I definitely find this escape room game to be interesting and I think that this game does have promise. I am glad that when the player is reading a text bubble the timer does not continue counting, this gives the player less anxiety in the game and I am glad you added this. I really like the concept of being a secret agent in a room trying to escape from a bomb.
Suggestions/critiques:
- My main issue with the game is that the time limit as extra tension and anxiety due to the controls not being as fast or intuitive as I would like. I do think that a time limit could work especially given the theme of the game. But due to the controls and some of the text bubbles feeling slow or clunky it added an unnecessary level of anxiety.
- I felt that the cranking to input the number was a little bit confusing as were the directions to do so. Making the number randomized it seemed every time I did one revolution of the crank didn't make much sense to me. I would have rather had it where the crank was separated into 10 sections each with its own number. I feel that this would have gone much quicker especially in an environment where you are timed.
- I found it annoying every time I went to the next number to input it the little text blurb came up every single time. Away this could possibly be fixed is if the player selected the area for numbers and then could just use the directional pad to move to the next number in the series and also even to change the number if needed. The player could then press the A or B button to exit or confirm the number.
- one thing I felt didn't work as well was the perspective of the room, I think it would have been nicer to have a perspective more similar to the Rusty lake series where the room rectangle or square fills the screen and the perspective lines are minimal. I also think it would be nice to add more details to the corners of the room just to give more to the overall visuals of the game.
- I did find it a little frustrating that every time that the magnifying glass covered over and interactable object it would automatically open the text bubble. It would be nice if there was some other indication to tell the player that the object was interactable and that the player could then press a to interact with it.
- I felt that the magnifying glass move speed was a little bit slow but I understand that this is also an issue with pulp in general.
- As for the number that needed to be entered. I felt it was a lot to enter and maybe the area code could have been removed to make it easier to do.
Overall I was happy to play your game and I am excited to play more escape room type games in the future.