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Hypnic Jerk145 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks for playing again! This is all really helpful.

Text bubble on restart is a bit annoying

That was my concern. Some people seem to like it. Will consider removing if I can’t make it less obtrusive.

I can’t walk left to kill myself after the bait minecart, feels like a bug? I guess it’s like how you don’t walk off the edge unless you slide into it… still.

As you say, That was put in as a bit of a safety. Probably not needed though if it’s unintuitive

Lack of undo is getting annoying.

Someone said this in a previous DD. Considered, but thought it might make it too easy. If it had undo though I could make longer puzzles that are less frustrating. I think you just convinced me!

book select [is janky]

My custom focus code for the hand icon is shit. Will be rebuilding the menus.

The 1/2 in the corners of the book feel kind of pointless, since it never seems to be longer than two pages? […] remove them.

I think I’m going to replace the books with just a single page note for these reasons and because it’s difficult to read when there are only like 3 words per line.

erroneous prompt to put down the head

The prompt logic is still a bit messy after I refactored the player controller. There are lots of other cases where it isn’t working too. On the list!

I can see the top of the save icon in the bottom right at all times.

Spotted this late in testing. I’m dumb and let the icon set its own start position every time, so if it’s called twice quickly it gets a new, on-screen start position. Just need to make the start position a constant.

Ice blocks being unpushable on ice feels odd. Would help sell it if you did an animation where he runs in place, to show it’s too slippery to get traction or whatever.

That’s the exact reason behind not letting them be pushed on ice. Will add that animation!

I get stumped on the 1 ice block 5 icicles room.

I think this is the hardest puzzle in the demo because there are so many permutations. You have to push the block right then down (still on ground), use that to bounce off and destroy all icicles, then push the block into the hole to escape.

stuck on the monkey and minecart area

Get the head first without bridges. Bump both minecarts. Place head. Escape bottom bridge.

no controller support is ridiculous

You’re right! Simply didn’t cross my mind for these early demos. Will add for next time.

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Wierdox145 days ago
Will consider removing [thought bubbles] if I can’t make it less obtrusive.

Some thoughts I had were to move it to the bottom of the screen, so it only covers the outer wall, or to make it semi or fully transparent when you start moving.

That [don't walk off edge while on ice] was put in as a bit of a safety. Probably not needed though if it’s unintuitive

Taking into consideration the lack of an undo, I can see why it's there. If you do add it though, then I think being able to throw yourself off is good for the consistency(or at least it makes more sense to me).

---

Thanks for the hints, I decided to give it another go. Though I couldn't make it back to the monkey room, the stone triangle room seemed to reset in a way so that all paths lead to death. And, the books also reset.

The hard ice puzzle was cool after the block was put into place. I was only solving half the issue before.  Difficulty wise, I suppose this is a later area, but in most cases I think it's better to put more challenging puzzles off the main path to get a collectible(book) or some such. But the game seems to be built around an exploratory linearity, you have to do all branches. So idk, maybe that's just how this game is, where the challenge is more of a focus (some gameplay wise but more so with story right now). All that said, with an undo I think it will help make things more reasonable in any case.

Luckily the last few levels didn't need the other branch done, so I was able to do them and finish the game. Fun puzzles, though on the last one the bridge tile seemed pointless as I solved without using. I then re opened my save to try once more at the monkey level and found out that the stone block blocking the way was gone, and went through the door. Bad idea, now I'm softlocked for good since I'm in the bottom left of the puzzle and it can't be solved from here! Too bad for John.

I forgot to screenshot it, but I think my end game stats was 87%, spent the most time in the Bat Country.

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Hypnic Jerk145 days ago

A lot of these issues should have been resolved in the latest hotfix version: books not being saved and that push block solving itself leading to a softlock.

Planning to have less linearity in the proper game. The idea being if you get stuck on a puzzle, there are other routes you could take.

The extra bridge tile on “Bat Country” is an accidental red herring. I spent about 2 hours making that map (usually they take me around an hour), but just before DD submission I realised you couldn’t backtrack from there. Bridge was a quick, messy fix to save me from having to redesign the whole puzzle.

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