Sorry for the confusion. Even if you manage to fill the bar, if the timer turns red or runs out, it will still result in a “bad” outcome.
No offense meant, as I am genuinely asking, but why would you make that a feature originally? What I mean is, why make a portion of the meter effectively fail you the same way that actually failing would? That, to me, makes no sense to start with and confuses me. Because, the way I see it, that's basically like saying the timer is only half what it is. At that point, I would just lower the timer if I wanted less time for people to succeed, not give them the illusion of success. I saw you say you'll be reworking it, so, like I said, I'm genuinely asking to see the logic behind its purpose originally, unless you had planned for outright failure to give a larger negative score impact than the 'bad' and success in green to pay more points than yellow? Because that would make sense to me. Currently, it seems both failing fully and failing in the red are the same minus whatever. And on the other side, yellow and green both give the same. I think, if I am assuming correctly, because you've yet to implement that scoring system fully, that is what is confusing us all.
Edit: I re-installed and tested again. It appears the green DOES give more than the yellow. I got +2 for yellow and +6 for green, but the red and outright failing gave -2 each. Tested on Scene 2 Tifa, thumb on lip/cheek.
Also, as per your request, I tested Windows+up, having forgotten that was a thing since I never use it (which makes me feel embarrassed as a certified techie, but I will admit my failure) and yes, it works as it should for fixing the screen.
To explain the design side of it, hitting the Green zone gives a bonus equal to 3 seconds, Yellow gives 1 second, and Red removes 1 second. Of course, if you are not hitting Perfect consistently, I understand why it can feel like “what is the point?” My intention was simply to reward players who perform better.
The original idea behind the system was to make scoring feel a bit like rhythm games, where hitting Bad might cost score but not necessarily break Combo, for example. During development, I decided to put the Combo idea on hold until I can find a better way to implement it later.
From my own testing, it is possible to clear the minigames without buying upgrades if you play carefully enough, so I felt the balance was acceptable. My thought was that if the game feels too difficult, players could try buying upgrades first. Once all upgrades are unlocked, the game honestly becomes much easier.
That said, I do agree that having Bad (Red zone) and running out of time give the same penalty should not happen. I will definitely fix that.
Ah, then yes, that makes sense. The only issue for me personally, then, is using a laptop touchpad mouse is not very easy to win, even in yellow, without the buffs. I have to hold my left index finger on the left click while moving my right finger on the touchpad. So, like I said, the having to lift off the left click then re-click is a severe time killer. Coupled with sometimes my spin isn't perfect, so I fail to get it to register. But that's more a skill issue than anything lol