I have to say this is a challenging but satisfying game. It is very hard to complete the level, but it is also satisfying when you do so. I appreciate the color various colors, calming background music, and the visual effects of the game.
I think the designer wants the player to feel challenged because the game experience supposes to be not as simple as just going through the circles. In my opinion, the designer wants the player to be patient in order to succeed. The game includes layers of circle boundaries and strikes (when the player hits the boundary) to make it difficult. The moves are simple: the player could either go clockwise or counter-clockwise in a layer and go through the gap to get to the inner layers. The force that makes player’s victory difficult is the small space between layers and the numerous layers the player needs to go through to win. The player cannot go too fast or otherwise, it increases the chance of hitting the boundary. There are 4 strikes each round, and the player loses when the strike is down to 0. These forces are concrete in my opinion. They are tricking the player to hit the circles. Something that the game is helping me to get through the process is the music. Compared with the intense gameplay itself, the background music is calming and relaxed the gameplay a little.
The main goal of this game is trying to get through the layers to the center. The core verb for this game is the movement of the small red circle. The player uses this verb all the time during the gameplay. The player could interact with the verb either moving it towards the center or ending up hitting the boundary. The player could get a sense of punishment by hitting the boundary. There’s an electrocuted effect with it to remind the dangerousness of this action. However, the player could avoid this punishment by simply not hitting the boundary, but is challenging to do so. Some risky actions can be taken in the game to maybe make the process easier in a sense. For example, the player could bypass a few circles since there are 4 strikes available. But then that will make the process of going through the circle even harder because losing one strike is more crucial.
One suggestion I would like to mention is that the red circle can’t go through some parts of the game. For example, some circled boundaries are not complete on the screen, and it is impossible to go beyond the screen. Also, as the other comment said above, there are some minimal bugs. But they don’t make the game less fun to play! I still enjoyed the gameplay, and I was very excited when I finished the journey. I wish to see more levels too. Maybe the layers could be in different shapes (square, diamonds, etc.), and it could get harder by starting at a far away layer.