itch.io

This game might have had a simple concept, but I still found it really fun. The core loop of picking up boxes and sorting them is interesting, and the sound effects really add to the experience. As others have said, some up front instructions probably would have helped make things easier to figure out. Additionally, my first thought as a tester was "I wonder if I can fall off the map", and it was surprisingly easy to do. I think adding a barrier to prevent players from doing this would be a simple but important change.

I thought this project was really neat! While it may not have been extremely advanced mechanically, I think the intention was more to build an interesting environment, and it certainly succeeded in that regard. All of the objects in the restaurant are modeled and textured with great detail. Additionally, the ambient noise works really well for something like this. The only criticism I would give is that certain objects don't have proper collision, but otherwise it's a great project.

I think it goes without saying that this game is beyond incredible. It's very clear that you put an immense amount of effort into both the driving mechanics and the modeling of both the car and the scenery. Even small details such as the rear view mirror and the radio stations were really nice. The only criticism I could possibly give to the game is how jarring it feels when you lose. While I didn't dig into the code, it seems that if your car begins to flip, the game automatically hits you with a fail screen. I can understand the reasoning for this, as it would soft lock the game if you flipped, but it might have been cool to atleast let the player see the car crash and flip rather than simply having time stop. 

It took me a bit to figure out how to update Unity, but I was eventually able to get your game working. That said, I'm not used to the latest version's UI, so I might be missing something that I was supposed to see.

Remarkable: The main thing that I enjoyed about this game was the amount of detail put into it. While I stopped before I explored the entire map, I could tell that a lot of effort was put into creating the different platforms and the scenery. Additionally, the way the instructions were displayed was really nice, and it made it easy to see how the game is meant to be played.

Needs Improvement: As Professor Fishburn noted, the pace of the game is extraordinarily slow. While the core idea is good, and the level design is fantastic, it takes far too long to navigate the game world. Additionally, the ramps don't see to actually interact with the physics engine, as when I stopped on an incline I didn't move at all. This makes the game feel more like a walking simulator than a puzzle platformer. I didn't dive into your code, but if I had to guess, I'd imagine you used movement by translation rather than by interacting with the rigidbody. While this can be useful in some scenarios, I don't think it worked too well here.

Successful: The level design and layout of the game as a whole is very good. I feel that with some changes to the speed of the level, either by directly increasing the player speed, or, as Professor Fishburn noted, condensing things a bit to make the level more compact, would make it feel like a very fun game to play. This is by far one of the most aesthetically pleasing projects I've seen though.

General: Overall I was impressed by the game but didn't enjoy playing it much. I think the foundation is there, but it could use a bit of work. One miscellaneous thing I'd note is that the idea of the "red balls" doesn't add much to the game. I'll admit that I skimmed the top of the instructions and looked mostly at the controls, so my takeaway was "this is how you move, go pick up the globes". It was a bit jarring when I was suddenly teleported upon touching a red globe. Also, while I understand that it's important to have some sort of fail mechanic in a game, I don't think the red orbs accomplish that very well. Because movement isn't very dynamic, it's quite easy to simply move around them. Dying to the red globe feels like it can only happen in my case, where I simply didn't read the instructions carefully, rather than as a result of a misplay within the game. That said, if the pace of the game was faster, and the red globes were changed to be a more visually obvious obstacle, I could see it being a good mechanic.

Remarkable: I think it's interesting that the game uses such a varied layout. There are many different obstacles of different shapes and sizes, and I think that's neat.

Needs Improvement: Almost immediately I found a major bug that completely breaks the game. If you use WASD instead of the arrow keys, the camera gets really wacky and shoots off the stage. I'm not sure what causes this, but I was able to reproduce it multiple times, and it effectively softlocks the game. Additionally, the way the level resets is overly punishing and very jarring. For starters, there are no checkpoints, so it feels really bad if you happen to lose close to the end, only to get sent back to the beginning. There is also no actual "level reset", as the ball's position is simply moved back to the start. This means that all of the obstacles you broke are still gone, which removes any element of overcoming the difficulty of a particularly challenging obstacle. Theoretically speaking, you could simply brute force your way through the game, clearing a trail of obstacles only to respawn and do it again.

Successful: I think the overall concept of the game is pretty solid. While it lacks polish, the fundamental idea of falling through different levels and dodging moving platforms is really fun. Reaction based games are something I really enjoy, and I even challenged myself to get through an entire section without hitting a single block. This was the main reason I disliked the lack of checkpoints and hard resets, as it meant I had to restart the game whenever I wanted to try this again. That said, the core gameplay loop is fun, which is ultimately the most important thing.

General: Overall, I feel this is a solid foundation for a game, but it is in desperate need of further tweaks to make it feel more fluid. One other thing I wanted to note is that your unity project seems really disorganized, with materials, prefabs, and scripts strewn about in one place. I highly recommend creating specific folders (Prefabs, Scripts, etc) to help organize the different elements of your game. As your game increases in size it will become far more difficult to navigate a maze of different elements to find the one that you want. 

Remarkable: The most impressive part of this game by far is the use of sound. I think the music is really fitting for this type of game, and the bounce sound effects work really well.

Needs Improvement: This game really needs some sort of in-game explanation for how the controls work. I almost stopped at the first level because I didn't even realize I could rotate the paddle until I read the other comments posted here. Additionally, the fact that you can control the other obstacles, rather than simply being breakable blocks, is cool, but very counter intuitive. I stumbled upon that purely by accident since it was never said in the game.

Successful: I think the game is a really interesting take on the block breaker/pong designs that we went over in class. While there are some similar elements, the end goal of escaping the box is much different than in other games.

General: While I think the concept and the design of the levels/code are all superb, the game itself feels a bit janky and hard to play. I gave up at level 2 because I just found it far too frustrating to try and control two paddles at once while trying to randomly predict where the ball would bounce. Along with in game instructions, like I mentioned earlier, I think the game could really benefit from some tuning so it doesn't require very precise bounces.