Cute and fun little game! I feel as though my criticism is impacted as I did not get to finish the game, so please take this with a grain of salt. I got stuck after crossing the river as the item that places the platforms did not seem to place in the direction I was facing which felt unintuitive. I feel like even just mentioning what the controls were in the game somewhere would have been nice, I only found out what the controls were upon visiting your page later on which didn’t result in the best UX on my behalf. Although, I really enjoyed the art style and music, it feels very inspired and I love art styles that reflect that. Keep up the good work I hope you and your team continue to improve your skills, they will go far.
Viewing post in Sparkle Moon: The Starlight Painter (Jam Version) jam comments
Thank you so much for such wonderful feedback! I for sure in retrospect do think that the movement in the game has been a really big issue, I did have a couple ideas on how to maybe remedy those issues but unfortunately didn't get around to it which is a shame. We wanted it to be mostly limiting, only allowing you to place objects in the direction of where you last moved to allow for more difficult puzzles. Though in retrospect not matching the place where the tile is being placed with for example the characters rotation does in retrospect seem like a no brainer that would of made things more obvious. That and maybe a better tutorial wouldve been ideal too! But I suppose it's definitely something I gotta learn to think of during development for the next game jam haha
I will for sure take on this advice for future games, thank you again for your time in playing and also giving feedback it means a lot to me and ice!
I’m glad you appreciate the feedback! Noted that the feature was intended for more difficult puzzles. I think that without clear and established rules for how your game mechanics work, players will rely on intuition based on the presentation of similar mechanics they’ve experienced in other games. Obviously a wall of tutorial text or hand holding isn’t ideal but I think it would make for an awesome challenge to solve - leading the player to understand why they cant paint the tile in the direction they are facing. Take an in depth look at the magic circle theory in game design if you haven’t already, might give you some pointers to solving this problem or similar problems that may arise in your future endeavours.