Umbral was in the initial batch of games I was assigned and was in my top 5! Here are the original notes I wrote from when I first played it:
- Best title screen/music so far. Immediately makes a good first impression.
- Love the sci-fi aesthetic and the scenario of the game.
- The time stopping puzzles are decent but I found the momentum building puzzle frustrating. There is no good visual feedback on how far the ball is going to move. It took me a few tries of mashing on the ball to get it to hit the target.
- I was surprised when the puzzle ball did damage and that it could actually kill you and send you back to the title screen. It's easy to keep walking into the puzzle ball and take a lot of dmg before you even register what's happening. If you do lose your energy, it should restart the room rather than game over.
- The boss fight using the balls was a bit clunky. There wasn't much threat once you figured out the gimmick and was a bit tedious to complete.
- It's not obvious you can walk through the lasers without consequence in that hallway you fall into. I ended up walking over a damage tile to avoid them.
- I believe it's possible to cause a progression block if you were stupid with your orbs/energy. There should be some way to renew a minimum amount.
- Nice ending point. I'm interested to see how this demo will be expanded upon.