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(+1)

It was really cool, but I have some criticisms.

1 - It's not very clear what to do in the game. By this, I mean the process of the present creation. After wandering around for a bit I clicked on one of the tables randomly and went "Oh, that's how you make a toy." Cool, that's doing it's job for teaching a player through gameplay, but then it came down to actually moving those toys. I noticed the pipes were not collidable so I figured they were just decorative for the visual of it, as the tables I interacted with were collidable but the tree and other decorative objects weren't. I wandered outside and found the taps with the buckets, then tried to use them on the toys not realizing what they were for at first, until I noticed the wheel on the pipes and used that. I clicked it and I wasn't looking in the direction of the tables where things get lifted up so I didn't realize it works since it doesn't make a sound or motion or any other indicator. I only noticed a few seconds later that it worked, before clicking the side of the conveyor belt to get things going, and then wandered around a bit more with a bucket full of green sparkles (which I didn't know if it filled at the start or end of the animation? You should add some indicator for how full the bucket is if you revisit this later), fell through the stairs once (?), and then saw the funnel, clicked it out of desperation, and it worked.

It's just awkwardly designed, is all. You could probably communicate a little better to the player what they're supposed to do, and tuck certain things out of sight a little less. Maybe highlight interact-able objects when the player looks at them, add some feedback to the pipes, etc.

Nothing can ruin the magical feeling of watching those presents fly. 

2. The atmosphere is good at first glance, but after a little while it can sometimes feel uncomfortably lonely (if that makes sense) and unsettling. I think it has to do with the scale of the building and how it has multiple benches and all sorts of stuff that communicates the feeling that there are usually people here but there aren't, which causes it to have a slightly unsettling vibe. It's called Kenopsia (well, John Koenig coined that term but I'm not sure if it's actually a dictionary word), and I think it particularly effects this design a lot because of how much time you spend in the building and how the entire game is spent doing tasks where people would be.

3 - The controls can be a little strange. They're simple, sure, but it feels like there's some kind of weird smoothing on the mouse (maybe it's just sensitivity? dunno), and holding diagonal directions (W + D, W + A, A + S, D +S) makes you move at double speed which can feel weird when navigating. The lack of feedback when you try to use something is also strange. I was under the impression for example that the funnel you pour the bucket into wasn't actually interact-able until I decided to go back and try it again with a bucket, because there was no feedback to say otherwise. Some games play a sound when interacting with a disabled object to communicate this. 


I may sound harsh but I'm trying to point out as much as I can to be as constructive as possible. It's got a really nice aesthetic going on and I loved the music and the visual of the presents flying through the air.