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So I manage to find some time to try out this game and wow, this concept is pretty unique in its way and surprisingly its built using the Panda3D framework which is kind of a niche game engine as an entry for this game jam besides the MegaZeux ones.

So I tried the game and I like the idea of how the twirling mechanic maintains a force on that keeps the player character on a sloped surface without falling off. The game has quite a steep learning curve due to the bunch of buttons at the player disposal which confuses me at first but I got around it by trying out each key on my own and discovering that its basically made up of two sets of keys, with one controlling character movement relative to the camera direction, and the other sets is for the camera orbit/zoom controls. Somehow the jump and twirl button is grouped with the camera controls which is not a big deal but I notice that the arrow keys were not present as part of the UI which only shows the camera controls. I didn't get to read the instructions in the comments below (due to spoilers) or on the page (the yellow text blends in with the wallpaper making it hard to read). I was assuming there were UI hint for the character movement in the game but unfortunately there isn't any in the game.

So my suggestion for control key is that would it be possible to shift the camera rotation/zoom controls to the mouse instead? I'm not familiar how Panda3D handles the control system but it would be easy to pick up the game with mouse movement controlling the camera direction, which help with pointing the character direction as well. Besides that, I notice how the character movement is different when twirling on a vertical wall and on the horizontal surface. The former feels right since the left and right arrow key moves the character horizontally and the up/down moves vertically. Where as the later seems have the character strafe around the camera point, making the character move around the camera. Obviously I could rotate the camera in that direction but notice that strafe is tied to the camera origin point and is not actually a linear strafe. Its a common issue in early 3D adventure games where navigating the character to a transition point to the next scene with the camera angle at a different configuration screws up the character relative bearings to the camera direction. One way to resolve this is to have the camera strafe along with the character so the camera doesn't rotate in any way and maintains distance to the character. One other controller suggestion is that since the twirl is pretty much used through out the entire game, it would make more sense if there is a switch on/off state button rather than holding down the twirl button for long periods of time. This way players could  turn on or off twirl and would have a free finger for the camera controls.

Besides that, basically the game has good ground work here and the mechanics is fun to play around with. Since the game starts off with a mission, an indicator of where to go would be nice since I do know I have to collect 4 bells from the first cut scene but since I'm not familiar with the terrain or how the bell looks so I was a little clueless at finding it. There was one near the start point but it looked like a rock at first and there wasn't any indicator that I actually picked up a bell. Maybe something to highlight it or a UI prompt saying I picked up a bell?

Anyway, I can see you have put in a lot of good effort in the level design and populating it with tons of fun models so do keep up the good work and keep on developing the game. Hopefully my suggestion could help improve the UI/UX side of the game since it vital when new players are exposed to a game with a niche concept. By the way, I only notice the walkthrough and other stuff you post down in the comments after trying out the game.

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Thank you for your time, I will consider your comments, yeah others have said the UI is not that good, and to be truthful, it is not really finished by a long shot, the controls are that way because I play mostly console games, so the controls reflect that with the keyboard acting like a big arcade pad, but I really need to consider the PC controls though, I do have a key remapper for this issue since someone in the Panda3d forums pointed this out and offered a fix there, but I didn't have  enough time to put it back into the game, sorry about that, it will be in the full preview released later this summer

Panda3D does feature mouse inputing, however I work on a laptop, so it is difficult if not impossible for me to work and test on such a feature, my apologies for that. I will fix the game page now though, maybe I went a little too overboard with the style heh heh, sorry. I did get another comment about controls hints, and I am working on trying the fix for that now, you should see a way better UI in the full preview in the summer.

Your camera locking idea seems like a nice one, but I am worried that it might strip the "freedom" feel from a already limited experience, sorry I could never get natural transitions from floor to wall or wall to ceiling  right, and is still a issue I wrestle with whenever I revisit it. but thank you for giving me something to think about, I will add that all the mini games are supposed to provide replay value though, a cheap trick by me for people to master the controls, so they are not meant to be completed by beginners and require seasoned experience, since it is the secret ending that it leads to,  so camera balancing while moving on the wall was all considered.

I did later realize this couple of weeks later that replay value like that would be bad because it is a game jam (short free time for playing because of multiple entries) , so for the sake of the jam I did provide a walkthrough for people to rate the content and skip the work, I apologize for this. 

I am sorry for the bell issue, the whole bell quest was made, planned and completed 1 day before the deadline, I had actually planned on having a UI arrow always point towards the next bell but had to drop it because I didn't have enough time. there was also supposed to be a stamina limit for twirling, but I didn't have enough time to put it back in, anyway much thanks for the feedback, it is really helpful since I am working on the game right now.

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Hi Jnpicklee, thanks for your reply and informative explanation to my questions.

I do apologize for my ignorance since I have not thought that the controls were built with consoles in mind, this actually made sense then since I assume incorrectly that the game was built with PC controls as it did not feature any gamepad controls. It would be nice to inform in the main page that gamepad controls are recommended so long as you have them in place.

Its good that you are continuing development with the feedback in mind and I can see that you have what it takes to get a good game out with a novel concept. So, I wish you all the best with this current dev and any future developments.

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Thank you for your considerate response, it is not ignorance, you had it right, the game (build) you played should have been built for PC controlling but was too rushed, so it is not your fault for pointing that out, my apologies for the confusion, I do believe that the key mapper I had would taken care of gamepad functionality though, but as I have said, it could not be implemented in time. But will include it into the update later