Overall:
Genuinely polished presentation with smart graphic design decisions throughout.
What Worked Well:
- Visual Design: The title menu looks great in fullscreen. Color choices are tasteful, the floating square particles are a nice touch, and the use of negative space and layout is solid. The subtle waviness on "Created by ArchiusDev" and the gentle float on "START RUN" to signal it as the priority action are both smart. Using color exclusively on Start/Tutorial/Exit is good hierarchy thinking.
- Music: Reminds me of Machinarium. Really nice.
- Writing: "Meet The Chess Player. Brilliant at chess. Bewildered by mancala. They like predictable moves." That's tasteful copy. I like your writing style.
- Tutorial Presentation: The way elements get highlighted during the guided tutorial is nice, and the subtle yellow glow around the tip modal is a good detail. The tonal pitch going down with sequential items works well too.
- The Compendium: Cool section.
Areas for Improvement:
- Tutorial Effectiveness: The tutorial looked pretty but didn't actually give me any understanding of the game. I just clicked through stuff in-game and got bored. The guided format needs to do more actual teaching.
- Tutorial UX: A back button to review previous tips would help a lot. The tutorial modal is also quite small relative to the fullscreen game board and hard to read.
- How to Play Modal: The height changes between section tabs, which feels jarring. A consistent size would be much cleaner.
- Run Ended Screen: The design language doesn't match the polish of the rest of the game. Worth bringing it up to the same standard.
- Menu Button Feedback: Hover and click states on the menu buttons could use simple sound effects.