I really enjoyed the gameplay in the open spaces, but starting off the game with a few levels in a tight cave with instant death from crashing almost made me stop playing because of how frustrating it was. Which would have been a shame because I enjoyed the open space levels. I think getting the player to learn the controls in the naturally forgiving open levels first and then introducing the tight spaces the way level 9 does would keep a lot more players' attention.
Thank you for the honest feedback!
We were wondering if you could elaborate on how you approached the first few levels, and what you feel caused you so many resets?
A lot of the feedback we've been getting is that the game is very hard, which wasn't the intention for the first few levels. Our worry is that we've badly communicated how we intended the levels to be played. For instance, an issue we've seen in the early levels is that players think they need to use every single Energy Anchor; but that makes the game way more difficult than just gliding through most of the level with the regular controls and only hooking on to an Anchor when you need to catch yourself and reset.
I think it may come down to acceleration. If you press boost, you suddenly start going very fast, and it means you have to react very quickly to stuff. The turning circle without the anchors is very wide which makes it almost impossible for a new player to successfully manoeuvre in caves without anchors. I think either lowering the acceleration, allowing the ship to take a hit or two before exploding, or moving the caves levels later would eliminate the frustration. I must stress I didn't find the game frustrating once I got to the wide open levels.