Can't express how happy I am you enjoyed this game so much :D , and thanks so much for the thorough feedback :).
Definitely wanted the kind of community and/or friendly competitive option available for this kind of game, so I'm glad you're happy for that option too.
- Thanks, my goal throughout refining its presentation was definitely balancing the clarity and simple presentation besides giving it some personality and atmosphere that wouldn't make it feel more busy. Trying to help the player but not backfire and make it feel more intimidating than it was. This is where it was day 2
Not sure a custom background could add any value to it, but might consider if a playerbase grows for it when it reaches mobile of unlocking after getting a score under 50% an option to strengthen and change the color of the backdrop kind of glow which wouldn't be too difficult and wouldn't break the games presentation.
- Thanks a lot. It's definitely there to make it more dynamic, and so the locations of blocks can end up in more varied locations throughout play and evolve the board state more and options more. I'd rather not need you to click an arrow to see where a cube is going because that hurts the pacing, but I do want a final addition to make room in a settings menu for 'extra edge clarity', that would mark numbers around the board too so you know number>number.
Glad the theme/gameplay clicked for you :) .
- Glad to hear that, I think music is one of the most challenging things to get right for puzzle games, so I was happy when I eventually found that and felt it right for this game. Nice to know it worked well for you too.
:D real glad to hear the sound effects were satisfying and rewarding, that was the goal! Designing the explosion was one of the toughest sounds as I was looking for something that gave a lot of impact because it was an important interaction in the game, and felt very much like an explosion, but with the slightest hint of cute kind of haha. Nice to know they achieved their goal.
- An important goal for me at the start was to finish a proper tutorial for the game, so it's a relief to see it has worked well. It was a balancing act of what did the player absolutely need to know without making it feel like more was happening than actually was, and what interactions could they find out and get more experience with during play. But then giving them that first experience still inside the tutorial and a concrete first objective. Reassuring to hear it clicked together well for you.
- :D real happy to hear so. I'm not sure a 'difficulty' would really work for this experience, because that might imply in this puzzle-kind of gameplay that there was a solution, rather than a challenge unlike an action game, and would break up the simplicity of the daily/seeds/scoring streaks . A lot more layers of interface would need to be added and complicate its core.
I have however already designed some intentional balance in the board generation, to keep it more fair and not just completely random. There will always be the 4 first arrows spawned in the upper/right/lower/left area of the board before 2 random ones in random locations, so you can have a variety of boards, but you won't end up with a really bad board where all the arrows are stuck together in one corner for example. And besides that there's always 3 of every value + 2 random values.
I can't get this grin off my face :D . It means a lot to me for players to get joy from my games, so hearing all this really makes me so happy. Part of my goal at the start of the gamejam too was to make a game that felt so compact and final but valuable, that adding, removing, or changing any part just wouldn't feel natural, so hearing your final note makes me really glad. Honored to hear that praise, but importantly thanks a lot for playing and taking the time for this feedback, and I hope you'll be getting more fun out of it on mobile in the future or whenever you first come back to it :) .