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Need some feedback from others

A topic by Mentats created May 13, 2023 Views: 152 Replies: 2
Viewing posts 1 to 2
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Been working on this small mini-golf game for less than a month and was wondering what was other's thoughts on the progress I've currently made. There are roughly 41 levels so far, and they should be relatively short. Feel free to list any flaws, bugs or changes that could be made to improve the player experience.


Link to the game: Relativitee

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Playing this game was an interesting experience. Its nice to see some of the little details that you thought of which although small, they add to the player experience in a positive way. Although I didn't see most of the levels it is also nice to know that you put in the effort of making 41 levels, that's a lot. Great Job!

I only got to the 3rd level but I'll list the thoughts that I had while playing the game in the order that I had them so you can understand what I was feeling as I played from the players perspective...

When opening the game the first thing I noticed was that it is a browser game. I feel that this is a great way to get people playing the game quicker as it takes out the hassle of downloading it. I appreciated this because I could get into the game right away.

I then noticed the choice of music which I thought had a nice beat to it.

The UI animations on the main menu was a nice touch. This is one of those small details that I feel adds to the player experience because it makes the game feel a little more "official" so to speak.

Upon starting the first level I was a bit confused about what to do, but I decided to start clicking around and semi-intuitively figured out the drag and release mechanic of the game. However, I feel that some of the problems – including this one – that I faced could easily have been solved by making the first level be a simple tutorial.  A few fun looking art work text labels would likely have sufficed to help me understand the first mechanic of the game as well as my first objective to complete the first level easier.

I noticed that if you drag the stick back too far it flips directions which caused me to hit it the ball in the wrong direction a few times.

It took me about 20 hits to finish the first level as I randomly hit the ball around trying to see if there was some invisible hole that I needed to find or if I needed to take it to the edges of the map to traverse to a new level. Needless to say I was completely confused about what I needed to do lol. Then suddenly the level finished and I was not sure why. So I moved on to the next level.

In the second level there is a line on the left side that looks just the line when that is visible when you pull back to hit the ball, it looked like it didn't belong there.

It was kind of funny to discover after a few minutes of playing the second level that I needed to rotate the map to see the goal. I realized this by briefly glancing down at the game description to find help since I was confused, but I feel that this could have also been explained in a simple text tutorial.

Idea: Adding a tutorial would help but also consider simplifying the first few levels. What I mean by this is that perhaps the first level could have a tutorial to introduce the drag and release mechanic and the first level would be solved by putting the ball in a nearby and already visible hole. Then the second level could have a tutorial to introduce the rotation mechanic of the game. Basically the idea is to progressively introduce new concepts rather then making them available all at one time. Learning these new mechanics also adds a sense of reward that you now have a new method of solving the puzzles. Adding more mechanics like this could make the game more interesting as you continue to complete levels, this way it's not like your doing the same thing for 40 levels. Adds some variety.

When I was about to hit the ball around the edge I was afraid that it would suddenly launch with unexpected speed but it was nice to see that there was a nice and seamless transition. Good Job on that functionality :)

In the first level it was slightly disturbing but by the second level it was more annoying that after each shot I had to wait a seemingly long time for no reason before I could hit the ball again. Is there a reason why there is a delay? If so, then making that reason more apparent would make the delay more reasonable but otherwise reducing or taking away the delay would make the game feel a lot smoother.

Another small detail that I appreciated is that the ball changes colors when you are not directly looking at it  but due to the perspective of the game it didn't make it immediately obvious to me that this was the reason why it was changing colors. In fact, now knowing about the rotation mechanic on the second level and seeing the ball change colors because of that... I recall seeing the ball change colors in the first level but I didn't know what this meant either as I never rotated the first level to discover this. Although I say that this mechanic is hard to notice because of the perspective of the game, I don't feel that the perspective of the game needs to change (it just a side effect) but perhaps making the "dither color" more of a darker greyish color to indicate that it is not visible may be more intuitive.

I then progressed to the 3rd level after 14 shots and accidentally clicked somewhere that caused the strength of the pull to be maxed out but I also could not reduce it, I tried to cancel the shot but I was unable to. Also I feel that the ball stops sooner then you would expect it to, perhaps this can become more predictable with experience from progressing down more levels, but perhaps making the roll be a bit more smoother or prolonged would also make the strength estimation be a bit more intuitive.

Lastly I would also say that the game needs more feedback and reward. The idea I mentioned above can add to this but basically what I'm trying to say is that it would be easy for a game like this to get boring after the first few levels, unless it had something unique that the  player could desire. I'm not sure what you would do for more feedback and reward but that is some food for thought. Particles, Hoo-ray music after getting the goal, extra points for getting the shot in less shots, changing the environment as you continue to the next levels, and more could be some ideas for reward and feedback.

Idea: I recall that in my initial confusion of trying to figure out why I was hitting the ball, I hit it to the edge of the map thinking that I needed to traverse to the next level some how, perhaps this could be an actual aspect of the game, it would add a reward mechanism to the game by allowing the player to see their progress via moving along in the environment and seeing new things as they move along. Then as they traverse the levels they could collect coins, find secret routes, etc...


I hope something of this was helpful, but overall great job! The fact that you gave it a decent main menu, art work, and music, great job. It definitely has the makings of a well rounded and complete game. It gave me the feel of playing on one of those free online web browser games from when I was younger "minclip", "y8", "kongregate" and others. Also I imagine that you must've put a lot of work into the game mechanics in general, great job for that also.

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Wow! I honestly was not expecting such great feedback, and appreciate the effort that went into it. You have some amazing ideas that I could implement. I didn't think about adding a tutorial, but it does make a lot of sense; the same applies with with adding new game mechanics as the game progresses and/or when switching courses.

This would, like you said, create variety for the player instead of feeling like they are playing the same game mechanics over and over for 40+ levels. The only difference I have between courses, or group of levels, is different music & background (and gravity depending on the course). So, I can definitely look into adding some new mechanics to mess around with. I really like your idea about adding some kind of collectable (such as coins as you mentioned) that could be used to change the ball aesthetically, such as the color of the ball and/or hats and such.

I also greatly appreciate any bugs you've found. I've played through and tried to find and squash any bug that I could find prior to releasing it to the public. But, I guess I must have missed a couple or few when play-testing.

I will definitely take your feedback to heart and improve on this prototype.