itch.io

Just wanted to update I managed to work out the solution to the puzzle I couldn't before, but entirely by accident while trying another solution and it was the least satisfying puzzle aside from the first one in the tutorial (which after doing it again is quite hard to do even when knowing as the movement has to be so specific). I've also just learned that the aiming is controlled by the mouse, but again it was by accident and should be explained in the tutorial. It's still quite hard to throw accurately and could be tweaked further.

I still think it's really promising though and hope my feedback was useful.

My first thought when i started playing was that it feel really smooth to control. I loved the jump and it felt right. I don't think it should be much higher if at all. 

I struggled a bit with the controls because F and E look so similar I would often change the polarity instead of picking up/dropping/throwing the magnet. That might be because I'm not used to keyboard controls, but accessibility wise it might be hard to differentiate for people with dyslexia. 

The tutorial was good, but could afford to be a bit longer. It took me a long time to realise I could jump and throw the magnet because you can only do it if you aim first then jump. Maybe take the time to explain that or change it so you can do it either way as it was really frustrating because I knew what to do, but couldn't work out the way the controls wanted me to do it. I also only realised I could cancel a throw when trying to change the settings and that should definitely be included in the tutorial.

The line when throwing seems a bit redundant if you can't properly aim before you throw. This should definitely be a feature in the final game since it's more based on guess work and doesn't feel as good to control. I'm not sure if this is a feature already, but when I tried to toggle the different options the game stopped working. I don't know which option caused which option but at first I could only throw the magnet in one direction, then I could only drop it or pick it up. I played on the mac version so I'm not sure if it applies on the others, but even when restarting the level the problem persisted so I could only use the default. Whether this was a bug or not or there is actually an angled aiming system, this is another thing that should be included in the tutorial. Maybe it could be mapped to the arrow keys/d-pad or the mouse/right joystick (I think that's the one I mean) to prevent too many buttons overlapping uses.

The levels were all well designed. I managed to get through all of them except final door before the one that required six keys. I'm not great at puzzle games and usually use tutorials, so I'm not sire if it's due to that or if it needed a clearer design, but all of the others definitely gave me the "aha" moment you said you were looking for in your videos.

The door system is good and I like being able to do them in any order (even though I went in order anyway), but I think throwing the magnet to get in definitely felt a bit clunky and weird, especially since I had to jump to throw it each time. Maybe it would be better to press a button prompt to enter it and come out of the level you just entered rather than going back to the start each time because I feel like that will get frustrating as more levels are added into each world. A similar system to New Super Mario Bros on the DS could work instead, but without the birds eye view perspective.

The design is good, but a bit confusing at first. When I couldn't get through the tutorial I thought I was throwing the magnet at the wrong thing seeing "+" and "-" on the walls. I think the blank space around the level could afford to look a bit more mechanical or have the patterns repeated a bit more just to make it clearer to less experienced players.

I have a suggestion for later levels. The polarity changing is a really great feature and the gameplay definitely feels centred around the magnet. I remember you saying in one of your videos that you wanted the magnet to be called to the player and maybe you could include switch the polarity of the player to attract the magnet back to them. 

Overall this was a really good and professional feeling demo. Aside from the things I mentioned it was really good and I'm really looking forward to any future demos or the final game. I hope you found my feedback useful and are able to use it for future development.