We figured that for this comment, we should give a bigger anwser ahah
Artist’s response: Thank you for the sincere and detailed analysis, it really makes us happy that someone dedicated so much time to analyzing our game. I’m flattered by the compliments on the art, it was a tough period of testing and work in pixel art, and I’m glad to know it was worth it.
As for the story, I completely understand, and I’ve noticed that some comments about it have been quite divided (including from friends we had test it without any prior knowledge). Some understood it, while others were left uncertain about the ending. But I was glad to see that some people were genuinely surprised by the ending. It was a big challenge to try to tie something coherent together in just 10 days, and that’s why we ended up leaving the story more implicit (which ultimately was our decision to save time) and introducing some implicit doubts that could lead to understanding the ending, such as “why does he collect birds?” We wanted the player to think a little about everything, even if it probably didn’t fully work.
It’s 100% valid for players to feel the way you did while playing. I think with more time we could have tied in more clues and foreshadowing in a more consistent and less implicit way.
Once again, thank you for playing and for your analyses.
My response: As others mentioned, the movement is definitely lacking, I completely understand that. I made the player state machine on the first day and only made small tweaks throughout the week. The contrast in the first level was something we tried to change, but in the end it stayed almost the same as the first versions. I know I need to work on learning how to make movement feel smoother, with better tweaks for jumping and general control. The arrow key controls could have been much better, and the robot stun mechanic should’ve been developed further since we only used it on one robot, even though it was a great idea to stun the others!
Anyway, thank you so much for this amazing response. It really means a lot to know you cared so much about the game. I’m sorry if at any point it felt like you wanted to quit midway. This project has been my favorite one so far, and maybe it’ll grow into something bigger in the future. If it does, I’ll make sure to use every piece of criticism to improve it. I really loved your comment!