Thanks for playing! I would've liked a better UI, I do plan on making things more intuitive by making relevant information more visible as well as other small inclusions. Still i think it would be a bit confusing because of how the tutorial is currently. I was short on time and just had to make sure it could teach the games mechanics but all the mechanics are introduced in way that's really different from the context that you ultimately use them in so i think that makes the UI more unintuitive and harder to grasp. At present I don't see a way to significantly reduce button presses but if the UI is more intuitive then you would navigate the menu much faster regardless.
This was quite a fun little game. I like how the meteors give you something to do while the factories do their thing. The hitboxes on the meteors also felt nice and generous. Probably would just like there to be more to do. My strategy was pretty simple: get one speed upgrade as quickly as possible and then just have nothing but factories/gas refineries/whatever i need till the end.
The audio sells the setting, I think having consistent the pixel sizes for the sprites would unify the art style a bit more. I beat the whole thing using ranged mode, I couldn't get hits in with melee since the cooldown was so long so it seemed inconvenient to hit anything near by-still its a nice idea, I can see how the enemy variety would encourage using it. I wish there was even a little bit of visual feedback when hitting enemies since that would probably improve the game feel a lot.
This game has got really nice music and art but there are some issues telling the foreground and background apart.
I do feel it could control better still the charge up animation for the cats jump was nice. The level design has some blind jumps, there are scenarios where the platform I should be aiming for isn't on screen or a jump launches me into an enemy just out of view. The game can be quite punishing as well, I thought it would be nine lives per level and having to reopen the game and go through the dialogue again can be a bit frustrating.
This project is really impressive if you leant a new game engine during the jams time period as well but there are technical problems present like I got stuck in the floor once and had to restart the game and wall jumping feels really unreliable (doesn't always work, just sort of glitches in and out of the wall sometimes).
Don't think I've encountered an egg flipping game before, it was definitely satisfying to get those flips but also sometimes a bit wonky like the eggs getting stuck upright. I really like how the characters complement you afterwards (hopefully my eggs irl could inspire such words one day). Also the music is real good and the setting was cool.
The presentation is great. I thought the concept for big mode is really creative, it feels very chaotic in a good way. The hitboxes felt a little off fo small mode though, was sure I was out of way of the cat. I also felt the camera made it difficult to keep track of the cat even with the sensitivity adjusted. Still great job overall!
I think there's a lot of potential in a concept like this. It reminds me of Magicka wizard wars but uses simpler controls which I think helps make it easy to pick up.
I won by using fire over and over and didn't see the need to use the other spells. I think there was a bug with the AI since it basically just kept walking in to the wall above us over and over doing nothing. Still it was fun when AI was working.
the tool tips for enemies will tell you that they'll spawn spiky balls on their turn, there isn't much variety in enemy behaviour for the time being.
I’m not sure how I feel about RNG in turn-based tile puzzle games, but maybe that’s just me being burnt out from games like Into the Breach lol.
I was actually hoping it will feel similar to into the breach lol. Thing is, this game probably isn't the best use case for procedural/RNG puzzles (at least with the current, less feature-complete, jam version). Of course handcrafted puzzles will be better then RNG in isolation. With handcrafted puzzles you're just after the a-ha moment where with something like into the breach you're motivated to find a more optimal solution because you don't want to lose the run. Its more high stakes so there's tension from turn to turn -which is the important thing. That's the thought process as to why there are more portals when you are close to winning.
Ideally you'll feel a tension that motivates you to optimise your turn but this game is too low stakes for that (I just leaned into the core gameplay loop being fun for now). Maybe it wouldn't have felt frustrating if it was somehow communicated that the difficulty is increasing from turn to turn (kind of ran out of time to implement something for that though i also didn't want to steepen the learning curve or add to the UI). Its done so the player will have a reason to try and optimise their turns (you'll get the win by either playing aggressively and finishing early or gathering loads of actions to win later). Also if you feel like the final turn was easy then there wouldn't be any tension which was the goal (it would be a boring turn otherwise, maybe tedious that you have to go through it like the level should've ended last turn). I also found it lends to the feeling of getting a checkmate against the game on the last turn which i found sort of interesting.
I'm not 100% sure how this'll change since the only other opinion I got on the matter was along the lines of "I love how you get really close to winning, makes me wanna try it again" which wasn't the intension but cool for him at least. It is flawed in that losing can be a slow process so you're probably better off restarting if things are looking bad (I'm gonna change the hp system so this'll go away). I was so focused on making sure every turn was interesting (when winning) that I forgot to check what it was like when losing.
I might have the character animation show acceleration and deceleration when starting and stopping to improve game feel (like hollow knight or with shmups) but at current i think tight controls suit the mechanics better. Maybe ill execute this concept differently in the future with momentum based platforming as a sequel or something.
The presentation is great but I think 3d mode could use shadows or something to help understand the perspective
With the first ball puzzle i actually tried rolling it at first and eventually assumed that might be used for a later puzzle so I did get the logic for the final puzzle but dismissed the solution because it seemed too tedious to execute
Its also easy to get crushed in 2d because it lets you walk under moving platforms that you shouldn't be able to fit under
Still I would like to play more puzzles, good work!
I do have a nit-pick which is that walking on the volume sliders seemed to feel a little off (probably would've liked to see more done with that mechanic to)
Maybe the dialogue could wait for input since the text can appear anywhere and is quite fast
The UI/UX will definitely be improved. There will be hotkeys for different modes and end turn at least. I'm thinking of a couple alternate control schemes like just having the menu constantly open (and more out of the way visually) so all you do is cycle through the modes with two buttons and confirm a new one when you're ready. Either that or holding shift to keep the menu open and just select with the arrow keys (though this will likely lead to mistakes).
Options menu and level select would've been nice for the jam but ran short on time
a maze is just about finding the correct path to the exit, so like where to turn or in this case which modes to use to progress the path.
a puzzle usually has a moment of insight for the player to uncover. For this to happen it usually feels like the puzzle is impossible (even for split second) or you're completely out of options at some point (not just about turning different corner) then you realise you could do something that you haven't done before (the a-ha moment)
when watching people play the best puzzle games you'll see them get stuck for a little bit before it finally hits them (they'll start with trial and error but hopefully find the actual solution through creativity)
its also a lot of fun designing levels that try to inspire such a specific feeling in the player
Wow thanks - I was kinda hoping for jumper mode to have that effect, like a sort of 'roll the dice to succeed/fail' but you don't get frustrated when failing because you were in control of the character
Thanks for the feedback! I'm still trying to think of what to do with the control scheme, i would at least like to prevent people from panic pressing shift when jumping as well as hotkeys for different modes
This is really fun, i like the variety of characters you've managed to include and the multiple maps
The only thing is i noticed i was holding down drift a lot, maybe an option where its down by default and pressing the button is release would be a nice addition
Really like the cutscene and the presentation for this game
The gameplay is quite fun and addicting to
The randomised modes are a fun concept which also keeps things varied but did come with some downsides:
-a lot of dying over and over without getting a chance to get used to the current mode (its especially tough due to the slippery controls making the character a bit unwieldy)
-increases down time because you have to read and comprehend the new set of modes for every attempt
i think enemies might have too much health as well since when i get a good mode combo (causing me to want to play more carefully) the gameplay turns into finding a safe spot to hang around and slowly whittling away at its health (and then stuffing up right at the end of the level by hitting some spikes anyway)
i would also like to mention that i think the start of level 4 might've been too tight, i don't think something like standard+sticky is even possible there
the game is addictive to play despite all that, i liked some of the little touches such as the sticky mode affecting enemies as well
Very nice presentation and the tutorial+tool tips worked great for learning how to play
i thought the solutions where fairly obvious, maybe i was cheesing the intended solutions because the puzzle design came across a bit more like a maze and not really based around an a-ha moment
it felt a bit disorientating when entering fly mode
it can be easy to fall off track and not be able to get back on as a result (mostly getting stuck under the track or flying off in a direction where there's nothing to land on)
and you can get stuck in rings (in the grey part)
had a bug where it kept respawning me in a ring and was playing the fly mode music without taking any damage
that was a fun little challenge. i really like how it shows where the platforms are in the other dimension. i think a mini map showing where you've been might be a nice addition
Combining tetris and platforming has some interesting implications (making sure you can platform up the blocks and, not blocking paths) though placing shapes and platforming is too unrestricted to be particularly challenging but it does work nicely as a chill game currently.
i felt that it plays quite slow due to time it takes to place blocks(The transitions take awhile and having pieces fall from the top might not be the fastest way to place the shapes)
i think being able to zoom out or look around while in run mode might be a nice convenience
