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Renons106 days ago (2 edits)

Hard!
This game looks really neat, I dig this kind of glitchy art style, and it also sounds cool. 

It combines two games in a potentially interesting way, but while the block placing half of it is inspired by Tetris,it is also very much different enough that it I felt that I didn't understand it at all adequately (how do you remove a "line" when there's no well to fill?). If you then layer a platforming experience on top of that and a visual style which looks good but... sometimes makes it hard to read what is going on, combined with the fairly complex controls that follows from playing two games at once, you get what I felt: Confusion.

I watched the dev play and that  sort of confirmed two things:

  • There is a potentially cool game here, for those that spend enough time
  • Watching a good player play the game did make some things clearer, but for the casual observer it _still_ looks overwhelming

I think there is something to your game which good players can really enjoy, but you do have a problem getting people over the hump to where they enjoy playing, preferably within the first couple of minutes.  Some things that one could possibly consider:

  • Can you, in a decently natural way, teach the block game separately? Then ask the player to start controlling the character once they feel comfortable placing blocks and the rules around that.
  • Maybe one can start with no wall of death at all?
  • Reduce the visual chaos early in the game and ramp it up as you go, making it easier for novice players to see while still preserving the visual identity.
  • Tie more of the visual effects to player actions, i.e. use them as feedback.

In addition to the challenges above it should be mentioned that I have a slightly different challenge tied to my particular setup. I don't currently have have access to my gamepad, and my keyboard layout is non-standard in a way that doesn't work at all with the standard mapping (in a Kinesis Advantage way). I remapped it to be able to play at all, but when you don't know how to play properly it gets very hard to figure out a good keyboard mapping. 

I haven't mentioned the fact that from a technical PoV this game feels like a complete and polished package, it just works very well with no fuss, which is absolutely not something you can take for granted. So good job, if you just figure out how to onboard new players, I think you potentially have a winner on your hand! Good luck!

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DryGameDev105 days ago(+1)

Hi Renos,

I am one of the devs on the game - Thank you for taking the time to leave some feedback, I appreciate it. 

What you have outlined is a nice synopsis of our feedback as a whole. I can't disagree with any of it. 

What we have, I think, is technically somewhat unique, and I continue to really like the idea - though its fun is somewhat hidden behind its mastery - somewhat the antithesis of onboarding. The team and I have enjoyed countless hours of running, and really just want to enable others to do the same. 

I was curious; 

- Did you have a read of the 'How to Play' section prior to trying to play the game? - Did you find it unhelpful?/how might you have preferred that information presented?

- Was there a specific element in the visual environment that was obscuring your purpose more than the others?

I am super glad the key re-binding brought someone some utility -> what a pain in the patella.

In a super early build of the game we did actually have a 'tutorial' where the elements get layered in, one at a time. It never felt 'right' -> Honestly I think the trick in our case is integrating the learning into the game's loop, IE as you practice you can use more of your skills to take control of more of the elements but are not required to do so from the outset. 

Thanks for dropping by Renons, 

Feel free to reach out in the future for game dev related bits and pieces!

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Renons105 days ago (3 edits)

Hello again!

So, I took back my gamepad from the kid, discovered that I didn't quite vibe with the default bindings for an XBox style gamepad layout (having all the character controls on the left hand except the jump button, which had to be handled by the block control hand,  didn't work for me at all), but that was easily remedied. And indeed, the game was clearly easier to control this way, and I scored better. I still mostly felt stressed out, not achieving and kind of "flow". I think maybe the game should be way easier to start with in the beginner mode, the actual act of building the road ahead with blocks and jumping on it is actually kind of fun by itself, I don't know that you need the time pressure and adrenaline surge on top of that very quickly.

I did find myself with enough time to actually try and build some lines. There's a real feeling of urgency with building as quickly as possible to get away from the wall of death, and a slight mismatch with the need to construct lines that ultimately destroys your path forward. I think this is good, it makes for important choices.

I don't know that I quite like the way the lines shake as you approach 10 blocks, it does signal danger to the character, which is reasonable, but completing lines is mostly good, and signaling danger for that feels wrong. I would go for something less "stressful" to signal that. On the whole, I think a way for the preview (which is very useful) to clearly show that dropping the block there will indeed remove the line, would be useful. In Tetris it's very obvious when lines are full, with the walls being there... in this game I found myself not having the time to count whether I'll end up with 9 or 10  blocks, which is a crucial difference.

I did indeed look at the "how to play section", both before playing at all, and after playing a bit, at which point I found it more useful, having some frame of reference. And then again later to make sure I understood correctly. Thinking about it I might suggest that something akin to the "dev plays" video should probably make up most of the main menu? To get the player a general feeling for the "shape" of the game to make it easier to understand the actions the "how to play section" refers to. And somehow I missed the "10+" blocks to complete a line text, I think with the general number of... numbers on that screen... my eyes sort of glossed over that piece of information. I'd make it extra big and put it mid-sentence so that it can't be so easily skipped over as "something before the sentence".

I don't know if that was helpful, teaching this game is an interesting challenge.

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Rollmop Games Studio105 days ago

Hi Renons,

Thanks again from the whole team for your feedback here. It is very helpful. As was stated before on-boarding for this particular game has proved rather difficult. Internally we have discussed it as being somewhat akin to learning to juggle. One ball (platforming) is easy enough, two (moving blocks) is maybe a little harder, three balls at a time (platforming and blocks) is extremely difficult without practice. The game is a bit of a throwback to arcade skill-testers so some degree of investment on the player's part to progressively improve is expected but we really do need a better way of easing them into it and encouraging that loop of slow practice and progression. We are working on some ideas towards that end internally but keep running into the issue of needing fresh eyes on the project to test it with. Are there any particular resources you have used in the development of your own games for testing puzzles etc. that you could recommend?

Thank you again for the honest feedback. We will definitely take it onboard.

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Renons105 days ago(+1)

Sounds you're on it, good luck! I don't have much in the way of qualifications, just like thinking about this kind of product design/user experience kind of stuff, so can't help you with the reading I'm afraid.

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