Hey there! Great little game, I did not play the first MVP but from following along with the series it seems like your puzzle design has gotten a lot better cause these were overall really fun to play and most of the solutions gave me a nice 'oh!' moment.
Some sticking points and potential diagnoses of them:
- The most I got stuck on a puzzle was room two when I didn't realize the magnet would fall through the semi platform.
- I realize this was taught to me in the level before and also in the tutorial but it still did not seem intuitive enough for it to be a possibility.
- Perhaps this was just me! But as I was diagnosing the problem a bit more, I remembered some feedback you mentioned from the first MVP that the physical properties of object didn't have consistency (or something to that effect, objects behaved differently in different situations). That seems to have been achieved in this iteration but does the visual style of the objects reinforce how they will behave in an intuitive way?
- To me the semi platforms being what looks like metal bars doesn't communicate effectively that magnets will pass through while the player can stand on them, in the same way that say in Portal the laser fields will allow the player to move through but will disintegrate cubes, turrets, etc. Of course you are shown this but it also just kinda makes intuitive sense visually.
- This is a minor thing in the grand scheme but perhaps this thought process of 'does the visual style of this mechanic or object help the player understand what it does or does it confuse them?' may be helpful for other parts of development
- The amount of times I got soft locked was a bit frustrating. A rewind feature like I saw suggested elsewhere would be great or designing levels where this is less of a possibility.
- Playing I didn't really get attached to the characters, I was just doing the puzzles. I think potentially some nice polish to add as the game moves on is some animations to bring me into the emotions of this little robot.
- A squishing animation when the block get dropped on them, a sad face when the magnet gets disintegrated, a hard reboot turning off the robot's monitor, as they fall over deactivated when I restart a level, and most importantly a nice little dance or something when I solve the puzzle!
- Those little things will bring me into the plight of this tiny robot and their magnet and make me enjoy each victory that much more.
Thanks, looking forward to the next iteration!