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RoboZero115 days ago (2 edits) (+3)

(Iong post!)

Spider with a jet pack, hell yeah! The speed and drifting around is really fun. My first impressions were how cute everything was, and how neat the tutorial in the title screen is. After I figured out the mechanics, I just wanted to go zoom as fast as possible, get as close to my target as possible, and wrangle it three times because it was satisfying. I really like how skillfully being closer to firefly dramatically increases your wrangling effectiveness. The skill-test design is really good, I feel like I'm improving. When I'm wrangling, the focus is really good, as while I'm wrangling I'm looking at my arrows to see the next goal and line my self up to launch there. It feels great when it works. 

Constructive Criticism: The UI is initially confusing. Is the red arrow something indicating my direction or a goal? Ok it indicates the next fly. TBH the red arrows feel out of place in the nice green environment, maybe worth experimenting with other indicators. I'm confused on how the timer, the green bugs, the rounds, and the score relate. Which should I care about? Shouldn't getting green bugs add to my timer and allow me to go for more rounds to increase my total score? I eventually got it, but I thought each fly would reset my timer rather than each collection. Maybe it should be 0/3 rather than just 0. Since I can't calculate precisely how much time I have, there's no balance between score and time, I just wrangle because I find it fun and am lining up for next green fly. The timer itself feels a bit flat, it's a good color to see it in peripherals, but out of place compared to how nice the other models are. A bit unpolished feeling with the camera struggling to follow the spider & screen tearing. Same with turning the spider, goes off screen or behind UI and I don't know which direction I'm going. This leads to me getting stuck to the ground, and being frustrated trying to rotate back off it, especially if I'm having fun speeding around. The color highlighting for target fly works really well (once I realized that's what it was as I initially thought it was a special glowing fly) until there's two flies highlighted. The final thing here is that it feels like the brown branches in the background should block you due to the color contrast. 

There are some deeper mechanical issues too unfortunately. First, When I bump into the ceiling or floor, which happens often, it really slows me down when I just want to go fast. Maybe bouncing off the boundaries would be more fun. Second, ladybugs feel like a frustrating inconvenience. The issue is often I'm moving so fast, the camera so close, and rotation is so slow I couldn't avoid them if I wanted to. OR I'm already wrangling and I want to draw in closer because I keep hitting the ladybugs but I already wrapped once so I would fly off into the distance if I recalculated, so I get frustrated and suck it up. I wish I could reduce or increase my wrangle radius as I'm wrapping, like a rope, would be a cool ability. Third, it's a bit unreliable to sling off the yellow bugs when the jetpack seems way more consistent. Especially I think I'm about to fully wrap but I don't, I wish there was a better way to check that. Fourth, when green flies are too close together and I'm lining up, I get frustrated when the green flies are too close that I would launch way past them and have to intentionally do bad, feels wrong. Still, well done!

Bugs: 

Download files has debug info that says 'do not ship'

The spider tutorial stops working if you lose and press quit

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jiputer114 days ago (1 edit) (+2)

Wow! Long post. Thank you for the constructive criticism!  Generally speaking, we do agree the objective of the game can be a bit hard to see given the presentation, and that some mechanics can be polished a bit better.  Additionally, we do  see performance issues that people been having with the speed, and some bugs  that we will definitely look into in the future.  As for the mechanics, those are great suggestions! Thank you for taking your time with your suggestions and we'll definitely put these into our pool of ideas!

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noori114 days ago(+1)

HELL YEAHHH!! Thanks for the long thoughtful review. We really really appreciate it, and we’re definitely saving this for when we go back to polish and refine the game.

For sure, I also agree that we didn’t have the most time to test out different indicators or UI elements since we got caught up fixing bugs, tweaking movement, improving the rope physics, and refining level design. So it means a lot that you’re playtesting and giving us such helpful feedback since it really helps us figure out what to focus on next. A better tutorial and more intuitive UI/scoring system/investigating the screen tearing will definitely be on the list!

So funny you mentioned the branches and the lack of colliders on them because one of the other devs and I were going back and forth about why it should have colliders and why it shouldn't (I was on the side for no colliders...). He's going to laugh when he sees your comment because you've officially proven his point... I'll admit, perhaps colliders would've made more sense.

Great idea with having the boundaries be bouncy, we'll take this into account for sure! I don't want to make you feel pressured to reply again, so only if you have the time, I did have a couple questions: for the ladybugs, do you think the game would feel more balanced with branch colliders but without hazardous bugs? Also what do you think about bouncy branches as well instead of hard colliders? I'm curious about how that might shift the experience, definitely something to playtest. 

Also great point on the yellow bugs! This also brings me to a follow-up question, if they gave extra points for swinging on them, do you think you'd be more inclined to use them strategically rather than rely on the jetpack the entire time? 

Again, thanks for the amazing feedback. It means a lot!

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RoboZero114 days ago(+1)

I'm glad it'll be helpful! I think the tweaking helped a lot with the overall feel once I figured it out, so I remember the game positively. 

Perhaps your own point was proven! As for the branches, it currently *feels* like it should have colliders because the of the colors. I kind of like zooming around at terminal velocity, but I also wonder if I would be encouraged to learn the map better, which requires experimenting with fading the branch into the background and colliders respectively. I specifically say feels because ya'll can control how it feels, y'know? I think my greatest concern there is that if I'm aiming for a green fly, and I bounce the other way, I might be frustrated. However, if I can recalculate to hit a green fly on opposite side of the screen it could be fun! 

They may be complementary. I like the idea of the hazardous ladybugs, they're really well designed (interesting to look, nice deep red satisfying contrast, and pretty pointy sharp).  If going slow, they did subtly encourage me to navigate around them with my jetpack, which added to the skill-check fun that I imagined the branches would do (think flappy bird). If going fast, I simply did not have time to either react or rotate fast enough for it to be a skill check. In this sense, perhaps doubling down on the skill check - some sort of air strafe and camera slowly moving in front so you can see what's ahead, then if you hit one making it a really satisfying challenge to try and recover might add a lot, like a mid air crash you can struggle out of if skilled enough could work. From here, making distinct ladybug formations along parts of map you can learn and predict would add to what seems like the intended second layer of progression through map knowledge. Just spitballing. 

I don't think so. Right now I don't feel points are a valuable enough reward. I focused on getting the highest round, managing my time, and having fun wrangling. In fact, I was wondering why I could wrap around more than three times if it didn't get darker than red, felt weird. I can see some of your vision with style points though. Once the hazards issues is fixed, I'd like to be rewarded for chaining yellow flies. First, try making it really obvious when you're about to fully wrap around one (radial dial?). Second, maybe some speed boost each time to really make up for the lost time. Or some side objective. Some other reward I already care about since it's fun already. 

Perhaps only I ignored the points though, watch others play too! Hope this gives some ideas

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noori113 days ago(+1)

Oooh good point, I  think we will have to test out multiple things, including adding colliders on branches, but also maybe just visually blurring or muting the colours of the branches a bit, so players don't feel that they should be interactable. Great observations, and we'll definitely circle (haha) back to this when we refine things!

We also did receive similar feedback regarding the hazardous ladybugs. In the game's current state, they can feel kind of unavoidable when you're going really fast, which at times, can ruin the fun. Players want to zoom around at full speed, buit then think, "Wait why not just use the jetpack since it's safer?" So yeah, we'll need to tweak the level design a bit and make sure the challenge feels satisfying and fair. Your point about camera work helping with that is also a great suggestion.

Also agree with the radial dial idea! It could really help (just have to play around with the UI a bit so it doesn't get too crowded_.

Thanks for all the suggestions and spending the time to reply!! We'll gather together all the feedback we are getting through this review page (+ some more) and hopefully make the game feel better in the future!! 

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