itch.io

I'm guessing what they mean by "lack focus" is that they don't really have "solutions" as much as "tactics". I think this is almost more of a fighting game than a puzzle game (once you work out the initial mechanics). Which is fine - after all it is branded as a boxing game - but the PuzzleScript presentation kind of suggests it's a puzzle game.

In a normal puzzle game you have a specific set of steps to achieve a goal, whereas here you just kind of amble around until things line up in the right position and then you execute, and it may take several tries for things to line up (similar to how you might approach a combat in a Street Fighter).

Mostly the latter; I felt that the puzzles overall weren't too interesting. And in this case, that might have more to do with how I experienced the game than with the puzzle design itself. Since the puzzles are easy to brute force, it's very possible that players will play through the game without thinking very much. It's a shame, because there's some pretty cool ideas showcased that one can only understand by actively solving the puzzles. Levels 10 and 11 are both well designed, for example, yet I still only really understood half of the logic. They both present a core problem very clearly (ie. ghost has no time to K.O. boxer on the right side of the hole), which imo is a sign of good design, but I stumbled into the solution too easily to really appreciate how it all works.

Perhaps the problem is that the mechanics cap the puzzles at a level of quality that I think you've already achieved. They don't allow for a huge amount of logical potential, and they don't allow for specific enough solutions that would force the player to truly think about the puzzles. I don't really see how one could shift more of the players focus onto the logical process without editing the mechanics in some way.

Edit: just saw the post about this as a fighting game, if it's not really meant to be a puzzle game then disregard my comments