What I did like about this game is the sfx for marble rolling and win screen music. The warping mechanic is interesting, but I think it needs to be utilized better. Most of the focus is on ensuring you can build a track to the endpoint. Because of the level of randomness in the game, i do not think many people will be using this warp mechanic, unless they are panicking to get extra time. And that is only if they are able to warp given the randomness of the pieces in their current run of the level.
The instructions need to be simplified.
problem: confusing because it mentions one marble, then says all marbles. after playing you see that it is only relevant to each level since it increases. it's not necessary to put in the instructions, put it in the game itself.
problem: fast forwarding is not entirely relevant to the instructions, it can be explained within the game or simply added in the ui "fast forward" above.
problem: irrelvant information at the end. don't get me wrong, it is a nice touch but not necessary. people only need to know what is necessary to play.
suggestion for revamped instructions: Build a track for the marble to reach the end by clicking on the board.
For things in the game
needs a better indicator of when to start. the colors are fine, but not really good enough as an indicator imo. do this by saying specifically where it starts and ends
there should be a hud indicator of how much time you have left to place a track. race against time should have the time displayed..
suggestion: instead of a mouse pointer cursor, it should be the current track.
problem: game itself is rng pretty much, and because of that most people will not win and will get frustrated. when it comes to challenging games people try to devise effective strategies so that they can win, but it is lacking in effective strategies to make due to the rng of it and fast paced style which is prone to spamming.
good: the warping mechanic is good for giving the player extra time from what i have noticed. but it does not have strong decision making to decide if it is worth it and may be used as a tool to not panic.
Is the game fun to play? does it have a good player experience? Not really. I do think there are things that get away in player experience with feelings of frustration. It's not necessarily because the game is 'challenging'. I do not think there is much of a challenge to it, it is just how fast can you build these tracks based on randomness. It's moreso that this is a puzzle game, but there is not an interesting and strong level of decision making needed to play this. For example with other puzzle games like tetris, orienting the way of incoming blocks is imperative to playing and makes you think about what you are doing. This game kind of feels like spam until you get the right pieces, not really actually thinking about more efficient ways to win with the given mechanics.
I would ultimately change the game design to add mechanics that make adding the tracks meaningful in some way and improve player experience. Maybe there could be a small randomized set of tracks a player can choose from to build the tracks. It gives them a better way to think of what they are actually doing and consider using the warp mechanic if they think it is a good idea too. There could be different indicators on the board that take up a square and if the player builds on them (not directly but there must be an adjacent track) it can help them in-game like selecting a track they need right at that moment. It does not have to be these, but you know make it enjoyable. Game design is an iterative process and takes a while to find out what is fun. I would ask people to playtest while you work on games or playtest among the group and be honest with yourselves on what can be added, changed or removed.
The most important part of this is that you guys were able to finish something and you should be very proud for doing so. I wish you luck in your future games.