Nice game. Was the art inspired by Baba is You?

To start, I played this game on my twitch stream last night. If you are interested in watching my time with the game, here’s the timestamped link.

I think something happened for me when I first went to select a level and I ended up choosing the hardest one right off the bat. As a result, I had no idea what the game was expecting me to do. I thought I did, but everything I tried in that first(last) level always ended in failure.

Due to the above, I feel I had gotten soured on the game even once I realized I had started in the wrong place. I will admit, once I started the actual first level, I understood what the puzzle structure was, but there were a couple of things that nagged at me still.

First, while the game is about matching things up in a symmetrical way, some of the levels themselves are not, actually, symmetrical. For example, the level “It Was Easy” is not symmetrically laid out. The puzzle is, but the level structure is not. As a player, I kept trying to read into that Asymmetry as meaning something when, I get the feeling, it doesn’t.

The other thing that got me was the ability to modify the pattern we’re supposed to be matching. For instance, I think it was level 3? (it was the last level I tried in my stream). I was moving pieces around in a way that not only changed the left half of the puzzle, but the right half as well. One of my viewers later told me I wasn’t supposed to change the positions of the first peg I did when I was playing (I’m sorry, I know this description sounds horribly vague). My personal though is, if the pattern I’m supposed to match is a static pattern, I shouldn’t be able to modify the pegs I’m supposed to match against. Alternatively, allow the alteration of the patterns on both the left and right side and trigger a victory when they’re symmetrical, regardless of the original pattern intent. You could maybe award bonus points for the number of moves NOT used… this could lead to players returning to levels to try and create a match with the fewest moves.

This brings me to the move counter. It’s apparent, as the puzzle designer, there is knowledge of what the match is supposed to be and the number of moves needed to achieve it… but it feels like I’ve only been given exactly that number of moves, to solve the puzzle exactly how you, as the designer, intended. Now, this isn’t actually an issue with the game mechanics, but, rather an opinion of this one player, but maybe the player should have a number of extra moves available than is strictly needed? This pool of extra moves could be reduced the high in levels the player progresses.

My last observation has to do with the number in the bottom-right corner. Was this supposed to be a timer? I just seemed to randomly flip between 40, 41, and 38. It didn’t seem to actually do anything.

Graphically, I thought the game was pleasant. The art style works quite well for this style of game. The movement of the character and the pegs felt smooth and responsive! Over all, I think this was a well made game, even with my above issues.

Very fun and cute game!! Love the peaceful bgm and simple aesthetic. My two braincells were really cookin in the later levels haha. Congrats!!

Amazing game! The increase in difficulty after the first two levels is brutal but really enjoyable :)

Strong Baba Is You vibes! Nothing wrong with that I suppose. Like others have said I'm just left wishing there was a undo button, and faster movement. I would have played a lot longer and tried to pass more levels. Congrats on a solid submission. :)

This is a pretty nice puzzle game. Would be neat to have a rollback feature so i don't have to redo the level every time i mess up (which is often lol)

Nice job. It was very challenging. Loved the Baba is You style graphics a lot.

Great game,  I couldn't figure out  some levels, wished for snappier movoment