Like a lot of the other play testers are saying - this game feels very fleshed out and the art is very nice. It already feels like a lot of the questions that players may have had in previous builds get nicely answered in the first few levels. The new art is much nicer than the previous stuff (I remember from AGDG threads), although you still have the old fearies in the UI screens. I don't have much in terms of critique as you seem to basically be on top of things. Looking forward to more progress!
Thanks for playing! I still need to change the tutorial images. I didnt make it in time for this DD, they should be done for next time.
> It already feels like a lot of the questions that players may have had in previous builds get nicely answered in the first few levels. Thankfully DD and AGDG have been incredibly helpful in that regard. It's always welcome to get good feedback.
Got through them all, plus the bonus level(!). Love how the fairies look now, especially the blue one, that one is just incredibly charming, just the pure joy of poking personified. All those great little animation details. And those cool-looking level select graphics look amazing too, just setting the mood for the different tilesets. The speedup behavior at the flag is a nice tweak, I like that it's no longer holding it.
I disagree about what was being said below about that changing fairies should always be automatic, I like how it pauses everything and the manual selection, I prefer using it (maybe because I'm a scrub but still).
All around great job on this, it's really a super fun puzzle game, I always look forward to the improvements you make each demo day.
I disagree about what was being said below about that changing fairies should always be automatic, I like how it pauses everything and the manual selection, I prefer using it (maybe because I'm a scrub but still).
The reason why I haven't made quick switch the default is to don't overwhelm new players or players who are not very comfortable with getting pressured by time. I made a concession and added a new buttons specifically to quick switch plus twekead the regular mode a bit to make it more intuitive. It is a bit too late now for this DD, but I hope the response to fairy switching will be more positive next time.
- zip the game folder, not the files (correct: Game.zip/Game/Game.exe, wrong: Game.zip/Game.exe) - when you end a level, set the level [] cursor on the next level (not the one you just finished) - mixels make the game look much worse than the quality of individual assets - X should toggle automatically between fairies (manual select is a waste of inputs) - was expecting frogs to be able to eat each other, could be something to explore - you piece of shit, taught me about quick switch after 20 levels, make that the default or tell me early - gameplay is much more fluid with quick switching - shame only got to use it on the last level
Very smooth experience, the overall structure and level transition feel like from a finished steam game. The switching requiring 3 buttons instead of 1 became annoying fast, I feel like I was spending more effort fighting the inputs than solving the puzzles. I feel like that ruined the whole experience. Good job otherwise. Gonna make it.
- That makes sense. I will start doing it that way - Since there will be multiple paths, I prefer to not force the cursor to a specific level. But I have seen a lot of people re-entering the same level when they start playing, so I might need to do something about it. - I agree about mixels, but the only place when I'm using those are in the level presentation clouds, the fairy selection circle and the level node bounce. The first two will have proper animations for the future, but the level bounce will be like that because animating that in another way would be difficult. Or do you mean another instance of mixels? Maybe I'm missing something - About that... - At certain point I thought about that, but I scrapped it because the game was too complex already. Maybe for a sequel. - lol. I have changed it to have both selection systems at the same time, one with X and the other one with C. Quick switch is introduced on the very next level. - For most people it does, but I feel it can hurt the experience for people who prefer to focus on the puzzle part and having a chill action part. Both options are in the game from the start now. - You can play all the levels with quickswitch again if you want to!
Sorry the regular switch soured your experience. I changed it a bit to make it more fluid, now you have to hold X to select and release to accept instead of pressing X twice. I uploaded that version online if you want to give it a try (version 0.11a) >Gonna make it. Thanks mate. I hope your horror pogo game gets there too.
nothing to complain about, the levels are super well designed, the mechanics are original and make good puzzles, the sound design and animation are effective. You just need a good marketting campaign and some good streamers etc and this could be a nice little hit. One of my favorite games, awesome job!
>marketing That will be very important. I mean, it is important for any game, but this one is very hard to explain which makes things a bit awkward. I will try my best to figure something out and implement it.
I forgot to ask, at the beginning of the video you had some issues with your controller. Controller support is something I added for this update and haven't been able to test it properly. Does you controller have drift to the bottom of the screen or does it work perfectly fine? if the controller is fine, I will need to go bug hunting.
My controller setup does work fine for other games without drift, and I did unplug and replug in a few times but still had an issue. However My setup is jank, it’s an old Wii U controller connected to a third party dongle that makes my desktop computer interpret it as an xinput xbox360 controller. So if you wanna reproduce I’d try an Xbox 360 controller, but don’t worry too much about it
- There might be only one song, but it's long enough that it isn't grating on the ears to hear multiple times
-The flag system feels a bit odd. I'm not sure if having different wait times for some levels is necessary. I'm pretty sure it's in place so the player does it the right way, but when you do having to wait that extra second or two feels more like a punishment. If it's always set to the short time, the player will know they did it right when they win, otherwise they get ate. Maybe there's something else I'm not seeing.
-The game is funny. Really funny. And it does with and without obvious jokes. Having the intro to level 2-7 say "experimentation is key" and then immediately being able to fly into a wall got a belly laugh out of me.
Sacrificing fairies is sad and funny, muscle fairy looking contemplative when aiming a fairy into the abyss is great, and the intro pictures are funny. A lot of thought went into this game and it shows
Thanks for playing! I'm happy you liked the humor in the game!
I'm aware the flag waiting time is awkward. I have a couple of ways to predict a level has been beaten and a shorter wait time is activated, but for the most times predicting that is a bit difficult. I'm going to experiment on that in the next few weeks to see if I can come up with a better system.
The ending screen seemed weird, it told me I did all but one level, because I guess I hadn't completed that level? Confused me a bit. Also the timer counting my time was moving really fast.
Man, those animations are amazing! I love those details like buff fairies clasping their hands when you beat the level or blue fairies fluttering their wings. It's really coming together in terms of visual style.
It's really polished and there's nothing to complain about. Animations are soulful. The tutorial is pretty much perfect at teaching mechanics. It makes me wish for a steeper difficulty curve, but better not fix what's not broken.
Thanks for playing! I'm aiming for a gentle difficulty curve. Later levels will be more challenging but I'm not sure if poke all toads will end up being hard as other puzzle games like baba is you or patrick's parabox.
Thanks for playing! By more resolutions, do you mean x3 and up? I had x3 in the last DD and it caused some issues for people trying it out on stream. Although It was in combination with other issues, it caused confusion more than anything else. I could try implementing it again if there is a serious demand for it.
Genius concept. Puzzle mechanics are simple and easy to learn, and they're utilized well within the level design. I've only just cleared world 1 and so far my only real gripe is the repetitive music, but then again it's probably a good thing for a puzzle game's soundtrack not to be too distracting. Also the pixel art is top notch and I love the yoshi-esque noises the frogs make
I've only just cleared world 1 and so far my only real gripe is the repetitive music, but then again it's probably a good thing for a puzzle game's soundtrack not to be too distracting
I will keep that in mind. At the moment I only have one track, so I just play it constantly. There are a few more tracks but they are placeholder. How music will be handled will be decided once I get more music tracks.
-The collision box for the toads is too big. You should be able to walk past the toad on level 4.
-It should switch fairies when you release X instead of having to press it twice. Same applies for throwing.
-When switching fairies, it should show status icons for all fairies in the level so you can easily keep track of them.
-Launch pads need to be faster.
-Pressing Z near a strong fairy with a normal fairy should make the strong fairy pick up the normal fairy, and then automatically switch to the strong fairy.
-You should be able to put down fairies without throwing them.
-Add the ability to manually control the camera for the bigger levels.
I will try to position the toads more carefully to not give an ilussion of walkable terrain. They are supossed to be chonky and block some paths.
Nice idea for switching. For throwing most testers found the current system intuitive enough and it would make it impossible to cancel a throw.
I can think about a way to show fairies out of the screen. When I tried to add a fairies status bar, nobody really payed attention to it.
Some launchpads are slow for puzzle reasons. Or for comedic effect.
The interaction is on the complex side for this game. Also I have planned animations when fairies get poked.
Under most situations, droping a fairy and throwing it is basically the same and I don't have a key free to give it that functionality. Also there are some puzzles which will use the inability to not drop fairies.
I prefer to make the player explore the level by moving their characters around.
It's actually insane how much the art overhaul has improved this. This is great and I would pay to play the full game. The level where you kill all the red fairies for no reason after using them actually made me laugh out loud.
I think the one thing that I could suggest is giving the player a separate quick switch button to use whenever they want instead of telling them to go into the options menu for a fixed toggle 2 worlds into the game.
Also maybe give the blue fairies some lore reason to be more important and pokier/cheekier than the red ones. Maybe a crown?
Thanks for the comment, I'm glad the new artwork is pulling its weight!
I think the one thing that I could suggest is giving the player a separate quick switch button to use whenever they want instead of telling them to go into the options menu for a fixed toggle 2 worlds into the game.
I can think about that. Even with the toggle button and a small tutorial, at least 3 people who have asked for the quick switch. I want to have as few keys as possible for the controls and I thought about some weird options, but a button dedicated for quick switching might be necessary.
Also maybe give the blue fairies some lore reason to be more important and pokier/cheekier than the red ones. Maybe a crown?
I have left lore as homework for later, the theme of the game is so absurd that bringing any sense to it is above my writing skills. From the little I come up with, the blue fairy is not more important than any of the bunch. She is just fearless when it comes , also greatly enjoys causing trouble.
The FPS capping is for not using processing power for no reason; I have ~2000 FPS ingame and the fans start spinning like crazy unless I go and limit FPS somewhere else. Having a V-sync option works too as it'd limit to the screens refresh rate, but I don't like v-sync for reasons... So a limit FPS slider would be nice but I get if you'd not want to bother and just have V-sync.
For example if you're running it on a laptop you'll drain the battery quicker for no real reason at all.
Makes sense, thanks for the explanation. That could explain why my laptop's fans go like crazy when running this game. I could add a cap of 120, it could be good enough for most cases. I'm not sure if this option should be in the options menu since it seems so advanced. I can also add it as a launch option.
Currently adding the vsync option, I noticed the engine I'm using (godot) has vsync on as default. Since you ran the game with uncapped FPS from the start, by any chance do you have an app that could have uncapped the FPS automatically? I'm looking around and haven't been able to go above 16ms per frame without disabling Vsync.
I have it disabled in the Nvidia control panel usually because it adds a bit of input lag and it really annoys me... So check your gfx card settings for that.
Maybe the nvidia control panel is overwriting godot's settings, removing vsync and uncapping the FPS. I played around with the new vsync button and it seems to work. I will figure out if it is enough next DD.
Kino game. Charming music, visuals, characters, animations, designs, etc. Combined with a relaxing pace and music, I'm sure fans of puzzle games will eat this up.
I'll try and review the game in order of how things were presented.
First off, the controls are weird. Z to interact, Arrows to move? I don't play puzzle games, well, ever, so I don't know what the standard control scheme is, but this felt weird. I instinctively tried to press Enter to confirm things or end the stage, etc. It took me a while to get used to the controls, and I never felt too comfortable with them.
Cute level transition drawings. Mechanics in play in a puzzle are explained and I didn't get confused as to what my goal was, or how to achieve it.
Switching characters also feels weird. It feels as if there is an extra step involved. While at some point in the game you have 3+ characters to pick, in the early game there's only two. I feel that when you only have 2, you shouldn't need to confirm selection when switching characters. I should be able to press X, and immediately switch characters. I guess the added pause time is nice when strategizing, but it feels like an extra layer of waiting for an otherwise simple mechanic. Maybe I just didn't get used to it enough? Either way, might be worth a look to see if this can be simplified a bit. Perhaps a hotkey system, with numbers above a character's head? So pressing X will enter the switch menu, and following it up with a hotkey (ex: 2) will switch to character labeled 2.
The introduction of new mechanics are done at a nice pace. I don't feel overwhelmed, but I can't say it's very hard yet. Haven't gotten stuck/lost yet. No clue what the difficulty curve of this game is, but perhaps it might be of interest to add a slightly more challenging level early on (and to sprinkle them every now and then), to retain player interest. Otherwise a player might never reach lategame because they feel like they aren't being challenged enough. Or maybe that's just me since I don't play puzzle games often.
I made it to Slumber Party (World 2, level 5ish?) before stopping. Probably due to the amount of switching characters I needed to do?
I haven't encountered any bugs or issues while playing. I again have to give special praise to animations, and how they are used. A character flying through the air not having any animations is actually ridiculously clever and adorable. I threw my blue faery off the stage accidentally, and watching her smug face fall without a single change in expression or posture made me laugh out loud.
Switching between fairies has always been a hot dicussion topic. There is an option for a single key switch in the options menu, one of the later levels explains it. The reason why it is not the default is because on my testings, players struggled with later levels when multiple fairies where around and precise actions where necessary. But it is true that it is cumbersome to press so many keys to switch with the regular system. There is no real perfect answer to the issue, only compromises and giving the player the option.
The levels climb in difficulties starting from Slumber Party. So if you found the first levels too simple, try changing the switch mode and give the later levels a try.
Fairies don't have a flying animation mostly because I didn't have time to add it. I'm not sure if it is necessary to add one, I'm on the fence about it. Some other animations are missing.
The blue and red fairies have proper graphics now! Gray fairies are left for next time
Added a lot more animations to the fairies
Reworked the level tileset system. Levels look much different now
Big changes to most UI, including the options, pause and main menu
Changed the level select and level introduction
New flagpost graphics and effects
New fairy selection circle (animations pending)
Added controller support and extra keyboard controlls (WASD + K + L)
Unified zoom level and fullscreen in a single option. It has: zoom x1, zoom x2, full screen and borderless (full screen)
The game is no longer pixel perfect by default on full screen/borderless. This only affects screens that are not 16:9. They will no longer have black bars, but the pixel art will be slightly distorted
Speed up no longer requires holding down the "z" button. Pressing once will turn it on
"Speed up" prompt on the flag is always given now
Small puzzles tweaks for some level. All puzzles are basically the same to last DD.
Comments
Like a lot of the other play testers are saying - this game feels very fleshed out and the art is very nice. It already feels like a lot of the questions that players may have had in previous builds get nicely answered in the first few levels. The new art is much nicer than the previous stuff (I remember from AGDG threads), although you still have the old fearies in the UI screens. I don't have much in terms of critique as you seem to basically be on top of things. Looking forward to more progress!
Thanks for playing! I still need to change the tutorial images. I didnt make it in time for this DD, they should be done for next time.
> It already feels like a lot of the questions that players may have had in previous builds get nicely answered in the first few levels.
Thankfully DD and AGDG have been incredibly helpful in that regard. It's always welcome to get good feedback.
I just love the smug fairy, nice animations
Thank you, I'm happy you like the animations!
I love the new fairy design. This game is charming as always. At some point I'll have to actually try to get to the end.
Thanks for playing on stream! You are doing a great service for the people in the general!
Got through them all, plus the bonus level(!). Love how the fairies look now, especially the blue one, that one is just incredibly charming, just the pure joy of poking personified. All those great little animation details. And those cool-looking level select graphics look amazing too, just setting the mood for the different tilesets. The speedup behavior at the flag is a nice tweak, I like that it's no longer holding it.
I disagree about what was being said below about that changing fairies should always be automatic, I like how it pauses everything and the manual selection, I prefer using it (maybe because I'm a scrub but still).
All around great job on this, it's really a super fun puzzle game, I always look forward to the improvements you make each demo day.
Thanks for playing again!
The reason why I haven't made quick switch the default is to don't overwhelm new players or players who are not very comfortable with getting pressured by time. I made a concession and added a new buttons specifically to quick switch plus twekead the regular mode a bit to make it more intuitive. It is a bit too late now for this DD, but I hope the response to fairy switching will be more positive next time.
You've really wringed the soul sponge on this one. I remember when it was just a prototype... Great job; plays well!
Thanks for the kind comment! Yeah, it always surprises me how different the current version looks compared to the prototype.
Very soulful game, I like it.
My only gripe is that you can't use "Enter" to select levels and get past the initial level screen while it works everywhere else.
The fairies are really cute tho.
Thanks for playing!
I will make Enter a more important key in the game. I wasn't aware so many people like to use it for UI stuff.
- zip the game folder, not the files (correct: Game.zip/Game/Game.exe, wrong: Game.zip/Game.exe)
- when you end a level, set the level [] cursor on the next level (not the one you just finished)
- mixels make the game look much worse than the quality of individual assets
- X should toggle automatically between fairies (manual select is a waste of inputs)
- was expecting frogs to be able to eat each other, could be something to explore
- you piece of shit, taught me about quick switch after 20 levels, make that the default or tell me early
- gameplay is much more fluid with quick switching
- shame only got to use it on the last level
Very smooth experience, the overall structure and level transition feel like from a finished steam game. The switching requiring 3 buttons instead of 1 became annoying fast, I feel like I was spending more effort fighting the inputs than solving the puzzles. I feel like that ruined the whole experience. Good job otherwise. Gonna make it.
- That makes sense. I will start doing it that way
- Since there will be multiple paths, I prefer to not force the cursor to a specific level. But I have seen a lot of people re-entering the same level when they start playing, so I might need to do something about it.
- I agree about mixels, but the only place when I'm using those are in the level presentation clouds, the fairy selection circle and the level node bounce. The first two will have proper animations for the future, but the level bounce will be like that because animating that in another way would be difficult. Or do you mean another instance of mixels? Maybe I'm missing something
- About that...
- At certain point I thought about that, but I scrapped it because the game was too complex already. Maybe for a sequel.
- lol. I have changed it to have both selection systems at the same time, one with X and the other one with C. Quick switch is introduced on the very next level.
- For most people it does, but I feel it can hurt the experience for people who prefer to focus on the puzzle part and having a chill action part. Both options are in the game from the start now.
- You can play all the levels with quickswitch again if you want to!
Sorry the regular switch soured your experience. I changed it a bit to make it more fluid, now you have to hold X to select and release to accept instead of pressing X twice. I uploaded that version online if you want to give it a try (version 0.11a)
>Gonna make it.
Thanks mate. I hope your horror pogo game gets there too.
Thanks for playing and the video!
>marketing
That will be very important. I mean, it is important for any game, but this one is very hard to explain which makes things a bit awkward. I will try my best to figure something out and implement it.
I forgot to ask, at the beginning of the video you had some issues with your controller. Controller support is something I added for this update and haven't been able to test it properly. Does you controller have drift to the bottom of the screen or does it work perfectly fine? if the controller is fine, I will need to go bug hunting.
My controller setup does work fine for other games without drift, and I did unplug and replug in a few times but still had an issue. However My setup is jank, it’s an old Wii U controller connected to a third party dongle that makes my desktop computer interpret it as an xinput xbox360 controller. So if you wanna reproduce I’d try an Xbox 360 controller, but don’t worry too much about it
That last level was a bitch, but really good!
- There might be only one song, but it's long enough that it isn't grating on the ears to hear multiple times
-The flag system feels a bit odd. I'm not sure if having different wait times for some levels is necessary. I'm pretty sure it's in place so the player does it the right way, but when you do having to wait that extra second or two feels more like a punishment. If it's always set to the short time, the player will know they did it right when they win, otherwise they get ate. Maybe there's something else I'm not seeing.
-The game is funny. Really funny. And it does with and without obvious jokes. Having the intro to level 2-7 say "experimentation is key" and then immediately being able to fly into a wall got a belly laugh out of me.
Sacrificing fairies is sad and funny, muscle fairy looking contemplative when aiming a fairy into the abyss is great, and the intro pictures are funny. A lot of thought went into this game and it shows
I am excited to see you have planned!
Thanks for playing! I'm happy you liked the humor in the game!
I'm aware the flag waiting time is awkward. I have a couple of ways to predict a level has been beaten and a shorter wait time is activated, but for the most times predicting that is a bit difficult. I'm going to experiment on that in the next few weeks to see if I can come up with a better system.
I fucking love poking toads!
The ending screen seemed weird, it told me I did all but one level, because I guess I hadn't completed that level? Confused me a bit. Also the timer counting my time was moving really fast.
Thanks for playing!
Yeah, on hindsight that last level shouldn't count for that counter. Or it should be a special level instead of a regular one.
The timer code had a bug, it is fixed for the newer version.
Man, those animations are amazing! I love those details like buff fairies clasping their hands when you beat the level or blue fairies fluttering their wings. It's really coming together in terms of visual style.
Can't really say much else about it, though.
Thanks for playing again! I'm happy you liked the new art style.
It's ok, the puzzles are basically the same so the gameplay didn't change much from last DD.
It's really polished and there's nothing to complain about. Animations are soulful. The tutorial is pretty much perfect at teaching mechanics. It makes me wish for a steeper difficulty curve, but better not fix what's not broken.
Thanks for playing! I'm aiming for a gentle difficulty curve. Later levels will be more challenging but I'm not sure if poke all toads will end up being hard as other puzzle games like baba is you or patrick's parabox.
Amazing concert, art, and music. I don't really have any feedback outside having more resolution options for people to choose.
Thanks for playing! By more resolutions, do you mean x3 and up? I had x3 in the last DD and it caused some issues for people trying it out on stream. Although It was in combination with other issues, it caused confusion more than anything else. I could try implementing it again if there is a serious demand for it.
Genius concept. Puzzle mechanics are simple and easy to learn, and they're utilized well within the level design. I've only just cleared world 1 and so far my only real gripe is the repetitive music, but then again it's probably a good thing for a puzzle game's soundtrack not to be too distracting. Also the pixel art is top notch and I love the yoshi-esque noises the frogs make
Thanks for playing!
I will keep that in mind. At the moment I only have one track, so I just play it constantly. There are a few more tracks but they are placeholder. How music will be handled will be decided once I get more music tracks.
-The collision box for the toads is too big. You should be able to walk past the toad on level 4.
-It should switch fairies when you release X instead of having to press it twice. Same applies for throwing.
-When switching fairies, it should show status icons for all fairies in the level so you can easily keep track of them.
-Launch pads need to be faster.
-Pressing Z near a strong fairy with a normal fairy should make the strong fairy pick up the normal fairy, and then automatically switch to the strong fairy.
-You should be able to put down fairies without throwing them.
-Add the ability to manually control the camera for the bigger levels.
Thanks for the feedback!
really fun game. love the art and gameplay
Thank you!
It's actually insane how much the art overhaul has improved this. This is great and I would pay to play the full game. The level where you kill all the red fairies for no reason after using them actually made me laugh out loud.
I think the one thing that I could suggest is giving the player a separate quick switch button to use whenever they want instead of telling them to go into the options menu for a fixed toggle 2 worlds into the game.
Also maybe give the blue fairies some lore reason to be more important and pokier/cheekier than the red ones. Maybe a crown?
Thanks for the comment, I'm glad the new artwork is pulling its weight!
I can think about that. Even with the toggle button and a small tutorial, at least 3 people who have asked for the quick switch. I want to have as few keys as possible for the controls and I thought about some weird options, but a button dedicated for quick switching might be necessary.
I have left lore as homework for later, the theme of the game is so absurd that bringing any sense to it is above my writing skills. From the little I come up with, the blue fairy is not more important than any of the bunch. She is just fearless when it comes , also greatly enjoys causing trouble.
Really nice game, just needs MORE! I only have some very minor things other than that to say:
It does. I was working on that yesterday night.
A lot of people seem to use enter and space for menus. I added that to part of the UI, forgot to add it for level select.
I remember you mentioned something like that in the thread. What are the benefits of that option? I don't know much about FPS capping.
I can add a prompt so the player knows they have to hit a button. I'm not sure if I can help with the flicker part, but I will look into it.
Fixed for next DD.
It's on the to-do list.
Thanks for playing and the feedback!
The FPS capping is for not using processing power for no reason; I have ~2000 FPS ingame and the fans start spinning like crazy unless I go and limit FPS somewhere else. Having a V-sync option works too as it'd limit to the screens refresh rate, but I don't like v-sync for reasons... So a limit FPS slider would be nice but I get if you'd not want to bother and just have V-sync.
For example if you're running it on a laptop you'll drain the battery quicker for no real reason at all.
Makes sense, thanks for the explanation. That could explain why my laptop's fans go like crazy when running this game. I could add a cap of 120, it could be good enough for most cases. I'm not sure if this option should be in the options menu since it seems so advanced. I can also add it as a launch option.
Yeah putting in a V-sync option would probably suffice.
Currently adding the vsync option, I noticed the engine I'm using (godot) has vsync on as default. Since you ran the game with uncapped FPS from the start, by any chance do you have an app that could have uncapped the FPS automatically? I'm looking around and haven't been able to go above 16ms per frame without disabling Vsync.
I have it disabled in the Nvidia control panel usually because it adds a bit of input lag and it really annoys me... So check your gfx card settings for that.
Maybe the nvidia control panel is overwriting godot's settings, removing vsync and uncapping the FPS. I played around with the new vsync button and it seems to work. I will figure out if it is enough next DD.
Yeah it will overwrite depending on the setting in it. You can set it to always on or off or let the program you run decide.
Kino game. Charming music, visuals, characters, animations, designs, etc. Combined with a relaxing pace and music, I'm sure fans of puzzle games will eat this up.
I'll try and review the game in order of how things were presented.
First off, the controls are weird. Z to interact, Arrows to move? I don't play puzzle games, well, ever, so I don't know what the standard control scheme is, but this felt weird. I instinctively tried to press Enter to confirm things or end the stage, etc. It took me a while to get used to the controls, and I never felt too comfortable with them.
Cute level transition drawings. Mechanics in play in a puzzle are explained and I didn't get confused as to what my goal was, or how to achieve it.
Switching characters also feels weird. It feels as if there is an extra step involved. While at some point in the game you have 3+ characters to pick, in the early game there's only two. I feel that when you only have 2, you shouldn't need to confirm selection when switching characters. I should be able to press X, and immediately switch characters. I guess the added pause time is nice when strategizing, but it feels like an extra layer of waiting for an otherwise simple mechanic. Maybe I just didn't get used to it enough? Either way, might be worth a look to see if this can be simplified a bit. Perhaps a hotkey system, with numbers above a character's head? So pressing X will enter the switch menu, and following it up with a hotkey (ex: 2) will switch to character labeled 2.
The introduction of new mechanics are done at a nice pace. I don't feel overwhelmed, but I can't say it's very hard yet. Haven't gotten stuck/lost yet. No clue what the difficulty curve of this game is, but perhaps it might be of interest to add a slightly more challenging level early on (and to sprinkle them every now and then), to retain player interest. Otherwise a player might never reach lategame because they feel like they aren't being challenged enough. Or maybe that's just me since I don't play puzzle games often.
I made it to Slumber Party (World 2, level 5ish?) before stopping. Probably due to the amount of switching characters I needed to do?
I haven't encountered any bugs or issues while playing. I again have to give special praise to animations, and how they are used. A character flying through the air not having any animations is actually ridiculously clever and adorable. I threw my blue faery off the stage accidentally, and watching her smug face fall without a single change in expression or posture made me laugh out loud.
Really excellent game. Well done.
Thanks for the kind comment!
Switching between fairies has always been a hot dicussion topic. There is an option for a single key switch in the options menu, one of the later levels explains it. The reason why it is not the default is because on my testings, players struggled with later levels when multiple fairies where around and precise actions where necessary. But it is true that it is cumbersome to press so many keys to switch with the regular system. There is no real perfect answer to the issue, only compromises and giving the player the option.
The levels climb in difficulties starting from Slumber Party. So if you found the first levels too simple, try changing the switch mode and give the later levels a try.
Fairies don't have a flying animation mostly because I didn't have time to add it. I'm not sure if it is necessary to add one, I'm on the fence about it. Some other animations are missing.
>flying animation
Definitely DON'T add one. It's incredibly charming as-is
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