I loved how much care you put into this game! How the character animations and sound effects react to the environment really makes this world feel alive! The wooden bar is a brilliant mechanic for a physics game like this and I don't know what better alternative there could even be. The difficulty curve felt just right and the levels supplement each other and teach players new skills they'd use later on. Overall, this game is golden!
A major change I'd propose though: The smooth camera scrolling should follow the player's mouse instead of the blob (similar to an RTS interface). The current scroll method presents the following issues:
1. Trying to control / switch between multiple elements of the world is really difficult, given that all elements are constantly moving (even just holding onto a single bar and rotating it in a desired direction feels quite awkward at times due to the camera scrolling happening)
2. It is very easy for crucial level elements to get outside of the player's field of view (Think how this is gonna work if you port the game to other platforms and have to deal with inconsistency with screen widths!). Sometimes a bar becomes inaccessible if I left it in a vertical position but then the blob rolled away. Sometimes it's just the blob is rising / falling too fast, so much so that it goes off-screen (might be tricky to get the scroll smoothing right) and the player cannot reach any interactible elements near it.
3. If you intend for this game to be puzzle focused, it could be a flaw that the player is not immediately aware of all the level layout or even where their goal is. I got surprised quite a few times by a spike that suddenly came up or a new bar I didn't know existed. But again, you're the designer here, and you know what's best for your game. Maybe a sense of exploration into the unknown is what you're aiming for, in which case, just keep the scrolling the way it is and let the camera roll faster, so the player would have enough time to react to something that just showed up.
4. Again, if you wanted for this game to be more puzzle-focused, the player should be able to pre-adjust level elements so they don't have to micro manage later on (similar to "Wonderfully Juicy" from earlier). I can see my proposal of mouse-based scrolling as problematic though, because after level 7, the player's range of control had to be limited for those level designs to work.
Anyhow, this comment got way too long - sorry about that. This game has a lot of potential of becoming a rage game though. Consider that approach lol. I was also expecting a dark twist in the end for some reason, haha. Nature is cruel.
The zoom level of the camera makes it a little difficult to see level hazards/obstacles sometimes, especially in lvl9, also, as the camera follows the blob, sometimes the platforms you need to move go out of camera view. Maybe zoom level would help with too, but other than that its a great game, cute art, nice sound effects, cool animations and considering its the product of a game jam, it's very well polished. Great job guys ^^
I loved it :) You just need to be patient with it you guys haha Very enjoyable, and great vibes! Level progression was nice. My heart melted a little when I saw him join the rest of him family, so cute!! Great work you two :D
Tbh the camera ruined the whole experience for me... The movement skrewed up all the controlls and it was always either too slow or too fast for what I was trying to do
- When you hold the R key, it constantly restarts the game. I would instead restart it on a single key press instead of every frame the key is being held.
- Would be nice if the Camera speed increased quite a bit once it's father away from the character. There are cases where the camera was too far away from my character and I wasn't able to save him. If you want to keep the current camera movement, one way you can do it is by making the camera speed increase exponentially after a specific distance.
- I would recommend ticking off the full screen button on Itch since Unity WebGL build already has it's own full screen button.
- I would make the WebGL game window smaller since on smaller computer screens (like my laptop) it goes a bit outside it's edges. I usually just go for half of my computer's resolution (960x540) and if someone wants to have the game to take the whole screen, there's always the full screen button.
Good game.The only problem it has are the controls.You might need to drag a pltaform but SIKE,the player is way too far,so you can't click on the platform,and so he falls to his death,without even giving a chance to click on the platform.I'd suggest making it a big,still screen without camera movement,or make the camera be focused more on platforms,and showing where character is with a bubble,or something
Great game! I love the funny physics and the Awesome art. but I think the game is to hard and was stuck on level 2 for a long time . But otherwise It's perfect!
Really fun game! Great sound effects! My brother and I ( 7 and 20 yrs ) had a blast playing it. We didn't quite finish to the end but we got to level 7. The "Squee" sound is awesome as others have mentioned! I really enjoyed the "world manipulation mechanic".. very polished, easy to use, and predictable!
I'm really loving this game, tho i would have made the camera a bit more distant, because it makes handling the various gizmos a lot more difficult ,especially because the angle of the variuos things depend on the positon of the pointer, which makes thing really go crazy when the object moves out of view.
This game is terrific, I would happily play this again. The levels were increasing in difficultly but still possible. Was polished and had a good length. I think you should make a sequel or make more levels because I loved it.
So nice! Love the level of polish on everything. I found it really challenging to play, particularly with the camera moving around, but still had a lot of fun :)
This game was very difficult and on Lv 5, I didn't like the "Gear, Platform, gear" thing, and it killed me the first time. Other than that, Amazing game!
Hey Noa and Jonas. I must say, you really did a very good job with this game. It feels great just interacting alone! Solid game, not overwhelmingly difficult. Great mood, music and art.
And btw I really like your videos on Youtube. They teached me some things I didn't know yet about game design. I used this knowledge to implement in my first Ludum Dare entry "The Harmless Prison Escape", a puzzle game. Especially Jonas videos about game design and puzzle design helped me creating a better game for LD46.
So thank you very much for spreading your view and knowledge on game design!
Can't wait for the video of the making of this game.
Very nice game! I especially like the intro and music. My only complaint is that it's rather hard to move the environment sometimes, due to the pieces going off screen when the slurpie goes too high.
This is good! Honestly I wouldn't say the best, but still it's really good for something that was only made in a few days. I haven't made it past Experiment 7, and I definitely agree with others on some balancing issues. There are some bugs I've seen while playing this...
The camera sometimes is slow to follow the blob and I can't see it at all, say if I were to launch it upwards from the movable flippers, leading to a death.
Also they move in such a way that I didn't intend; sometimes I'm moving it a bit clockwise and it just goes in the opposite direction.
...But hey, error is everywhere, right? You guys still did a great job! Keep up the good work Noa and Jonas!
This game is pretty good. The art is top-notch as always, Noa! I especially like the foreground pipes, which just adds that little bit extra that makes the world so cool!!
I also sorta like experiment 7 style experiments, if they could be a bit easier.
Overall, this game is a 10/10 for physics, a 11/10 for art, a few balance issues, a very fun concept, and a pretty cool story. Keep up the great work!!
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Great game has a World Of Goo feeling. C'mon tho Jonas that CAMERA
it's a great game but the camera sometimes messes with your cursur making the objects go crazy
Omg i was toughing the corona virus in this game the hole time !!
P.S: The sounds are soooo satisfying
loved the game but the camera was a bit slow
I HATE THIS GAME SO FRUSTRATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
do not hate the game if it's only frustrating for a small percentage of the player.
I loved how much care you put into this game! How the character animations and sound effects react to the environment really makes this world feel alive! The wooden bar is a brilliant mechanic for a physics game like this and I don't know what better alternative there could even be. The difficulty curve felt just right and the levels supplement each other and teach players new skills they'd use later on. Overall, this game is golden!
A major change I'd propose though: The smooth camera scrolling should follow the player's mouse instead of the blob (similar to an RTS interface). The current scroll method presents the following issues:
1. Trying to control / switch between multiple elements of the world is really difficult, given that all elements are constantly moving (even just holding onto a single bar and rotating it in a desired direction feels quite awkward at times due to the camera scrolling happening)
2. It is very easy for crucial level elements to get outside of the player's field of view (Think how this is gonna work if you port the game to other platforms and have to deal with inconsistency with screen widths!). Sometimes a bar becomes inaccessible if I left it in a vertical position but then the blob rolled away. Sometimes it's just the blob is rising / falling too fast, so much so that it goes off-screen (might be tricky to get the scroll smoothing right) and the player cannot reach any interactible elements near it.
3. If you intend for this game to be puzzle focused, it could be a flaw that the player is not immediately aware of all the level layout or even where their goal is. I got surprised quite a few times by a spike that suddenly came up or a new bar I didn't know existed. But again, you're the designer here, and you know what's best for your game. Maybe a sense of exploration into the unknown is what you're aiming for, in which case, just keep the scrolling the way it is and let the camera roll faster, so the player would have enough time to react to something that just showed up.
4. Again, if you wanted for this game to be more puzzle-focused, the player should be able to pre-adjust level elements so they don't have to micro manage later on (similar to "Wonderfully Juicy" from earlier). I can see my proposal of mouse-based scrolling as problematic though, because after level 7, the player's range of control had to be limited for those level designs to work.
Anyhow, this comment got way too long - sorry about that. This game has a lot of potential of becoming a rage game though. Consider that approach lol. I was also expecting a dark twist in the end for some reason, haha. Nature is cruel.
Love all your works! Take care!
That was long.
You play the game with the mouse but you need to press r to restart.
After death 50 that becomes annoying.
The zoom level of the camera makes it a little difficult to see level hazards/obstacles sometimes, especially in lvl9, also, as the camera follows the blob, sometimes the platforms you need to move go out of camera view. Maybe zoom level would help with too, but other than that its a great game, cute art, nice sound effects, cool animations and considering its the product of a game jam, it's very well polished. Great job guys ^^
Great job. Nice short game. I liked it.
This game is absolutely amazing! The graphics, music, sounds, game play, all made me feel enlightened. Thank you.
I loved it :) You just need to be patient with it you guys haha Very enjoyable, and great vibes! Level progression was nice. My heart melted a little when I saw him join the rest of him family, so cute!! Great work you two :D
Tbh the camera ruined the whole experience for me... The movement skrewed up all the controlls and it was always either too slow or too fast for what I was trying to do
Yeah. We screwed up the camera unfortunately. Thanks for the honest feedback. We appreciate it. :D
The cam sucks can if the player jumps high i can't grab the platforms and sometimes the player keeps going up the platforms by him self
Some constructive criticism:
- When you hold the R key, it constantly restarts the game. I would instead restart it on a single key press instead of every frame the key is being held.
- Would be nice if the Camera speed increased quite a bit once it's father away from the character. There are cases where the camera was too far away from my character and I wasn't able to save him. If you want to keep the current camera movement, one way you can do it is by making the camera speed increase exponentially after a specific distance.
- I would recommend ticking off the full screen button on Itch since Unity WebGL build already has it's own full screen button.
- I would make the WebGL game window smaller since on smaller computer screens (like my laptop) it goes a bit outside it's edges. I usually just go for half of my computer's resolution (960x540) and if someone wants to have the game to take the whole screen, there's always the full screen button.
Overall, good job! It's a very juicy game.
I stucked for 15min at level 3 at the wheele :(
+
me to
same =/
Amazing game, love the simple yet fun and vibrant art style
not for frustated players
experiment-7 and exp-9 are difficult
very nice idea
Oh, nooo. Lol. :D
This feels amazing.
Good game.The only problem it has are the controls.You might need to drag a pltaform but SIKE,the player is way too far,so you can't click on the platform,and so he falls to his death,without even giving a chance to click on the platform.I'd suggest making it a big,still screen without camera movement,or make the camera be focused more on platforms,and showing where character is with a bubble,or something
Great game! I love the funny physics and the Awesome art. but I think the game is to hard and was stuck on level 2 for a long time . But otherwise It's perfect!
Really fun game! Great sound effects! My brother and I ( 7 and 20 yrs ) had a blast playing it. We didn't quite finish to the end but we got to level 7. The "Squee" sound is awesome as others have mentioned! I really enjoyed the "world manipulation mechanic".. very polished, easy to use, and predictable!
Thanks!
Awesome game! I wish the camera was a bit snappier but otherwise it felt great to move the slurpy around.
I'm really loving this game, tho i would have made the camera a bit more distant, because it makes handling the various gizmos a lot more difficult ,especially because the angle of the variuos things depend on the positon of the pointer, which makes thing really go crazy when the object moves out of view.
I completed Your Game 5 time good work noa
when the slurpy went "squee" i felt that
This game is terrific, I would happily play this again. The levels were increasing in difficultly but still possible. Was polished and had a good length. I think you should make a sequel or make more levels because I loved it.
S O S AT I S F Y I N G !
So nice! Love the level of polish on everything. I found it really challenging to play, particularly with the camera moving around, but still had a lot of fun :)
This game was very difficult and on Lv 5, I didn't like the "Gear, Platform, gear" thing, and it killed me the first time. Other than that, Amazing game!
Hey Noa and Jonas. I must say, you really did a very good job with this game. It feels great just interacting alone! Solid game, not overwhelmingly difficult. Great mood, music and art.
And btw I really like your videos on Youtube. They teached me some things I didn't know yet about game design. I used this knowledge to implement in my first Ludum Dare entry "The Harmless Prison Escape", a puzzle game. Especially Jonas videos about game design and puzzle design helped me creating a better game for LD46.
So thank you very much for spreading your view and knowledge on game design!
Can't wait for the video of the making of this game.
Very nice game! I especially like the intro and music. My only complaint is that it's rather hard to move the environment sometimes, due to the pieces going off screen when the slurpie goes too high.
Amazing game do you will make a tut about it?
This is good! Honestly I wouldn't say the best, but still it's really good for something that was only made in a few days. I haven't made it past Experiment 7, and I definitely agree with others on some balancing issues. There are some bugs I've seen while playing this...
The camera sometimes is slow to follow the blob and I can't see it at all, say if I were to launch it upwards from the movable flippers, leading to a death.
Also they move in such a way that I didn't intend; sometimes I'm moving it a bit clockwise and it just goes in the opposite direction.
...But hey, error is everywhere, right? You guys still did a great job! Keep up the good work Noa and Jonas!
This game is pretty good. The art is top-notch as always, Noa! I especially like the foreground pipes, which just adds that little bit extra that makes the world so cool!!
I also sorta like experiment 7 style experiments, if they could be a bit easier.
I totally understand the balance issues, having made a very questionably balanced game myself. Here it is, if you want: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/squared-defense
Overall, this game is a 10/10 for physics, a 11/10 for art, a few balance issues, a very fun concept, and a pretty cool story. Keep up the great work!!