Post by Comodoro in Playtesting thread

My First Game Jam: Winter 2018 » Community

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Hello, my game is Maze memories : https://comodoro.itch.io/maze-memories.

I would like some feedback on level design mainly. I want to know if the game is too difficult or too easy, Also it would be cool if you saif you miss some features that would improve the gameplay.

My goal is to fix some minor bugs and add mobile touch support for releasing in Google Play.

Thank you a lot!

Quinn6 years ago(+1)

Hello! I liked how 7 tricked me a bit. It wasn't super hard but it took a few tries because it's so hardwired into me when I'm playing games that I need to COLLECT EVERYTHING. Really wanted that second key lol. Something cool I noticed was that at first I had tried to count tiles. 3 left, 1 down, etc... But I couldn't remember well and it made me do worse. When I just focused on the look of the map it got a lot easier. Floor 10 was my first game over. I'm really bad at memory games so I'm not sure if that's good or not. It's really cute and I love the little knight and the music. The "Nooo!" message was great as well!

Comodoro6 years ago(+1)

Thank you for playing Quinn! Your comments are very interesting.

The concept of Level 7 was the one you said, break a bit the non-writen rule of gaming that says that if a object is in the game world, it must be for something.
Level 10 is a hell level. I think that maybe i was too hard in this one and it is placed very early on. Maybe i move this one as level 16 or so.
Memory games are tricky and as i learned in this experience, hard to design because as i already know the layout of the levels, the memory part is small in my debug and level balancing.

I hope you had a good time!

itsMo6 years ago(+1)

Its a fun little game. I like that in some levels you do not need all the keys to go the ladder. Level 17 is a killer but a i managed to beat it on the 5th attempt. I've encountered a bug on the 18th level. The UI was not present and i was stuck and couldn't move. Look at the screenshot.

For me, I would say its the right level of difficulty.

One thing that you might want to explore is to make a level select screen - so that if you are stuck at a level, you can practice that level instead of starting from the beginning.

I haven't played too many memory-based games but hope this helps.

Comodoro6 years ago

Thank you for your comments m.zadz, I also find them extremely interesting!

I was not aware that the build had that bug, sorry about that. I am uploading a new version after i write this post, I disabled the UI for designing the level and left it out when building, some scripts were affected by this change causing the misbehaviour,
Great idea with the level selection menu! No doubt i will do it.
I am glad that you liked the difficulty, i was a bit worried about it.

Thank you again and i hope you had a good time!

Comodoro6 years ago

I fixed the game if you are curious about the final levels. Regards!

Escada Games6 years ago(+1)

Hey Comodoro! Very nice game. I liked the take on the optional theme, very creative, and also the minimalist style.

I think the level design is great. You introduce the new mechanics in good pace, and by the time the game gets harder, it is easier and satisfying to think of a solution. Also, the Stored Memories mechanic is great, and really helps when the player forgets the path and don't want to start over or lose a life.

Played after the you fixed the bug on level 17 (I guess this was the glitched level), and got to the final. The last level has a minor bug where the maze don't fit properly on the game screen. On the fullscreen mode you can barely see the exit.

I think a score system would be nice, where using more the Stored Memories would decrease it and getting faster throught the level would increase it, but I'm not sure. Maybe there are other features that would fit better the game.

As a additional comment, I would like to say that this game is creative and a good puzzle game! Looking foward to the Play Store release and to further changes.

Comodoro6 years ago

Hello Keyband! I am glad you liked the game, i had a great time developing :)

I like that you used the stored memories mechanics, i thought that maybe it was a bit hidden and the regular player would not use it.
Thank you about the design, more than half of development time was level design. I tried to make an easy start and increase difficulty slowly, howeveri think that some levels (level 10 for example) are a bit unbalanced (at least the first time playing).
About the bug in the last level, thank you for pointing it out. I will fix it in a new release soon.
I think that a score system would be a nice fit! But first i am developing at the moment a level selection menu and a hardcore mode (only 1 live, no stored memories), i hope you find it interesting!

Thank you for your comments, I am very happy with the feedback that you guys are giving me. I will try to release a mobile version soon (it is about 70% complete).