I want to say it's good, but it's not. The controls feel very clunky. I don't know what the people who say it's smooth are smoking. I think it's fixable, but it needs a lot of work.
I don't like that the game eats your inputs when you switch polarity too fast. Switching polarity fast feels cool. Eating inputs feels very not cool.
Having 'e' be both the pickup and throw button is not a good combination if the game also eats your inputs.
The magnet doors are inconsistent. If the magnet is attracted to, and then hits the door, the robot drops the magnet. It doesn't do that for magnet fields. I don't see why it is that way.
Also, why does the door toggle when your magnet hits it? It doesn't seem to make sense from a physics point of view. The magnet is attached to the side that is down, and yet it causes it to move up. If it was the other way around that would make more sense. Having the part that is on top be the magnetized part makes some sense.
Having to use e and f to manipulate the magnet, then arrows and space to move AND the mouse to aim the throws, is not good. I only have two hands, but this game needs three because of the button layout. Just make it so you can aim with the arrow keys or w and s or both. With how limited the throwing is I think you could consider doing away with mouse control all together.
I feel like you never want to NOT pick up the magnet so maybe you don't need a pickup button at all; if you didn't want to pick it up, just drop it again. In fact, you could probably make a puzzle around picking up the right magnet.
Tapping e while holding the magnet and moving ejects the magnet in an unexpected direction - maybe this was a bug, I can't seem to be able to reproduce it.
Bug: while not aiming, the robot doesn't locate the mouse position correctly. If your mouse is in the middle of the screen, because of how the camera works, the robot can start on one side of the mouse and end up on the other side. When you start aiming the robot incorrectly remembers the wrong mouse 'direction' and aims AWAY from the mouse, only snapping when you move the mouse.
Holding the mouse to begin throwing has too much of a delay. Why doesn't the throwing arc appear instantly when you press down?
Does the throwing mode even need a toggle? I also feel like it would be a lot cooler if you could throw while moving. Standing still, pressing and holding e for a while, moving my hand to the mouse, aim, throw, quickly switch my hand back to the arrows, doesn't feel good.
Then the puzzles. I don't know man. I feel like you could do some really cool platformy stuff with magnets. Like switching polarity to glide through a spikey tunnel. Do some spiderman shit with magnets. Avoid being attracted into spikes. Tossing a magnet, falling, picking up another magnet, and attracting to safety. The game seems to shy away from speedy things. I think you did a video about this, but this game feels like it wants to be speedy.
Objects in the game don't feel consistent. There are polarized objects without magnet fields that attract each other but not your magnet? Puzzle 5 or 6(?)
In the first puzzle you need to use the momentum of the magnet by throwing it and switching polarity. That's really cool! Then the next puzzles punish you if you try to do that again.
Like in the puzzle with the floor screws, where the magnet falls just outside of range of the magnet field to be picked back up. That's not very obvious. I got stuck here trying to quickly change the polarity of the magnet so I could jump on the lever platform, thinking that that was the solution. It was not. I feel like my solution was a lot cooler than the actual solution.
There seems to be some kind of physics system, but it doesn't make sense. The magnet is as heavy as a metal counter leaver 10x it's size, and your little robot dude is weightless apparently.
Also, I get that having magnet fields be just a straight box in one direction is easy from a technical point of view, clarity, and puzzle building, but that's just not how magnets work :(
Have you considered giving the robot the ability to attract the magnet? (if it's not already stuck to something). I don't know if that makes sense from a physics point of view, but it would help make the game feel less clunky - and I mean, it's a game about making magnets fly. I feel like the player character should be able to do that!
I feel like this is a cool idea: if you throw the magnet, you recoil in the opposite direction, particularly if you throw it while in the air - you could even use that to have a double jump! (like Yoshi-abuse) You can then instantly attract the magnet back to you, negating both your movement and the magnet's movement. I don't know if that fits in the game, but it feels like it would be cool to be able to do.
I feel like this game has a lot more potential than is currently in the demo. I'd love to see it brought out.