Thank you for your feedback! Yes, unfortunately, I didn't have time to implement tutorial. That was my plan, but because I didn't allocate sufficient time, it didn't make it.
About the ball crossing the line, it's getting a speed boost, when crossing a line at an angle of 30-150 degrees only. Ideal is 90 degrees, where it gets the most speed. It's indicated with SFX and white animation. Otherwise, when in contact with a line, it gets slowed down, which is indicated with red animation. It is good to set up a path, where the ball crosses the lines along the way, to get speed. There's also a soft cap on speed and drag, so you can't gain infinite speed and also can't cover infinite distance without any boosts.
About the issue with ball, you should be able to hold shift (or other button bound to the action) for 2 seconds and return back to launch at your currently set Checkpoint. Even while the ball is still rolling, you can reset to launch again. The ball will autoreset, when it is at very miniscule velocity, I didn't want to make it return early, because sometimes you can just barely make it to the checkpoint, bump the ball with a bumper, or get into force zone. You still have full control over returning back whenever (unless it's bugged, which I'm sorry about). You can also restart the whole level from pause menu or main menu, at least that should work flawlessly.
Oh, I'm sorry about that weird comment. I liked the game a lot. I don't know, why I mentioned diversifiers at all. I gave you high score. The game looks very complete, polished and fun. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, that it was confusing. I knew, that it would be, so I originally planned to make a tutorial level, but didn't make it in time, due to my bad time management. So in the end, I just had to rely on people learning how to play by replaying levels a bunch and looking at controls and manual at itch.io page.
Still, I'm glad, that you figured it out and was able to enjoy it, despite its shortcomings. Thank you for playing and liking the game!
Also, for chaotic game such as this, checkpoints in common sense, wouldn't have worked anyway. They kind of go against the design. Or maybe game's design was against checkpoints (in save point sense).
Checkpoints aren't exactly there though, since if you fail, you aren't brought back to last checkpoint, you just end level. But still a very impressive game.
A beautiful, well designed, implemented and polished game. The only thing, is that theme seems to be lacking. Still, to create such a quality game in just 10 days is very impressive!
The game is simple, but complete. It doesn't seem to have bugs and is well polished (but not very optimized for low level systems, despite how simple graphics is). Overall it's fine, maybe a little simple, as the gameplay consists of drag and drop of physics objects.
Theme of cross path is vague, but it fits. "In a Song" diversifier is implemented in the most basic way, but it's there.
Unfortunately, the way you claim to implement the other limitations is at least hacky, but some are just not there, despite the claims.
For example, having levels be saved after you finish them, doesn't constitute a checkpoint, because then you could argue, that saving the game in principle is a checkpoint too, which it isn't (checkpoint is a point in the level you reach, which acts as an automatic save point and saves you replaying the whole level from 0 (you are brought back to the checkpoint instead). The reason it's called a "checkpoint", is because you need to "check" it (set a flag). Well, if you need to beat a level to set a checkpoint, then that's not a checkpoint.
The graphics is a tad bit too complex for "Shapely", as it features complex geometry (conveyor model, bottles and grass are the most obvious); you could've gone with simple shapes and icons and made a match-shape-to-hole game, which would've fit the diversifier more, while not changing any logic. Also, colored lighting seems to be able to disqualify too.
"Two Buttons" is violated, as the rule states, that screen position or analogue controls are not permitted. Since in the game, you can drag an object anywhere on the screen with mouse, that's a violation (a solution would probably be to make a two button controls, which would push the front most object to left or right; or just not claim the diversifier).
So yeah, sadly, that somewhat tanks the score (if you didn't claim Shapely and Two Buttons, that would've helped; but the main issue are required, but missing Checkpoints).
A very fun puzzle game. Both theme and limitation are present and implemented in a unique way. The complexity scaled well from level to level (the last one required some restarts to finally beat for me). No bugs, no issues. Has a polish that goes beyond mere prototype and core game loop looks finished and ready to design a ton more levels. It's amazing, that solo dev designed and implemented the idea in just 10 days so flawlessly. It's easy to pick up and has perfect non-intrusive and non-restrictive tutorial, with information presented, when you need it, so it didn't require any time or effort to figure out, what to do (apart from actual solutions for the levels, which is the fun part).
Honestly, it's just very fun to play and I would've loved to see more levels. Sad to see, that dev doesn't plan to continue work on it, but it's understandable.
An interesting game. Has great polish (sound, art; visual and audio feedback for player input). Implements two button diversifier in the most pure way, where buttons only have 2 actions no matter what (even UI is done with the same system).
Didn't notice any checkpoints and game seemed to end abruptly as the timer was exhausted and "Summer" was being displayed, at which point back to main menu, which is unfortunate. Maybe I just didn't understand, what has to be done, correctly.
A fun game. Too hard for me to beat right now, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Didn't see, how the theme applied and doesn't look like there's any diversifiers, but everything else is top notch.
Using LMB to just click stuff on screen would kind of ruin the challenge. You can make a game with just LMB button like that, but it's unfair, because objects on screen can count as buttons in that sense.
Actually, would making a game with 2 UI buttons fit the challenge? And you don't have any other buttons, just clicking those is it.
By this logic anything would be made of squares, because it's rendered on a monitor.
I think what they mean, is that an individual "thing" should be just a geometric shape or a small collection of simple shapes. That's like the most basic understanding of the diversifier to me. For example, a character is a square, a bullet is a circle and so on. I think making a combination (like a humanoid made of shapes) is still valid as long as each part represented as a shape has a purpose for the game (e.g. circle head, square torso, rectangle limbs, as long as each part can move independently to a degree).
They also allow more complex shapes, but say it's not ideal.
