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Thanks for trying it out and for the great feedback! Yeah, we originally designed the game with gameplay first in mind but once things all started coming together, it became clear that this could actually be a really interesting quick introduction to bonding.  I definitely see where you're coming from on the game being more suited to 2D, honesty, the main reason we went with 3D is because we wanted there to be wacky 3D physics with ragdolls and objects getting knocked around. I tried to make it so you would essentially click directly on enemies with your mouse cursor in order to aim, but this aiming both wasn't fully developed and might not have been communicated well (maybe replacing the cursor with a target/reticle sprite could have helped).
Thank you!

Thanks! I think the artists on our team did a great job filling the characters with personality and making their looks/actions reflect their chemical properties in a fun way. Bringing together all the art and animations near the end really make it all come together.  And yeah, I agree that there is plenty of room in the game to adjust the gameplay feel and make it feel more hectic and fast-passed. Thanks for trying it out!

Thanks so much for trying it out and giving this detailed response! Yeah, I definitely think that the base of this game could easily be expanded on to support more aspects of chemistry like double and triple bounds, and I'm sure there would be a solution to managing more complex molecules. I really like your idea on incorporating the electrons more physically within the game and I think that could result in some really interesting gameplay with trying to catch electrons flying around the place.

And yeah, for the visuals on this game, I think the artists on our team did a great job at giving them individual personalities in their design and move set. We tried to make it at least somewhat reflective of their action properties, which is why carbon is a huge tank enemy and oxygen shoots out blasts of "wind".

And finally, I am fully in favor if you'd be interested in sharing this as a quick introduction at a stem camp, especially once we fix some of the issues/bugs, after the judging period is over, that we didn't quite get to in time.

Thanks!

Wow, first of all, fantastic presentation! The team logo, the title screen, the character animations, the 3D environments, and all the rest of it was really well done! Nice work putting together the game's lovely OST and I found the voice acting snippets to be a fun addition. I thought the drawing mechanic was fun and created some interesting gameplay elements, however, there were some times I expected to land on the platform I drew but fell through it. I might be wrong, but it seemed like the spawned platform collider was a bit above the line I drew in the scene, which wasn't how I expected it would work. Aside from that, like others said, I was confused by the end of the game with the final puzzle with the three elements. I'm wondering if I encountered a bug since I was able to get there before discovering any fairies aside from the green one (and I learned that there were other fairies by checking out that let's play on the main itch page). I tried to backtrack but there didn't seem to be a way to go back once I had reached that final game area. Regardless, I enjoyed the game a lot and it was filled with charm, great work!

That was so much fun! The art style is fantastic, I loved the opening art stills, the transitions, and all the polish put into the core gameplay's effects. The gameplay just felt so cool to play and the simple mechanics made it obvious and natural-feeling right from the start for me. One piece of feedback is that I guess I initially had some difficulty at first knowing where to aim on their bodies for my hits to land and maybe some extra juice could be added to make it clear when you landed a hit. Overall though, the game had a wonderful presentation and honestly just made me smile to play.

Great work! I loved the look of the game and the art quickly drew me in to check out your submission. I really liked the "diorama"-like design of the levels, they reminded me of Captain Toad's level design. I agree with some other commenters that I found the camera to be a bit frustrating at times, especially when it didn't seem to travel high enough on some of the levels to clearly see where the player was jumping. Overall though,  I had a lot of fun and loved the little mechanics you introduced throughout the game like the targets and the giant snowball shield.

Thanks for the response! Yeah, the game wasn't originally designed to be educational, but I could definitely imagine it working as a quick introduction to chemical bonds if we expanded on the concept more.

Great job! I loved the art style, I don't think I've ever seen something quite like it with the hand-drawn "fuzzy" sprites. I really liked the look of the character sprites especially with their cut-out white outline style. I also found it to be a great incorporation of the theme and it was a lot of fun to reach the characters at the end of levels and walk around through their environments. I guess as one piece of feedback, which may not really be a problem, I didn't realize the smaller mailboxes in the main levels acted as checkpoints until right near the end of the game which meant I mostly started from the beginning of the levels  when I died.  It was a lot of fun though!