I like the idea, and I did kind of enjoy the first level.... aaaand then lvl 2 started..... failing is just not fun.
So here goes:
-The first level was a good balance of difficult and fun. The second level was not. And in both you essentially have to fail and learn the level by failing over and over again until you know the layout of the level.
-If you miss a collectable, the game keeps going on despite not being able to win beyond that point.
-Slow down the rate that momentum builds. Both going up/down and falling just move way too fast. I'd very often end up flying in to things at a speed that I just didn't have enough time to reasonably react to.
-My personal skill wasn't valued as highly as my knowledge of the level, which I got by wasting my time dying over and over.
All in all,
The issues I have with the game I'm sure would have hammered out with more play testing, and game jams don't really allow for much playtest time. But the game as it is now wastes the players time by forcing them to die repeatedly so they can know the level layout in order to win.
__________________________________________________
Despite all of the negativity though,
I genuinely think the idea for this game is solid and the levels (that I got to play) were well designed.
Viewing post in Shapes n' Falls jam comments
I already knew the game was way too hard, but it's good to know exactly why it's hard. I should make more tutorial levels for the mechanics and obstacles, and level 1 should then be like level 4.
I'd really like to slow down the acceleration, but since I'm using the engine's native gravity system I don't know quite how to do it, I'll try to. Slowing down the gravity will make the overall speed slower, but not the acceleration rate, although it might still be a good idea.
I've already got some ideas to not have to memorize all the levels, someone told me to make the camera offset from the player to see more in front of it, and someone else to be able to go back an forth between the start and end if you didn't collect them all, so both things should hopefully help with that.
And I totally agree in that I could've used with more playtesting, I lost a lot of time trying to integrate lighting and ended up ditching it all out because it didn't look good, and in level 3, which apparently most didn't even play, I spent a long time playtesting and nerfing, and probably most just went to memorizing the level, so yeah. It's so much easier to make rage games in game jams...
Anyway, thanks a lot for the feedback!