itch.io

I didn’t play all levels. I got to level 5 within about 2 minutes of playing the game, but then I got stuck there. For a long time I couldn’t figure out how to get the amount of lift required to make it all the way to the landing pad. After trying again and again several times over the course of about 10 minutes I finally figured out how the updraft zones worked and how to get enough lift to make it all the way to the landing zone. But then I was too high and overshot the landing zone and crashed anyway because I couldn’t tell how far from the ground I actually was. By then I didn’t feel like playing that level again so I quit the game so I could play and rate other games.

I have never heard of a variometer before. Now that I know that’s what it’s called, the volume setting for “vario” makes more sense and I can just turn that down.

If my feedback seems overly negative, please don’t see it that way. I was just explaining my experience with it and where I felt some improvements would help it be better. I really enjoyed the game and I like it a lot.

I actually recorded myself playing the game, so if you’d like to see my honest reactions in real-time as I experienced everything for the first time, you can view it here:

Nice work.

The music gave it a calm, serene feeling, which was a nice contrast to some of the frustration I felt when trying for the nth time to complete a level and not understanding why I was failing or how to improve.

My only complaint about the audio is that the noise it makes when you’re in an updraft is loud and annoying. It also wasn’t clear to me for the first several times I heard it that it was an updraft indicator. I thought it was a warning sound indicating that I was about to crash. I think there could be some better audio or visual cues as to when you’re in an updraft.

It also took me several attempts on level 5 before I understood how to the updrafts worked. The concept itself is pretty simple and obvious. The wind trails gave me an idea of the general whereabouts to find an updraft, but it was difficult to know how and exactly where to position myself to be able to stay in the updraft long enough to gain adequate lift.

I think the game could use better visual indicators of how close you are to the ground. As it is, it looks like you’re still well above the ground when you land or crash. Some little wheels or legs sticking out under the flying chair would be all it needs.

I also found that when I finally decided to give up and return to the main menu, the “main menu” button didn’t work from the “you crashed” dialog. So I clicked retry, then pressed Escape to bring up the menu, and the “main menu” button worked from there.

The simplistic, lowpoly visuals worked well for the game.

I really liked the game as a whole. It almost makes me wish for some larger, more interesting landscapes to float around and explore while listening to the peaceful music. I can almost imagine a kind of calming, zen-like endless “runner” where you go from updraft to updraft, flying through rings and seeing the sights.

It’s a little hectic and too easy to be killed too quickly. And the enemies seem almost impossible to kill unless you get lucky and get a few really good spells at the same time. But I enjoyed it enough to persevere through the struggles until I finished all 9 levels and unlocked Survival mode.

I would suggest that when you use a spell, the next available spell is automatically selected so you can just keep clicking instead of having to continuously alternate clicking the left and right mouse buttons. And if all three spells are used and there are no spells, it should just select the next spell once it becomes available.

I also felt like the view was zoomed in too much so that I didn’t have enough warning before running into enemies or their projectiles. But I understand that with the maze-like nature of the levels you wouldn’t want to give the player too much of a view. Maybe an alternative would be to slow down the speed of enemies and projectiles a little bit so the player has more time to react to them.

The overall idea of having random spells is an interesting one. With more balance I think the game could be really fun.