Here comes a long list of feedback I thought of when playing the game (don't get me wrong though, I still enjoyed your game):
- It's not clear you can press ESC to go back from the Options screen
- A bit awkward using mouse and keyboard when the UI is designed for controllers as well (i.e. the red selected areas), you could probably improve the selection system for both input methods. Stephen's Sausage Roll solves this problem by not having you use the mouse at all, although I don't think that's a very viable option here since the gameplay requires the mouse.
- Use W for jump - I find Space to be very unintuitive (though I haven't played many platformers myself so for all I know Space is the default key) (also I know there is keyboard remapping but still, you might want to consider making W the default key instead)
- I am aware the game is still in development and thus audio can be added later, but still, adding in a few basic sound effects created using sfxr or your voice can make the game feel a lot more "alive". It might also not be such a bad thing to add some audio this early in the game's development, as you can also get some feedback on the audio. Off-topic, but during game jams, sometimes it can also be a good idea to create the audio early on, instead of leaving it till the end, almost as an afterthought (though I haven't followed that advice myself...so feel free to take it with a pinch of salt).
- In the tutorial, the Carry Magnet button shows up as a "question mark" button instead of LMB (maybe it's asking me to...Question Mark?)
- *I feel that the magnet throwing controls can be designed better, it wasn't apparent to me that I could press Q to disable aim mode (so I spent the whole game throwing the magnet around). For me, I might try something like LMB to both carry magnet and release it (press it once to carry it, press it again to release it), and RMB to toggle aim mode (so once you carry the magnet you can press RMB to turn off aim mode, or have aim mode off by default and press RMB to turn it on, though you will have to make it clear in the tutorial). Personally, I think it isn't a good idea to have the player hold the LMB for the whole duration that the player is holding the magnet, which is why I thought of the controls I just mentioned.
- Also, to add on to the previous point, I realised once you press Q or RMB to exit aim mode, you can't toggle it back on unless you release the magnet, as re-entering aim mode requires pressing the LMB, which requires you to release it first and hence drop the magnet.
- I found the magnetic beams a bit confusing at first regarding the charges, I wasn't sure the floating pluses indicate the magnet should be a plus to attract or that the "polarity" is a plus and my magnet thus needs to be a minus to attract - I think that is a consequence of the magnetic beam "source" having a different sign from the signs on the magnetic beam itself (if the source says minus but the beam is filled with pluses, must my magnet be a plus or minus?). Maybe you could show the trajectory in aim mode going towards the magnet beam "source" when it is the right polarity.
- To add on to the previous point, you could also consider switching out the '+' and '-' symbols for 'N' and 'S'. Then it becomes much more intuitive for us since we have all learned in school that unlike poles attract, like poles repel (hey, you could add that as a feature into the game too - if the magnet and something else are the same colour they repel each other). That unfortunately also means you likely have to remove the option that like charges attract, but if this allows players to pick up the concept much better I would say that is a win. (I guess the idea behind this is that if the game uses something they learned in school, then it reduces the information load while learning the game, thus making it easier to learn.) After all, you are making a game about magnets, why not use North and South Poles as well instead of charges?
- Left Ctrl doesn't restart the level for me... (On a side note I think it might be better to use R for restart.)
- The right-angle door mechanic feels very satisfying, and I can see the mechanic's immense potential given how it is used in some of the puzzles.
- The player movement generally felt quite nice, though I might have liked the player speed to be a little faster, but just a little (since this is a puzzle platformer, maybe you could add an option to adjust player speed?). I believe you could do a bit of fine-tuning to get it to Celeste-level smooth, but then again that's up to you.
- The puzzles generally seemed quite nice, I especially liked Levels 2, 5, and 6. Level 3 felt a bit easy to me so maybe you could switch it with Level 2...?
- I suggest you could add checkpoints or design levels with less dead ends, it's too annoying to keep having to restart when you reach a state with no possible moves i.e. the player and magnet both get stuck (this sometimes happens by accident e.g. falling off a platform). Or you could consider implementing an undo system, although that would understandably be very hard for a puzzle platformer.
- An idea I had is to design the whole game's UI around the magnet theme e.g. make the menu screen use a magnet to indicate the currently selected option (like the fork in Stephen's Sausage Roll's menu), have the level transitions involve magnets more so than just a symbol - one idea I have is the magnet character entering from the right, then pulling in a black screen from the left, then making it switch polarity, allowing the black screen to exit from the left revealing the new level (followed of course by the magnet's own departure from the screen).
- Have the magnet fall from the green pipe only when you get close to it, so you know it is there to deposit magnets. A BoxCollider2D with Is Trigger set to true should do the trick.
- I feel that the Level Hub design could be improved, it feels a bit extra to have to throw the magnet into the pipe and then stand next to the door to go into the level (why not just have one action to enter the level? Say, throwing the magnet or standing next to the door and pressing a key.)
These are the feedback I have. I know it's a long list, and most of it is negative, but I hope you can take it constructively, and would like to reiterate that I still enjoyed the game despite its flaws. You should be proud of having created this for your first ever game (you can check out my own games on my itch.io page, I genuinely think your game is better than some of mine.)
With that being said, I remember one of your videos covered something about how to listen to feedback, and it mentioned how players understand the problems but not necessarily the solutions (or something along those lines, I can't really remember). Maybe you could take that to heart, and while I proposed a lot of solutions here you don't have to implement them the way I said it. I hope you can continue to take this game further.