I was waiting for you to try the game, thank you for playing it! And yeah, the learning curve is ofc an issue but the main theme of our jams for now is learning more and I think we're doing a great job at that.
On the game, I suggest you give it another run when you get some time at the end (it's still a buggy mess) as there is much more to it than working (kinda like life)
I debated myself a lot on the puzzle but anyone who saw the hints instantly knew something was wrong and I just pushed it like this (I think the biggest hint I could give you is: you're using Alex's old computer)
Shame there's no end to the game, I liked the controls and the general feel of the gameplay, it felt super smooth to grab three eggs while dashing through the platforms
The printer bug is killing me because I love the infinite floors thing, we were basically trying to convey the "there is no escape" vibe by putting this infinite, randomly generated floors where everyone hates you and you have nothing to do. With a bit of time I wanted to use them for quests but even just putting them there was supposed to be a way to just have the player feel this giant and oppressive world. We thought we removed the printer bug from the other floors but apparently we didn't and had we known we'd have just scrapped the infinite floors with the rest (cause they have literally no purpose but worldbuilding). Thank you for playing it!
I remember seeing a few glitches in yours but I think I told you about them, I don't feel super comfy giving you pointers because I'm not really an expert on that type of game.
- I retested it because I thought of a way to see if the "wrong" collider was in the ball or in the wall and now I think it's in the ball (cause even the buttons have the same quality, so I'm guessing the ball collider is a square that sits inside the ball?)
- also about the colliders, if you slam yourself in some walls (for instance after opening the first door you can go in the room you just unlocked and slam the ball on the wall where the now open door is) and then try to run across the wall, you'll sometimes get stopped as if there's a bump in the wall. If you smash into the bump a couple times it disappears, but if you go away from the wall and you again smash into it and try to run it's gonna be there again. Not necessarily in the same spot, there's usually a couple per wall but, but it's gonna be there. This also interacts badly with the momentum, because if you get a bump when you're trying to accelerate back you get stopped again for no reason. It's just negative feedback for the player, mainly.
- if you decide to remove the momentum, you should probably speed up slightly the bullets (the difficulty in maneuvering your character balances out the slowness of the bullets, but if you suddenly can make a U turn without losing speed then the bullets should fly faster)
- another thing I haven't mentioned is the enemy AI. Making a detection system for it that doesn't aggro on the player from the other side of walls could open up some interesting positionings (because they wouldn't be behind the walls waiting for you), but I guess that since they disappear once you change the difficulty and you mostly have to change it to get through doors it probably doesn't matter much. It's worth a thought, I guess.
Sorry I'm rereading my message and it's confusing to me as well, I'll try to rewrite it (also, I'm sorry if it came across weird or presumptuous, I was trying to suggest stuff I'd look after when touching it up after the jam).
Basically I think that the movement needs some tweaks.
The main issue I've found is the collision between the character and the walls that makes the character go inside the wall to an extent, like it doesn't stop when it touches the wall but goes inside where the wall collider is. This feels really bad when coupled with the movement of the ball, which has momentum added to it because it makes it difficult to properly gauge the spacing and gives this "soft" vibe where you always feel like you're getting inside the wall. It also creates some weird inconsistencies with how bullet go through walls (I'm guessing because of overlapping colliders?).
The other "problem" is the momentum of the ball, and by that I mean the quality that makes the ball accelerate gradually, reach maximum velocity and then slowing down when coming to a stop or changing direction. While I think it's a valid movement on a shooter, I think that given the small space and the sharp turns it just creates this weird pattern of movement where you basically rush into a wall to stop and turn around (because you basically can't make a sharp turn, so you have to basically brake somehow or make a wide circular movement, but there's not enough space for that).
Going from this, I think the colliders should be accurate (I think it's the walls because of the bullets but it could be the ball) and then there's fixes for the rest, like removing the momentum (so that the player can make the sharp turns without stopping) or removing the sharp corners (either with curves or by making the "roads" wider). A fun alternative could be adding a bit of bounce to movement when you touch a wall that allows you to retain momentum, and then you could cut the outer corners on sharp turns to be at an angle (like 45°) so you don't stop when you touch a wall and you keep going your way at the speed you had before entering the curve. Basically anything that makes the exploration feel snappier is good.
I hope I explained myself better, this is ofc just an advice.
Happy I saw this on stream, great game overall. Top notch presentation, and the puzzles are amazing. Great job, I'll be looking forward to future iterations of this.
You managed to get all the known bugs! I wish there was a reward for that cause it means you got really good at it lmao The plane is missing a skip to end mechanic/button to allow for a smoother final transition. The bug for the airplane mode is known and it fixes itself by turning it off and on again (it's so weird, we've been trying to realize why it happens).
There's a few easter eggs littered in the game, some you have stumbled upon for sure and some you might have missed. There's also some stuff that goes on with the end of the ride but it wasn't supposed to be this noticeable, there's a bit of stuff that's missing.
