itch.io

It's interesting that the spawners came across like that! :O They actually do spawn things- the yellow circles are separate things they're spawning above them, and they destroy themselves and add to your score when you touch them. I should probably have made them smaller? But I don't know if it would have come across right either way, since now that I'm looking at it, it does look like lights going on and off. If they were moving, or if they dropped a bit onto a surface instead of popping into existence, it could come across better, but... maybe I'll just fully swap it to a 'capture the flags' sort of mechanic instead of a 'pick things up' one. This level would play pretty much exactly the same, the final sprites could be way more interesting, it could be optimized (since the game would pretty much only have to deal with half as many objects), it could make for more interesting challenges (tricky platforming, 'stand here for a while', etc), and each spawner could run on its own timer like I originally imagined, instead of relying on the janky global timer I resorted to when I couldn't figure out how to make individual instances command themselves independently right T_T

Expanding paths as you get more points is a good idea. I'd thought of opening passageways lead to a 'higher risk higher reward' type area, with more difficult jumps and trickier enemies. Unlocking passageways in the same space would work too, though, and put more focus on speed and efficiency. Both would do well as a more permanent sort of progression, since I can't think of a way to kick you out of the area or close the gates when you don't have 'enough' points without it either being awkward or potentially trapping the player. (If you only had one level to focus on, keeping your points up would be easy, but once there's multiple levels, your points for every character other than the one you're focusing on will decay slowly, so I'll have to keep that in mind as well...)

As for that button, it was half 'you get a reward for keeping your points at least above 10' and half 'I have to include it at some point because a) i drew the sprites and want to use them and b) it's the whole point of the game, but I really don't want to jump through the hoops to make only some dialogue change her sprite when she's clicked' tbth ^^' Plus, the button just made sense once it was there- given both the context of the dialogue it causes and the way I coded it, I could easily make it spam-clickable without feeling out of place or breaking shit, and also it keeps that side of the screen from looking too blank. I doubt it could serve much of a gameplay purpose, at this point at least.

A map is a good idea! I'd originally gone for, like, those 'you are tiny and navigating a big world' vibes, but the zoom level I went for with the camera in the end (none) doesn't lend itself to that very much, since you can see just enough to be frustrated. It wouldn't be very difficult to add, either, since I could just take a screenshot of the map and then have it pop up- that's definitely on the updates shortlist :D 

Thank you so much for your feedback!! You gave me so many good ideas :')