I played the entire 1.1.1 version of the game twice. It was fairly enjoyable. Because this game is very polished, I'll spare the patronizing "nice job!"s and comment like this is a serious game.
SFX fit very well, the music was not annoying.
QOL issues: I held down the shift key for most of the game. E is next to R so sometimes when I try to move a block I restart the level instead. The introduction is unskippable.
The short levels (4 or less screens) were the most fun.
The last level was really tedious. The puzzles in that level weren't super tricky and the platforming wasn't that challenging. It was just tedious having to repeat the first parts of the level so much just to get to the next puzzle section. And the platforming isn't interesting enough to make repeating the level fun.
Sometimes you push the block to a bad spot and can't progress. This forces you to restart the level, forcing you to do the same hokey platforming challenges. This is frustrating. First encountered this issue on level 13.
Some suggestions:
1. To break up the pace, add some pure puzzle levels. And some pure platforming levels.
2. Avoid long levels or add checkpoints to them.
3. Avoid puzzle dead-ends that force you to restart the level.
A more drastic suggestion is to remove most of the platforming and death and focus more on puzzles. I feel the puzzle potential of the shifting camera is under-explored. I would experiment with letting the player shift the camera whenever they want and design some levels around that.
Nice set of puzzles, very straightforward. I'd work more on developing the controls, since it was very sensitive with my high DPI mouse, and the physics were finicky. The teleportation puzzle you just have to look at the hint to solve, so I'd work on introducing that more clearly. Also the room feels super claustrophobic, but I guess that was the intent. Nice first attempt!
Very original concept! Story didn't get in the way of the gameplay, which I appreciate. I would have liked if the attraction/deflection was faster. Would be cool to see this concept developed a bit more. Overall very solid!
