After watching the development video on Youtube, I immediately had to play this, and it is a very cute game! Short enough to beat in 30 minutes, it leaves me wanting more! I'm seriously hoping for a sequel with more and hopefully longer levels. I could easily see this expanded to 50 levels and sold on Steam for $10, and you'd definitely have a purchase from me!
Praises:
- The concept is simple to understand, yet has moments of satisfying difficulty.
- There is a wonderful charm emitting from all aspects, from the title screen, to the death messages, to the end cutscene!
- The environment and characters are adorable. I've fallen in love with the Gnorms and Enorms, and hope to see them return in an expanded sequel.
- The music is phenomenal, it gives the perfect atmosphere for each level and the world as a whole. (sidenote I desperately wanted a music library button on the title menu where I could listen to each track looped. New ringtone? Yes Please!)
- I especially loved the feeding Enorms level, and did laugh at the slight glitchy-ness of the fellow behind me on different attempts.
- Level 14 was a particularly fun challenge, I began to wonder if the direction changes were in line with the timing of the music! I don't think that's the case, but that thought makes me want more levels where it IS! That could be a fun intuitive way to help with the timing of each turn on some levels.
Criticisms:
- Staying within the "safety circle" range is difficult once you've fallen behind. Though with the short levels this is practically a non-issue. You don't feel like you've lost much progress from a death.
(Please forgive me if my development suggestions are obtuse as I have no experience nor knowledge of how easily these can be done, or frankly if they'd even be good ideas once implemented... with that in mind, I do want to give ideas for improvements in an expanded version / sequel. Perhaps modify movement that points towards the centre of the safety circle to 1.1x speed, so that you can catch up to the nominal position yet dont overtake your place)
- the curved / circular paths are hard to maintain with 8-direcitonal input, I felt the need for increased safety range along these paths in particular.
- the traffic levels are a great concept, but do amount to essentially a trial and error / memorization tactic for success. the whistle sound in-game is on the right track, but doesn't actually give any warning. I think it could be helpful if it were given two whistles with a short drum roll in between (first to prepare, the second whistle to stop/start moving).
- The instant capture when straying outside the "safety circle" does limit the gameplay - there's no time or method to correct yourself once off path. Perhaps implement a two-circle system where straying out of the first "safety circle" increments a "suspicion" timer, where you are allowed maybe 0.5 or 1 second before being caught. In my head, the timer is shown by the blue question mark filling from the bottom with red, and upon reaching the top you are caught. And coming back into the safety range would lower this timer again as the Gnorms ease their suspicion, seen as the red level lowering back down the '?'. A second larger circle can act as your "straying too far gets you instantly caught" range.
Despite my criticisms, I cannot stress enough how much I have fallen in love with this simple yet eloquently executed concept. And that it was made completely in two weeks is incredible. Thank you for documenting your process in your Youtube video, if not for that I would never have discovered this gem! Congratulations on your placement in the Acerola Jam, it is well deserved!