It took me a bit to figure out how to update Unity, but I was eventually able to get your game working. That said, I'm not used to the latest version's UI, so I might be missing something that I was supposed to see.
Remarkable: The main thing that I enjoyed about this game was the amount of detail put into it. While I stopped before I explored the entire map, I could tell that a lot of effort was put into creating the different platforms and the scenery. Additionally, the way the instructions were displayed was really nice, and it made it easy to see how the game is meant to be played.
Needs Improvement: As Professor Fishburn noted, the pace of the game is extraordinarily slow. While the core idea is good, and the level design is fantastic, it takes far too long to navigate the game world. Additionally, the ramps don't see to actually interact with the physics engine, as when I stopped on an incline I didn't move at all. This makes the game feel more like a walking simulator than a puzzle platformer. I didn't dive into your code, but if I had to guess, I'd imagine you used movement by translation rather than by interacting with the rigidbody. While this can be useful in some scenarios, I don't think it worked too well here.
Successful: The level design and layout of the game as a whole is very good. I feel that with some changes to the speed of the level, either by directly increasing the player speed, or, as Professor Fishburn noted, condensing things a bit to make the level more compact, would make it feel like a very fun game to play. This is by far one of the most aesthetically pleasing projects I've seen though.
General: Overall I was impressed by the game but didn't enjoy playing it much. I think the foundation is there, but it could use a bit of work. One miscellaneous thing I'd note is that the idea of the "red balls" doesn't add much to the game. I'll admit that I skimmed the top of the instructions and looked mostly at the controls, so my takeaway was "this is how you move, go pick up the globes". It was a bit jarring when I was suddenly teleported upon touching a red globe. Also, while I understand that it's important to have some sort of fail mechanic in a game, I don't think the red orbs accomplish that very well. Because movement isn't very dynamic, it's quite easy to simply move around them. Dying to the red globe feels like it can only happen in my case, where I simply didn't read the instructions carefully, rather than as a result of a misplay within the game. That said, if the pace of the game was faster, and the red globes were changed to be a more visually obvious obstacle, I could see it being a good mechanic.
Sorry, the game wasn’t able to run on my end. It said “unexpected node type” among a couple of other errors. I can tell a lot of work went into this project and that there was a lot of experimenting with level assets and I wish I could give it a shot, but I'm not sure what the problem is.
As for the game, I'll start with the successful stuff. The varied design of the level (the ramps, maze, use of verticality, etc.) is excellent and makes the game interesting to explore. To improve: the movement needs to be WAY faster (at least to me). I got bored and didn't finish because it was taking so long to get through it. But here's another thing to think about: this *may* not be a speed problem. The other thought I had while playing is that the scale just feels all wrong. The game board is huge, so even if you increased the speed it would still feel huge and hard to make sense of the various parts. I think a useful exercise for you would be to take a look at the design of a course in Super Mario 64. Those levels, although expansive in some ways, are actually pretty tightly constrained (i.e. they are in a small physical space). For a game like this (puzzles, collecting), as a player I'm looking for more Super Mario 64, less Skyrim ;)
Comments
It took me a bit to figure out how to update Unity, but I was eventually able to get your game working. That said, I'm not used to the latest version's UI, so I might be missing something that I was supposed to see.
Remarkable: The main thing that I enjoyed about this game was the amount of detail put into it. While I stopped before I explored the entire map, I could tell that a lot of effort was put into creating the different platforms and the scenery. Additionally, the way the instructions were displayed was really nice, and it made it easy to see how the game is meant to be played.
Needs Improvement: As Professor Fishburn noted, the pace of the game is extraordinarily slow. While the core idea is good, and the level design is fantastic, it takes far too long to navigate the game world. Additionally, the ramps don't see to actually interact with the physics engine, as when I stopped on an incline I didn't move at all. This makes the game feel more like a walking simulator than a puzzle platformer. I didn't dive into your code, but if I had to guess, I'd imagine you used movement by translation rather than by interacting with the rigidbody. While this can be useful in some scenarios, I don't think it worked too well here.
Successful: The level design and layout of the game as a whole is very good. I feel that with some changes to the speed of the level, either by directly increasing the player speed, or, as Professor Fishburn noted, condensing things a bit to make the level more compact, would make it feel like a very fun game to play. This is by far one of the most aesthetically pleasing projects I've seen though.
General: Overall I was impressed by the game but didn't enjoy playing it much. I think the foundation is there, but it could use a bit of work. One miscellaneous thing I'd note is that the idea of the "red balls" doesn't add much to the game. I'll admit that I skimmed the top of the instructions and looked mostly at the controls, so my takeaway was "this is how you move, go pick up the globes". It was a bit jarring when I was suddenly teleported upon touching a red globe. Also, while I understand that it's important to have some sort of fail mechanic in a game, I don't think the red orbs accomplish that very well. Because movement isn't very dynamic, it's quite easy to simply move around them. Dying to the red globe feels like it can only happen in my case, where I simply didn't read the instructions carefully, rather than as a result of a misplay within the game. That said, if the pace of the game was faster, and the red globes were changed to be a more visually obvious obstacle, I could see it being a good mechanic.
Sorry, the game wasn’t able to run on my end. It said “unexpected node type” among a couple of other errors. I can tell a lot of work went into this project and that there was a lot of experimenting with level assets and I wish I could give it a shot, but I'm not sure what the problem is.
Super-detailed code comments! Really well-organized :)
As for the game, I'll start with the successful stuff. The varied design of the level (the ramps, maze, use of verticality, etc.) is excellent and makes the game interesting to explore. To improve: the movement needs to be WAY faster (at least to me). I got bored and didn't finish because it was taking so long to get through it. But here's another thing to think about: this *may* not be a speed problem. The other thought I had while playing is that the scale just feels all wrong. The game board is huge, so even if you increased the speed it would still feel huge and hard to make sense of the various parts. I think a useful exercise for you would be to take a look at the design of a course in Super Mario 64. Those levels, although expansive in some ways, are actually pretty tightly constrained (i.e. they are in a small physical space). For a game like this (puzzles, collecting), as a player I'm looking for more Super Mario 64, less Skyrim ;)