Heyy! Here to deliver a quick UX audit after 15 minutes of gameplay (both in browser build and downloadable build via itch launcher):
- At first, the title screen feels a bit cluttered with UI buttons, which creates significant visual and cognitive load before the player has even started the game, specially considering the player has to hover over the buttons to determine their function, adding further friction.
- Playing the browser build (in Opera web browser ver. 135.0.5973.92), the game doesn't allow me to choose a mode and instead sends me to a map where I get softlocked when speaking to the NPCs, and only a "Shift Reality" prompt is shown, but the space bar or enter hasn't caused any reaction. When I restart the build, it takes me to the last checkpoint (which the game doesn't show or explain to be a checkpoint) and that mechanic has caused me to get softlocked in a puzzle, which brought me to try the downloadable build.
- Upon opening the downloadable build, the game prompts the player to choose a mode, which is easier to understand than the browser build.
- The onboarding sequence felt correct at presenting the mechanics and controls. However, I couldn't quite assimilate the controls at first, and the visual elements aren't distinctive enough from each other for me to avoid getting killed by the shiny blocks haha. Sometimes NPC dialogue got triggered just by me walking by them, which became a nuisance when I had no other way to navigate the map.
- On a personal note, I think that pressing the Space Bar should advance the text, not skip it completely. I missed a bunch of dialogues because I'm used to advancing through text quickly but the game closed the dialogue box before I could read what was happening. I would also change the font to better match the game's aesthetic.
- The "Challenge Found" feedback felt arbitrary, since I didn't know how exactly I triggered it and I didn't know what the challenge meant. However, the "Secret Found" feedback was quite more rewarding and easier to understand.
- I felt at some points that the way to solve the puzzles was counter-intuitive. For example, I moved a block to fill a two-block gap, and yet the gap was shown as completely filled. Therefore, I didn't feel like I could rely on that knowledge to continue the puzzles.
- The "Main Mission" goal didn't catch my attention when it appeared, so I only found it by chance after spending some time exploring the map without clear guidance.
Overall, this looks like a really interesting puzzle game, and I really like the core loop of switching between two maps to find the way to solve them. Looking forward to the next build!
