What a blast!
I got to say, that last level with the three teleports, what a masterpiece in level design. Super difficult (for me at least), but I found it to exercise the cumulative skills the player should have at that point, and was able to complete it (after a TON of attempts).
I have to admit, initially I found the controls a little fiddly, specifically with the white cube. I understand his advantage are long horizontal jumps, but even with the first level I found it hard to align my jumps. It almost discouraged me from continuing the game. Oddly though, after the first couple of levels, it wasn't so much a problem. Not sure if I just got used to controlling the white cube, or if the level design made it easier to handle (e.g., less precision jumping needed to avoid lava). Any thoughts on if you found this to be an issue? Not sure what you could do alternatively. Maybe something more akin to Princess Peach's float jump (so normal movement, but still more "horizontal jump"). If not that, maybe an updated first level with a slightly larger/safer platform for the white cube to move on? Again, it didn't become so much a problem in later levels. Just curious on your thoughts with this.
As someone mentioned already, an in-game tutorial would be nice, but it's not so hard to find out the abilities through experimenting. One thing that might be hard are knowing the Celeste-like abilities, especially with players who may have not played it before. Moves like wall jumps and how the dash resets in certain cases (and on the flip side, when it doesn't reset) might be moves and mechanics the player is not aware that they can do in the game. I do think the level design does help with players experimenting with the dash resets, as they do progress nicely in difficulty once portals are introduced.
I've already mentioned how much I loved the last level, but the levels overall had great design. I thought you did a great jump slowly introducing mechanics to the players, and continued to build on top of that. The number of puzzle-like levels you created is astounding (at least for me, puzzles are hard to make). I hope you had a blast experimenting and making these levels. I did find it odd with some of the portal levels that had a continuation by scrolling the camera to the right of the screen. Nothing game breaking, just found it to be inconsistent with the rest of the level design.
I'm impressed with how much mechanics you were able to integrate into this game. Outside of the way the cubes moved, fusing two cubes, implementing dash with reset considerations, wall jumps, portals that maintained momentum, and teleports for switching the characters is impressive given a week to work on the game. Most of the mechanics were put to great use, with maybe the exception of the wall jump. I felt like I only encountered one level that needed it (of course I could be forgetting other levels that needed it). Would be cool to see more levels requiring it, but not a big deal, given the time frame to work on the game.
I had a great time with this game. I think individuals who enjoy a challenging platformer would really like the levels and mechanics presented in this game. I hope others encounter your game and gives it an earnest go to finish it. It's tough, but ultimately very rewarding.
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