This game really make you FEEEEEL like a game controller
In all seriousness, I did enjoy my time playing. Here are the things I most enjoyed:
The character design is simple, yet effective for quickly showing the player their remaining resources.
The music is catchy and fit the factory/warehouse aesthetic of the course.
The animations on the barrels are expressive and communicate their explosion effortlessly. The other animations weren't as expressive, but got the job done in terms of communicating purpose.
The puzzles did a good job at demonstrating what you could do with the game mechanics. They were simple enough to keep me from getting stuck, but difficult enough to keep the game from being easy.
Now for the things that I think need some work:
The controls were decent. I felt like I was in control of the character at all points except for when throwing/placing buttons. I feel as though the game would benefit from allowing the player to select a button with a UI preview of the selection they've made before releasing the trigger to perform the action. A lack of indicator had me throwing buttons constantly until I landed on the one I wanted. I know the buttons mapped to the D-pad correspond to the face of the playable character and the action buttons on the gamepad, but I found that rapidly throwing buttons was far quicker than checking my gamepad or turning the character/camera for button references. Remember that players will almost always go for the more quick/efficient method, regardless of whether or not you intended it.
The game could benefit from dialogue in the first few sections of the stage. Just a bit of text explaining the controls and how the central game mechanic can be used to solve puzzles. I already knew what to do going into this, but I could see how someone else could be confused if they were to attempt this without reading the game's description.
Aside from these small details, the only other fixes I would implement are related to bugs that appeared throughout my playthrough, which is to be expected in a game jam submission. Either way, I'll list a few things I've found in case you'd like to fix them and work on this game some more:
- Barrels sometimes won't move on conveyor belts
- One of the large barrels at the end can explode without triggering a wall collapse, leaving you softlocked until you reset
- I was able to walk underneath moving platforms. It only happened once and I couldn't replicate it after a reset
- A restore point didn't return my buttons, so I was stuck near the first conveyor belt section until I reset the game
Anyway, excellent game. I'm happy to see you submitting to game jams. Through playing this, I've been inspired to work on a game of my own. I'm excited to see what games you work on next.