What did this game do well?
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This game is very fun! It's a game I find myself playing over and over to beat my old score. I like the idea, and it's very fun to bounce around and get as many points as possible. The incentive of the game seems good.
The objects in the game are clearly color-coded to show their function. This is especially true with the player's ball, which contrasts well. I understand to avoid the red ball quickly, and the other rules of the game are understandable simply through playing.
I liked the interesting mechanism where the ball the player is controlling spins around and you have to time it well so the ball goes in the direction you want it to go. The score is a good incentive for keeping players in replaying the game. I also like how there are different types of balls that gives you different amount of point, and that the smaller (blue) ball gives you a higher score. The text pop up that appears when the player ball (white) collides with it helps indicate the difference in score, which is really helpful.
I really liked the usage of putting the ball in a fixed loop to account for minimalist controls (only the space bar). It allows the player to have a way to aim and shoot with one button press based off of their own timing and skill. I thought the visuals were easy to understand and the game was very approachable.
It did well in making the direction of the ball circular instead of a linear motion which added more speciality to the game
The game stuck to the requirements of only using one button control and it had funny SFX.
This games core mechanic is very unique and its fun trying to reach a high score
I really like the backgrounds and images used, and I think the sound effects were fun and enjoyable.
I think this game had great game feel as well as minimalism. The gameplay is fun and very satisfying, and the group did well at programming a great simple game.
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What could this game have done better?
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I think the sound playing in the background is random, and I don't really understand it's purpose. I feel like it would make more sense to have a sound play every time I hit a ball that gives me points, so I can better understand how my score in increasing. It would also be cool in future levels to have the red ball get harder to avoid.
The control method feels somewhat awkward, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since that can be part of the fun of a game. There could still be more clarity to help the player, such as an arrow that shows which direction the player is going. The game could also start simpler, with only a green ball, and add mechanics over time to ease the player in.
The path the red ball (which leads to a game over) does not change (it just goes in a straight line). I think it would be better if the red ball has randomized pathing just like the tennis ball and the blue ball. This would give more incentive to move the player ball as the player ball right now can achieve points as long as it goes nowhere near the red ball. A form of difficulty increase would also be good (such as speeding up the movement of the blue, red and tennis balls) to add more spice to the challenge.
The core idea is nice, but with only the one level and fixed amount of interactables/speed, the game is currently easy to 'break'. For example, since the only hazard was on the bottom of the stage on a fixed loop, I was able to navigate my ball to the top of the stage away from it and maintain a very horizontal bouncing pattern by holding space, since it keeps the ball in a non-stop launch. Either additional hazards or variables to the stage and objects, or introducing a cooldown/time restriction on the space bar movement ability could prevent this type of 'breaking'.
They should have added more graphics to it.
The gameplay is unclear. The circular movement of the ball is confusing and it isn't clear initially what the point circles are and what the damage circles are
It doesn't feel like the player has a lot of control most of the time you just have to wait and hope that an opportunity to score lines up perfectly
I think that there needs to be a little more incentive to click at a certain time rather than to just spam to get points.
However, the inclusion of the stamina bar and the dash kind of cluttered the experience. I think that just using the pause to avoid the obstacles could have worked to detract from this, or eliminating the dash feature instead.