Cool game! I really liked the concept, the picking up and throwing mechanics controlled very well, and the game’s visuals are very cool. I also liked that the game is a reference to one of my favourite scenes from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! I didn’t realize it at first, but was happy when I learned that.
I did find that the game had its fair share of bugs, however. Here’s a list to help you out when you work on the post-jam version.
- The ball-bumping crane had a tendency to get stuck on the side. I didn’t test the left, but in two runs it just got stuck on the right side after I had moved all my bricks away from there. Perhaps it needs better brick-seeking AI?
- When Arthur dies while holding a brick, the game crashes. Says something about an indexing error.
- Pressing ‘R’ in-game causes some weird visual bugs that I think might be the program spawning another copy of the game on top of itself?
- The first time the player picks up any of the special bricks, it will have the odd effect of making it so that all special bricks will turn into a certain type when picked up. For instance, if the first special brick a player picks up is blue, that brick will turn grey, and for the rest of the run whenever the player picks up a blue or gold brick, it will turn grey. A gold brick will make things turn blue, and a grey brick will make things turn gold. I think this may have something to do with the indexes of the respective brick types?
For additional feedback, I thought that winning the game is quite easy since it doesn’t matter how many bricks you have left. If you want to make it a bit more difficult, I might suggest making a special type of brick that triggers a game-over when broken (maybe some kind of super-bomb brick). Then more of this type of brick could spawn as the timer ticks down to increase the challenge as the game progresses. Just a suggestion, though.
Sorry for quite a lengthy comment. I just wanted to outline my bug-findings in case you weren’t already aware of them. I did have good fun with the game, and look forward to the post-jam version, which I will definitely be checking out. Good job with this!