I liked the SFX and the vibe of the wheel. Like another commenter said, it felt like playing a god or powerful magician who can manipulate the sounds of the galaxy. I did find the actual grab and drop interaction frustrating, though. Part of it may be that the cursor's target position is ambiguous and feels off. The look and feel of the hand seems out of place with the rest of the art. Perhaps making the hit box for the star tokens larger could help as well. Also I wanted to be able to drag and drop the stars, rather than click-move-click. And finally, it felt like frequently I would click and just not pick up the star, and I'd have to move back and click again. Or it would not play when I clicked on the center button. It felt like some times it would be in a state where it threw away my input. I played on a laptop with a pretty solid trackpad, I don't think it's a hardware issue or PEBKAC. Regardless, I enjoyed the play through and especially when the last stage loaded in, it felt like "Now you are ready to begin learning, grasshopper," in a good way.
Viewing post in Harmonice jam comments
Thanks for this feedback!
I opened the project again to get to the bottom of it because I actually have similar thoughts about interactions and the cursor targeting.
- Cursor reliability: You aren't the problem! When the placeholder asset was replaced, it looks like cursor offset was not adjusted or placed somewhere not in the visual center of the index finger and thumb. (it's closer to the inside of the hand, past the index finger). Sorry about that! Definitely an oversight.
- Click and drag: It almost made it in to the submission release :{ Personally would have preferred a hybrid, where clicking and continuing to hold for some time is treated as click-and-drag input (so `released` becomes the drop orb trigger, not another `pressed`), while allowing a single click-and-release to be treated as the click-move-click input mode.
- Button clicking: Same issue as the cursor target, but a little worse because the button does not have the same padded interaction area that orbs do. Orbs have about twice their radius as interaction targets.
I love that you appreciated the ending and that all of the affordances made it clear exactly what you were being provided! I was worried that sliding up two more trays of orbs would send mixed signals about it being a harder puzzle, and not a free-play mode.
Appreciate the thoughtful feedback :)