Hey Alan,
i’m very proud to be assessed on the “Semi-professional” level your setting. So I want to bring some light on the points you mentioned and give my reflection. This is going to be fun!
The whole “You can’t play it again” is something i was on the fence with till the last minute. Its very brutal and totally not good game design. But i still wanted to add something meta-weird-bad design. One of my all favourite videogames is The Beginner’s Guide. I don’t know if you’ve played it but it’s great and you can see what i was going for.
After seeing everyones response, i see its something i will remove from the game and change it into something else.
And yea you guessed it, the interface and all the assets that were used, were free on the marketplace. Soo yea, nothing self-made. It took a lot of time to adjust the plugins used for my game.
I focussed too much on the ‘Style and Pizzaz’ and adjusting than on a good, functional escape room and great level design.
I’ve watched alot of videos on visual language and i know exactly what it means. It’s something i should have seen coming, and where i didn’t put the amount of effort in it clearly needed.
I didn’t add the additional drawers because i was too scared it would become too cluttered and too confusing. It’s something that could have been easily fixed by some playtests.
Thanks for the in-depth feedback, and thanks for putting in time to write it!