Really nice visual aesthetics and detail in the animations, as well as SFX. I think there needs to be more visual guidance for the player, or some kind of simplification of the 3D object interaction - it's really hard to figure out what is interactable or movable and I got stuck in phone/laptop puzzle, and the gestural click and drags the game seems to require can be difficult or frustrating on a mouse or trackpad input setup.
Hi Sean, thanks for playing!
Yeah, I don't think I have the balance right yet between subtle and confusing! :D
I was really keen to keep the cursor as minimal as possible and to remove as many non-diegetic elements as I could. In this case though I might just have too many different kinds of interactions for that to work intuitively!
Cheers,
Nick
I was able to work my way through it. What I felt was lacking in some interactions was a 3rd state, particularly the lights in the first section.
1 - Object starts to react as you get near it
2 - Object reaches full interaction when you hover directly on top of it
3 - You click and the 2nd state is maintained, there is no indication your click altered anything until you remove your mouse from the object.
That said I was able to make my way through the whole game and even work around a bug in the lamp room.
Just a simple audio clue when you are on top of something and able to interact might help? There are some clicks/buzzes but they don't seem to directly relate to the mouse over state, but I might have misread it.
Overall more consistence between the interactions I think would go a long way, another example of this being the mop vs the Gatcha Capsule. The mop always moves exactly the same way whereas the Capsule moves differently each time and feels like it's a puzzle, but wasn't as far as I could work out.
But! All the interactions and stuff are fun to find, and if they all work the same way maybe they feel less unique/interesting. Depends how much you want to lean on the game aspect I guess.
Overall I thought it was a really nice piece with some minor hitches to a fuss free experience, but perhaps that's what you intended. Can't wait to see what the next Toryanse installment is!
It's tricky to know exactly what to add or change, I've seen people click through all the lights as if they knew exactly where they all were already, and I've watched (in dismay!) as people click furiously over the entire screen except on the hot-spot!
I did try implementing an electrical hum that changes depending on cursor proximity (you still might be able to hear it on one of the lights!) but didn't get working in a way I was happy with, it might be something i go back to! Just in general, sound is something I need to work more on.
As for interaction consistency I think part of the problem might be the size of this particular game, if it was a single screen/room you'd maybe expect everything to have a different mechanic attached? If it was longer and had loads more objects you'd be able to build up a familiarity with all the different types? As it stands this maybe falls awkwardly in the middle? I had a vision of having everything on screen being interactive in some way, that way it would be the narrative that would give objects significance rather than just the fact that they wobble, but I was pushing it just to get it done in the 4-months as it was!
Thanks again for playing and for all your feedback, I really appreciate it!
Cheers,
Nick
