itch.io

What do you mean by "Platforming is challenging in a bad way for a puzzle-platformer?"

Okay, I see now that the crates are used in order to re open the vaults.

Then I think that the crates should be opened when you type in the password. Because it was not clear to me that that is what the crates were being used for.

But when it comes to moving the gems downward. Yes, you can tap on the main part to move the gems downward, but once you are able to move the gems around all directions, I expect to be able to move the gems downward the same way. It isn't super clear that you are supposed to tap on the main part to move them downwards as the actual way to move them.

This was really good. You probably should specify which models you used from Kenny Assets

But if it is all of them, then I can't really complement the visuals, since you didn't make them. But it was still a really cool game, it did have some good atmosphere. And despite there being no real introduction or anything, it was pretty easy to figure out what to do. And it also helps given the ending and the fact that you are trying to sort of forget everything, so not knowing what is going on at the start is actually a plus.

I do think that some of the locations of things is a little bad. The bag with the barcode was kind of hidden in a way that wasn't super fun and the hydraulics were just impossible to find in my opinion.

I also found out that you can clip out of the train if you rub yourself against the wall in between the storage areas and the passenger part of the passenger train car.

Also, while I do like the use of both a loupe and a time loop, I don't really understand the actual plot significance of the time loop or the monster that kills you at the end of the time loop.
I think what would have been maybe better is instead of a monster killing you, you leave the train car and you are presented with some kind of happy ending because you forgot the incident that happened before it cuts to black and you are forced to play through it again until you find everything relating to that incident.

But overall, it is a solid game, and if it was expanded on a little bit further. Like with some dialogue and with more cars and more of a plot. I could see this being an actual game.

The concept is interesting.

While I do prefer escape rooms having multiple objects and figuring out what to do with it. I do really like the concept of being able to zoom further into an object and finding more things within that object.

However, I do have issues. First of all, while I do like this concept, I think a big issue with it is that it doesn't give a good visual as to how far you are into finishing the escape room
In a normal escape room, most items have one function in the room and once they are used, they aren't used again. This allows you to easily cross off what you have and haven't used yet and give you a better visualizer for how much longer the room may take. With this approach, of you constantly getting more stuff to keep zooming into this crystal, it isn't clear how close you are to actually finishing the game. Which can make someone want to quit if they don't actually feel like they are making any real progress.

Second, some kind of explanation as to why you are there and what you are trying to do there, would help me be more interested in trying to get to the end of the game.

Third, some kind of music would be nice, in addition to clicking of the buttons for the keypad.

Now on to the actual things in the game.

Finding the spot to crack for the crystal was hard for me to spot and not super clear that that was a thing to click on. I think this is because of how out of the way it is. Which isn't a great start to the game when the player is still trying to figure out what they are supposed to be doing in the game.

I only got to the morse code puzzle, but the crates doing something when you click on them, but also not doing anything at the same time seems like not a great idea if they don't do anything by the end of the game. But if they do something then it probably is a good idea for them to be clickable.

When you open the safe, right clicking closes the safe and you can no longer open the safe with the old code. At least to me, there doesn't appear to be a way to see both pieces of paper in the same playthrough when you open the safe for the first time. And this means that you can't view the paper again, which isn't great considering that one of the pieces of paper, is a solution to the next puzzle. So that would already be bad however, you can open the safe, right click without clicking on anything, be unable to open the safe again, and did not pick up the 2x upgrade, softlocking you.
The code should be used to reopen the safe again.

When it comes to moving the gems around, its pretty clunky. It doesn't feel very satisfying to click on the edges of them and move them around. I think it would have been better to have it so, when it hold down the mouse button, the gem moves to your cursor, and then when you release the button, it no longer does so.
That would have felt better.
In addition, it did not seem like you could move the gems downwards, which was annoying

Lastly, I could not solve the morse code puzzle. I did not understand what to do. I woke all the gems up and was able to move them. But moving them upwards didn't seem to do anything, as in, they would move up and then move back down and that's it.
Also, the smaller gems could go into other bigger gems, which I don't know if that was intentional or not, but given how buggy it was when trying to move the bigger gems with multiple smaller gems inside of them, I'm going to assume it wasn't.
I think some kind of hint similar would have been nice about the smaller gems and what to do with them would have been nice.

I totally agree, it's kind of a fundamental problem with the concept of this game and how it was made.

Because it was made in 3D with a fixed camera, there were going to be weird perspectives.

And the camera had to be fixed because if you had the camera move on the Y axis to keep the player in frame, then you would never be able to wrap around on the Y axis, unless you wanted to stop the camera movement at some point, but unless you build the level properly, could hurt readability of the level. (Though admittedly, this is an idea that I just came up with which actually wouldn't hurt the concept that much, just that it might have been more work to make levels for than I might have wanted to for a gamejam.) (But this concept could be more annoying in a bigger level that is moving the camera both on the Y and X axis) 

Additionally, if you had the camera move to specific spot at specific points in the level, this could also hurt readability. Since you would think you could wrap around when planning out where to go, and then suddenly the camera moves, throwing everything off. 

Though I think if I was to come back to this idea, I would probably have the camera follow the players Y axis to make it better to see, but still allow the player to wrap around the X and Z axis. Since I realized after making the levels just how little I really used the Y warping stuff. I did like some of it, especially what I did on level 3. But ultimately, probably would be a fine enough sacrifice for a more playable game. 

It's a decent concept of a game.
However, there are many problems which I found with the game.
1. Moving puts you at a disadvantage, which means that sitting still and waiting for the enemy to come to you and then attacking at them is a better strategy. Which you could argue is maybe part of the puzzle is figuring that out. But I would counter with that, not using a game mechanic shouldn't be the solution.

2. The enemy has the same amount of health as you. This means, that if you can get the first hit on him, and he can't hit you on the first turn, then you immediately win. Which isn't super interesting. I think it is fine to have the enemy have the same amount of health at first, but having more health in later levels would be good, which leads me to my next problem.

3. There aren't any other levels. This first level is pretty good at introducing the concept, but having more levels could have be good. Again, having enemies with more health could be interesting. Having blocks in the way or things like water which slow your movement or ice which force the cursor to continue in that direction over the ice, could have been cool. Another thing is having multiple enemies, but allowing the player to also move multiple times, creating more strategic levels as well.

4. It is unclear at first what mode you are in and whatnot. I think that it is not super necessary to have you select the character first and then choose where to go, since you only have 1 player character. Maybe if there were multiple player characters, this would be better, but so far, that isn't the case. It would also be nice to either show where your character is going to move or attack when you select it. Because if you select and then move the cursor, it can be unclear where you are going. I think what would be better is if the cursor is gray, then turns orange when you select the player and are moving the cursor (maybe it turns to a more red-ish orange if you are in attack range instead), and then you press space to select what tile you want to do your action on and then turns green if you selected a space to walk to, or red if you selected a space to attack, and you can't move the cursor again unless you hit space again.

5. You don't have an actual range, you just have a counter of how many moves you made. This means that if you go back, you lose a move you could have made. Because if you move three spaces forward and then move a space back, it will count that has 4 moves made even though you are only 2 spaces away. You should have an actual area around the character instead of a counter.

6. The cursor should also be red if you are attacking the enemy when he is close to you, instead of it being green, because it makes it unclear if you are going to attack or walk to that tile.

7. I think it is also a bit dumb to be able to select to attack a tile where the enemy isn't on. I think the game shouldn't let you do that, but that is more of a nitpick.

8. Music and sound effects would be nice.

9. I need to know what is in this game which is causing my graphics card to be 190 degrees Fahrenheit.

Again, I think that it is a good base for a game, but needs better UI and needs more levels to expand on the base concept, because right now, it isn't very interesting.

I understand that I did a lot of complaining and pointing out a lot of issues. And I know that I can be kind of blunt, and especially in messages, it can come off as more rude than people may intend. I point out these problems because 1. They are problems. But 2. It is so that you can see them and learn from them instead of making the same mistakes again. I understand that getting a negative comment like this can suck, but I hope that you can learn and improve from it. I really don't want to demotivate you and stop you from making games, I want you to just see the issues in your game and learn from them in the future.

It is a solid idea for a puzzle game.

I really like how you interpreted the idea of "loop" for this game.

I do think however, that getting the ball back to the start should be something explained in the game itself, and not just the Itch.io page

I'm unsure if there are only 2 levels or if there is some kind of bug. But I was only able to play the first 2 levels, the other 4 seemed to be locked with no explanation.

I do like that there is a star in level 2. Because otherwise, you can sort of just do the same thing to do the loop in each level. I think that some levels should be unlocked once you have a specific amount of stars so that you have to actually play the level.

I do think that while the building mechanics are impressive, there are some issues with them.
1. Sometimes the simulation can be different for no reason. Sometimes when I hit the simulation button, the balls go one way, and when I hit it again, without making any changes, they go somewhere else, which can make it hard to create a path for them.
2. You have a limit on the objects you can use, which is great. However, picking up an object that has already been placed and then putting it back down, uses one of your object uses for that object, which seems rather unfair and seems also like a bug.
3. Clicking reset does not reset the amount of objects you have for the level, so the only real way to reset is to go back to the main menu and then go back to the level.

All three of these bugs together make the game a little bit annoying as the balls can act differently each time, and you only have one shot to test your idea, because trying to fit it will cause the game to bug out and give you less items.
I suppose you could place every object first and then be able to move them around, because the game doesn't stop you from doing anything once you reach 0 or the negatives, just that it won't let you place more new objects. But this seems unnecessary and unintentional.

Also, there being 3 levels on the main menu, but 6 levels when you beat a level is confusing and it should have the same number of levels in both menus to make it more understandable.

The music is very relaxing and nice and fits the atmosphere of the game well, however, it does not appear that it loops, or at least loops correctly, which is sad.
I also enjoy the models for the game. Sure, they are pretty simple, but they give a nice look to the game that I very much enjoy.

Overall, it is a solid base for a game, however, doesn't have enough levels to really establish itself and some pretty big bugs which hurt its enjoyability.

It's a pretty fun little puzzle game

At first, it felt like the timeloop mechanic was just slapped on there with no real purpose, but later on you do make good use of it with the Stasis Chamber and the Time Freezer

I will say however, that the game does not teach its mechanics very well.

1. I think it's a much better idea to actually have a tutorial level that tells you how to play the game rather than a wall of text you need to read instead.

2. Putting the Shop inside of the Esc menu isn't a great idea as the Esc menu also has the quit and settings buttons. Which usually, menus to play the game and the settings menus are two separate menus because one is to actually play the game, and the other isn't. So it can make it hard to find this shop menu. Not to mention that switching from buying and selling is a little clunky

I think what would have been better is for every item which you can buy in that level to be on the side of the screen, either on the side or on the top, which has all of the items you can use, as well as your total budget and remaining budget (though the total budget being on screen at all times isn't super relevant after you start placing stuff, so I'm not sure if it needs to be there at all times). And then also having the sell button next to everything as well. It would also be nice to have either a sell all button or a restart button that isn't going back to the menu and then going back to the level. What could also help things is having sell and buy mode being toggled by a key press, because part of the clunkiness and repetition of it is going into the menu, selecting sell mode, selling the machines, then pressing Esc to get out of sell mode, then pressing Esc again to buy the machines and then placing down the machines. If it was just a key press it would be much quicker and less annoying.

It also isn't super clear what mode you are in. Sure, you click sell mode and what not, but I think it would look a little nicer for there to be some kind of change depending on which mode that you are in outside of just the cursor

3. It took a little bit to comprehend how the Time Freezer worked. Now that I understand it, I don't know why I was confused. But I think it's a little hard to really see what it is doing and it's hard to really comprehend how it freezes things. I think a graphic that shows everything frozen would help really understand what it is doing. 

Some other things to note is that it would have been nice for there to be some background music.
And that Level 7 appears to be impossible, because I can't place anything on the row with the Copper Ore, or any of the rows above that row. So I am unable to finish the level.

However, despite that, I still found it fun and interesting. But it isn't great at teaching the player its mechanics or having a very intuitive UI which I could see some players not understanding what to do and not wanting to bother to figure it out for a gamejam game.

It's a pretty fun little puzzle game

At first, it felt like the timeloop mechanic was just slapped on there with no real purpose, but later on you do make good use of it with the Stasis Chamber and the Time Freezer

I will say however, that the game does not teach its mechanics very well.

1. I think it's a much better idea to actually have a tutorial level that tells you how to play the game rather than a wall of text you need to read instead.

2. Putting the Shop inside of the Esc menu isn't a great idea as the Esc menu also has the quit and settings buttons. Which usually, menus to play the game and the settings menus are two separate menus because one is to actually play the game, and the other isn't. So it can make it hard to find this shop menu. Not to mention that switching from buying and selling is a little clunky

I think what would have been better is for every item which you can buy in that level to be on the side of the screen, either on the side or on the top, which has all of the items you can use, as well as your total budget and remaining budget (though the total budget being on screen at all times isn't super relevant after you start placing stuff, so I'm not sure if it needs to be there at all times). And then also having the sell button next to everything as well. It would also be nice to have either a sell all button or a restart button that isn't going back to the menu and then going back to the level. What could also help things is having sell and buy mode being toggled by a key press, because part of the clunkiness and repetition of it is going into the menu, selecting sell mode, selling the machines, then pressing Esc to get out of sell mode, then pressing Esc again to buy the machines and then placing down the machines. If it was just a key press it would be much quicker and less annoying.

It also isn't super clear what mode you are in. Sure, you click sell mode and what not, but I think it would look a little nicer for there to be some kind of change depending on which mode that you are in outside of just the cursor

3. It took a little bit to comprehend how the Time Freezer worked. Now that I understand it, I don't know why I was confused. But I think it's a little hard to really see what it is doing and it's hard to really comprehend how it freezes things. I think a graphic that shows everything frozen would help really understand what it is doing. 

Some other things to note is that it would have been nice for there to be some background music.
And that Level 7 appears to be impossible, because I can't place anything on the row with the Copper Ore, or any of the rows above that row. So I am unable to finish the level.

However, despite that, I still found it fun and interesting. But it isn't great at teaching the player its mechanics or having a very intuitive UI which I could see some players not understanding what to do and not wanting to bother to figure it out for a gamejam game.

So, I could not get this to work or understand what was happening.
I tried to get it working for two players, but it didn't work.
The sound effects sounded like I was picking stuff up and hitting stuff, despite nothing being on screen.
I thought I picked up a bunch of the green things, but the game says that I didn't
And it was a bit hard to control.

I really like how the game looks. I think you did a great job creating a game and a style with four colors that doesn't feel like you compromised anything by only using four colors.

It's a decent start to a cool game, I think that it needs some polishing. And I would say trying to focus on a better single player experience could be good as well.
And if you want to completely rework the entire game. I think this could work as a cool underwater exploration kind of game instead of an arcade like game. But that would be reworking what the game is about.

One other thing is that when you click play game, it freezes for a bit. I can assume this is the game loading the main game scene. I would recommend having some kind of fade out from the title screen and fade in into the main game to hide this loading.

Overall, cool looking game. Just wish either it worked, or I understood what was happening.

I think it's good. It was very fun, but I wish that there was more of it.
I think first of all, the crows should only be taken care of with 3 bullets, and maybe making a harder crow version later on.
I think that the amount of items that spawn are a little much, they seem to over compensate due to how weak you are without an item.
Stage 3 was completely mindless because I had like 8 potions drop and so I didn't have to worry about my health. Stage 4 was very fun due to how much was on screen and that only 2 potions dropped.
I think having less items drop or just having different chances for items would be nice. Less potions made me much more aware of what I was doing. Also, the shotgun spell has its symbol be "III" which could just mean, three bullets. But to me implied, spell number 3. So I wish that there were more items that changed your spells. And maybe if you pick up more of them, you can upgrade your spells.
I wish the game was a little more hectic.
Also, I wish that there was some kind of boss fight. I understand it being a gamejam, so you might not have had time to do it. But it does feel anti climactic to just end the game with no boss fight or really any indication that Stage 4 was the last stage. Not to mention that the cutscene, coupled with the music makes it feel like I got a bad ending. But I don't believe that I got a bad ending or that there were multiple endings. If there are, then it should be more clear that I got a bad ending, and a hint as to how to get the good ending.
Also speaking of music. Don't love that there isn't any. Sure, you make noises when you walked, but when standing still, I just don't love that there isn't any music playing during the levels.
And lastly, and I don't know what caused this. But when I called a frog enemy in level 4. It teleported to the right side of the screen behind the rocks (the level boundary) and kept hopping around and trying to attack me. I'm not sure what caused it, and it isn't a big deal at all. But just wanted to mention that it is a thing that happened.
Overall great game, hope to see it improved.

Well thank you for leaving a comment!
The first thing is that there are no other rooms, it is just that one. So I tried to make it somewhat hard to justify only having one room, but also not too hard.
I will say that one part of the puzzle could be changed to be a little bit easier to understand.
And even Vimlark admitted that if he didn't have chat, he probably would have spent way longer trying to figure it out.
But I thank you for at least trying it out and complementing other parts even if you couldn't finish it.
And I'll make sure to check out your game.

It's pretty fun.
It is very creative to use the mouse wheel as a form of control. It would have been nice to have some kind of in game tutorial because I didn't look at the description at first and was lost at what to do.
I will say that my favorite level was level 5. I think the levels where you can go fast are the best, though that might just be because they require the least amount of skill.
A lot of the other levels felt very tight and hard to move around in. Not to mention that the animal shapes, while cute, don't make for great levels all the time.
I think something that is all about going fast with some physics would be better. Maybe I'm just bad, but some of these levels, it was hard to go very fast in them. Maybe you could have branching paths and the point of the game is to chart out the best path to go to get the fastest time.
This could be something similar to sonic where it doesn't feel like I'm going fast because I suck, but people who are good at it fly through the level and have fun figuring out which paths to take.

I think it's pretty good.
The lack of music would be a bad thing in any other game, but in this case, I think it does a good job of highlighting the monotony of the job.
I don't know if the $1500 was the actual end or not. Or what exactly. But since the amount is only $1500, it makes it hard to justify buying upgrades.
But overall, it is a very good game.

Yeah, that's fair.
It's hard since some people will understand the solution quickly and some won't, so it's hard to judge how long of a timer you should have.
In addition, I wanted this to be only made by me, and I didn't know if playtesters would count as part of my team or not, so I avoided play testing. Which made making a riddle game a little harder since I was unsure if my riddles were clear or not.
I think I should have made the timer either 10 minutes long or had some kind of difficulty which at least made the timer longer or shorter. It would be cool to also have easier or harder puzzles like in Silent Hill, but I did not have time for that.

That is fair, I felt like five minutes made it much more stressful and race like.
And you do have infinite time on the gameover screen, so you can at least plan everything out there if you do need more time.
But maybe 10 minutes might have been better.
It is hard to judge with timed puzzle games because some people will figure it out quickly and feel like the timer was too long. And for some people it might take a while for them to figure out and feel like the timer is too short. There isn't a problem with either camp, it's just acknowledging both camps and trying to make something which satisfies both can be hard.
Maybe having an option of how long you want the timer to be could also work.

I have ideas on expanding the idea. But this one room did take me the entire jam time to make (which looking back on, it probably shouldn't have taken that long, but also it was my first time using Godots 3D engine stuff, so there is that.)

I will say, if you do want to see something similar. There is a game series called Zero Escape which is on Steam. It does cost money, and they are also very visual novel based, so expect a lot of reading (though the games do have voice acting). But those are very good games and you will probably realize when playing them how much I  ̶s̶t̶o̶l̶e̶ was inspired by the series. I will also say that the DS/3DS versions of 999 and VLR are better than the Steam release, so if you can play them, I would recommend playing those versions instead. But the Steam versions are still a solid way to play them.

I think it's good.
Obviously, that style isn't going to work in every game.
But I think considering what the game is about, that is, running from death while dying of old age. I think it creates an interesting and foreboding atmosphere.
I will say that it is usually best to have the music to continue playing when dying. However, if your method when dying is reloading the scene, I'm pretty sure there isn't a way to not have the music also restart. Maybe you could have a variable (it might need to be a global variable) which might increase each second and then when the scene is reloaded, it starts the song that many seconds in equal to the number that the variable is. And then have the variable go back to zero when it equals how many seconds long the song is. I have not tried this idea out myself, and I could just be overthinking something very simple like I usually do with my code.
But overall, the music is pretty solid.

in the first level I got softlocked by having 2 balls stuck going up and down and 1 ball in a permanent angle that would never hit any of the remaining blocks.
My solution to the 2 balls that were stuck going up and down is to detect if the Y or X axis have not changed in around 15-20 seconds, and if they haven't then pushing them in an angle.

So first, I would say it would be best for the buttons on the main menu to be activated when clicking on them, rather than the mouse just touching them. It makes it more clear to the player what is happening. In addition, putting the buttons closer to the center of the screen would allow players to better see it. Making them bigger would also help.
When it comes to the tutorial screen, it would be much easier to use text instead of drawing the letters. You can either do this with the text tool in your art program and/or you can do it in the engine, depending on the situation. For godot, text nodes are called Labels or RichTextEdit. RichTextEdit Nodes are more complex and can do some cooler stuff, but Labels work just fine for most situations.
Your platforming controls are pretty solid. However, I do not understand how the grapple mechanic really works. If there is a cooldown to it, have a UI element that shows that cooldown. If it can only be used on land, then have a UI element that grays out when you are in the air, indicating that the grapple can't be used. In addition, the speed thing is very hard to understand. I think it's interesting to have a risk/reward element where going fast makes you avoid death, but make you slower when you get older. That is genuinely cool. However, when I dash, it just seems to drain my age and instantly kill me.
The grapple mechanic is cool, however, it conflicts with the "speed makes you die" gimmick of the game. Because it is very unclear how much grapple will kill you.
Here's what I would change about your game. Remove the grapple mechanic. It's cool but isn't needed when it comes to your theme of "speed makes you die". Double jump can stay, but don't make it kill you. Just make it weaker as you get older. When it comes to the dash button, instead of moving you forward, I think it should increase your speed, so you just walk faster. However, you have an age meter (or just two labels, one says age and one has a number) at the top of your screen. As you use the run button, your age will increase and you will slowly get older and your movement abilities will be slower. I think this could make things much more interesting. Another thing you could do is make multiple paths for level design. If your age is a low number, you can move faster and go through quick paths. But if you are slower, you aren't able to take as many shortcuts and faster routes. You could also have things which slow you down in the current moment like backwards conveyor belt or lasers. Making the reaper get closer to you and more likely to kill you. Also, having a life system would also make the reaper being an instant kill be much more threatening than it is right now with everything being an instant kill. But with obstacles that slow you, you need to make a decision if you want to walk through it but maybe risk the reaper getting closer to you, or running through it to get through that obstacle, but potentially harming your ability later on in the level.

Another thing is to not be afraid to do research on how Godot works. Some of the docs are not super great at explaining what things do, but I would not know what I know about Godot if I didn't research it. So be sure to look up how to do something if you aren't sure.
While this isn't a great game, I can see good ideas from this game which could be used to make this game better or a new game.