges and stairs on each other was wonderful to me, and I feel the mechanic was introduced subtly well (I think it was the third level?). However, it did eventually get to the point where I was essentially just trying to figure out how I could make the most amount of these OP tiny blocks to clear levels. I think it didn't get repetitive because of the length of the game, but any more and I could see this OP solution making the puzzles fall flat.
Anyways, this was the best game I've played so far in the jam. Amazing job!
Viewing post in Break to Scale jam comments
Thank you so much! For one, I will try and make the web version at least kinda better after ratings close, not sure how since most of the issues are exclusive to it, but maybe I can find a way around certain things.
- Thank you! I kinda felt that I didn't play with scale enough to be honest, but I'm glad to hear you felt it was well incorporated.
- To be honest, the fact I've made a (still mechanically very different) puzzle platformer before means I had some framework and experience to build off, still was quite the challenge to put everything together almost entirely by myself tho, my terrible sleep schedule certainly helped
- I'm glad, I added the biggest blocks fairly late but they were the plan from the start, since I feel they give you a lot more choices and make you think more carefully about your decisions. I still would've liked to implement more unique blocks that aren't just bigger, to be honest, but four days is four days.
- Yeah probably, wouldn't be too hard to add either, I just didn't think of it in time.
- That would be pretty doable, I was focusing most of my energy on trying to make small blocks collide with eachother while dragging I hadn't even thought of that lol. And I thought of indicating spaces where blocks couldn't fit, I just didn't have time to sprite a new thing for it. Maybe next patch!
- If I were to continue development (which I'm still not entirely sure of, outside of a few patches for extra polish), I'd probably restrict the usage of small blocks to around four blocks a room usually. There's some puzzles like the second to last level that absolutely require them, but I think it'd make for better level design where the environment is used more than the blocks.
Thank you very much for the feedback, I genuinely appreciate it a ton!