Do it with another system. Blades in the dark would be perfect! Or just create a FATE adventure in the setting!
caseykoons
Recent community posts
I'm digging it, and loving your videos.
Feel
The robot as some discernible latency when moving, a little hitch before jumping, starting movement or changing direction. In a game where you have to go back and forth a lot, an instant start to your movement would feel better to me than the build up. Don't get me wrong, it feels good, just the little hitch in the start.
It took a few playthroughs to fully grok how the throwing works. I didn't realize you could feather the power of the throw with you stick right away. I think the arc that appears when you first start a throw is a little deceptive, showing an arc, when tweaking that arc requires more movement then you might expect.
Controls
I would like more controller mapping options (I know it's not easy). In particular I'd like to be able to map pickup/drop to a button and throw to another button. For throwing, it feels better to hold a trigger (or paddle) than a button, but a button still feels right for picking something up. It would be also cool if the left stick was mapped to throwing, so just using the stick started a throw, or you could at least use it to aim the throw.
Disclaimer: I have a controller problem.
Softlocks
This a design choice, but I felt a bit vexed by the levels that were easy to softlock in. I am familiar with puzzle games that it is capable to softlock, but if feels uncomfortable in a puzzle platformer, where I felt there should be a way for me to get back. I realize that avoiding this would put a massive constraint on your puzzle design, so maybe making resetting snappier, or make easy softlocks into traps (i.e. if I'm gonna get soft-locked in this pit, put spikes in it.)
Glitch
I tried to break the physics and am really impressed at how the magnet, jumping and everything works without jank! There was a minor graphical glitch were the tiles in the background would flicker as I moved back and forth. You can see it in this video:
Ideas/NitpicksThrowing the magnet up to start a level felt a little off to me. I know that you want magnets to be core to the game, and this build's puzzles really did that. It felt like it was about using the magnet well. Throwing the magnet straight up isn't the most comfortable thing to do, and seems a little much to enter a level.
I could see the hub world being a lot more complex, with verticality, and maybe areas gated off by powered magnets, that you need to magnet-jump to get to the next set of levels. You could be collecting batteries to open up new paths.
Please change the look of the pipes. They scream MARIO to me which is discordant in a game that seems much more a puzzler than a platformer. I love the nod, they just stand out a lot, and don't seem to be a major system in the game. Turned-off electro-magnets are dark and blend into the background but the pipes call attention to themselves.
Here's a terrible idea! Have a more difficult to get bonus item in a level that encourages going back, like Celeste's strawberries. You could make these platform challenges, while to get the 'key' you need to puzzle.
I hope some of these are helpful. I'm very impressed with how polished this already feels. And I appreciate your documenting a beginner game developer. It makes me realize I could do something.