What started as a small challenge to myself (Build a game, with a certain theme and restrictions and do so in a few hours), has slowly started growing into something I want to sink a bit more time in.
Before I do that, I want to sit and think on it, and for that I would really appreciate your honest feedback. Given, it’s still a rough WIP / proof of concept, but enough to get a feel for where I’m going I think.
The game is a grid based puzzler, themed around “falling apart”, and the original vision I had for it, is that it’s a spacecraft, struck by a meteor rain that needs repairs (Read: Plug the holes). But I guess that could be flexible as development continues.
I drafted my own grid system and levels are parsed from simple images, (Each cell represented by a pixel). Afterwards I check where I need to draw the walls. Currently there’s 10 levels. I hope to introduce some more mechanics in the next few weeks, although time will be sparse, and it’s challenging to come up with something unique, given the limitations of a grid.
I’d love for you to give it a shot and share your honest feedback. I know it’s still pretty bare, but I hope with this topic, and the game in front of you, you see where I want to go with this. If not, that’s also honest feedback .
The puzzles are mostly very well thought out and you learn very easily and slowly how the game works.
At the start of the game, I didn’t immediately know what the player was, what I was supposed to do and how I could do that. Maybe a small pop-up showing the controls would be helpful.
The different parts of the levels sometimes didn’t feel connected, for example there were a few boxes that were just placed in the corner somewhere and that you needed to push into a hole directly next to them. I think it would improve the game feel if the whole level was one big puzzle rather than multiple small ones.
Graphics
The graphics are obviously quite minimal, but for such a simple premise it actually doesn’t negatively affect the game all that much other than signalling that it’s not finished yet.
Some movement animations for the player and the boxes would add a lot though.
Quality of life
I like that you have to tap the movement key every time you move a square; it prevents you from accidentally moving too far.
Just having to press a single key to restart the level is really nice.
The critique is probably things that you are already aware of but I’m just going to list them anyway:
Sounds
A main menu will eventually be important, ideally including a level selection and some settings like sound volume.
I’m still not quite sure if I actually beat the game or if I just experienced a bug because after completing a certain level I wasn’t teleported to the next one and when restarting, the screen went black… so in case that was intended, I would definitely suggest adding a game over screen.
Conclusion
Overall, the game seems really promising. I think it could use some features distinguishing it from other similar games but this version was actually fun to play through and with some more/longer gameplay it could absolutely become a good full game
@yesko Wow, thanks. This is more than I had hoped for making this topic. You’ve provided me with some good feedback and some things to think about.
Some of the suggestions you mentioned are indeed on my mind, but others weren’t yet, and for that, thank you.
One clarifying question I have, is about the sounds. There are sounds when moving and plugging a hole. Did these not work for you, or did you mean more sound effects and background music?
Edit: Oh and currently there is indeed no end screen. So if you’ve finished level 10, it just stays there for now.
Oh, that’s interesting that there are actually sounds, when I played the game for the second time I wasn’t hearing any anymore so I assumed I’d just “hallucinated” them the first time around…
In that case, as far as I remember, the sounds were really nice but some music might be nice
Queueing inputs would make the movement easier. If I press left and up too quickly, the second input is ignored and the character only moves left.
I was expecting to be able to undo my moves in a game like this. If the player makes a tiny mistake at the end, they might have to restart the level and do everything twice.
Camera
If the player moves to the edge of the level, a lot of the screen space is unused and wasted. Adding limits around the level would make it easier to see the important stuff.
Level Design
The solutions are too obvious for my taste. A good puzzle should be something that looks simple, but when you try to solve it, it appears to be impossible, until you figure out a clever trick or a different point of view.
Sokoban
Your game is almost identical to a classic puzzle game, Sokoban. It’s one of the most influential puzzle games of all time, but it has a huge design flaw; it’s nearly impossible to create interesting levels with its game mechanics. The levels increase in difficulty, like you’d expect, but it’s achieved by making them bigger and more chaotic rather than introducing some cool new ideas. Solving complex problems is more frustrating than fun, so it would be better to add new game mechanics and interesting interactions while keeping the levels small.
In my opinion the purpose of puzzle games is to make the player feel like they did something clever without it being too tedious.
Also, designing a good puzzle game is very difficult, so you’ll have to try a whole bunch of ideas and scrap most of them, if you want to find good ones.
@grulps Thank you for the in-depth feedback. It’s very much appreciated !
I was wondering if roughly 10 levels per new mechanic would be too much. I’d expect it would be fine if the mechanic has a bit more depth (pun intended), than filling a hole. But your feedback is valid. You know you need to push the boxes in the holes, I don’t need to make the player do that specifically 8 or 9 more times.
The restart/undo is on purpose. Given, I have not played much puzzle games like this, so perhaps it’s more common to have an undo, rather than a restart. I have toyed with the idea of having a limited number of undo’s per level, what are your thoughts on that? It’s a bit more forgiving, which probably better suits the relaxed atmosphere I’m going for.
I will definitely implement a queueing system. Thanks for the tip, that was not on my to-do list yet!
And another thank you for introducing me to Sokoban. I will do some research into it, and will take your feedback on level design in mind.
I haven’t been able to implement all the feedback yet, but I was able to chip away at quite some this evening:
Added background music
Added end game screen
Added movement queueing (And slowed the movement a little bit)
I was trying to get the camera to better position the map, but it seems I’m in for a slightly larger rework than I was hoping for. I’ll have another go at it later.
P.s. I’ve noticed a bug where the movement sound becomes quieter until it’s no longer audible. I started noticing it around level 1-7, and in 1-10 you don’t hear any movement sounds anymore. Curiously I’m not able to recreate it 100% of the time.
I’ve been able to make some progress on the feedback and have made the following changes:
Maps improved - No more loose corner holes that need to be filled. All is connected. Currently level 1-10 are available, and while there are no other mechanics yet, they slightly increase complexity by adding the addition to get into a deadlock.
Fixed the camera - The map will now always be centred but still move slightly with the player.
I’ve tried to upgrade the background animation, but I’ve been running into some issues I’ve not been able to overcome yet.
Also dabbled some with and undo method, and while I got it working technically, I’d rather redo it properly, now that I had an MVP working. So after I clean up some code, that’s coming up next.
New background - While it’s not quite what I want eventually, it’s what’ll have to do for now, until I figure out how to make vortex like effect with GPUParticles2D. Right now it swirls stars into the middle of the screen, where they disappear.
Undo - A player now has 3 undo moves per level, as suggested by @grulps. There’s an indicator in the top right corner, and sounds effects when using an undo, or when trying to use one when you’re out of undo’s.
Audio bug - I was able to fix the audio bug that made movement sound disappear after moving a lot.
Code clean up - Nothing a player will notice, but I cleaned up a lot of the code, dividing it in smaller methods, defining regions, etc. This should make it more manageable.
Next up I want to work on a simple menu, where audio settings can be tweaked, before I move on to other worlds, which will introduce abilities or skills. If you have suggestions for that, they’re more than welcome
The one (somewhat nitpicky) thing (that doesn’t really have anything to do with the actual game) I would like to mention is that because of the formatting of the website it’s very difficult to scroll up or down; I have to do it while reloading the website because otherwise the game consumes the scroll input.
Maybe you could make the embedded game window a bit smaller with the option to toggle fullscreen? (I’ve never published on Itch before so I don’t know how easy that is)
Thanks! Yes, I noticed this when my wife did a playtest too. I’m on 3440x1440 monitor, so it wasn’t an issue for me, but it’s troublesome on 1920x1080 monitors. I’ll give that some time soon!
Thanks for the continued feedback! I’ve been struggling with this next update a bit, but therefore it makes it all the more satisfying to share this update.
I’ve decided on a name; Falling apart, but it will probably be temporary until the game is more fleshed out and I properly dedicate some time to think what I would like to call it.
V0.1.6 introduces the following changes:
Changed resolution - Based on the feedback of my wife’s playtest, and @yesko, the 1920x1080 resolution was annoying on Itch.io on 1920x1080 monitors. I tried a few different solutions (Like adding the fullscreen button), but that also didn’t feel like an optimal solution. So while the full screen button remains on Itch, I have also lowered the resolution to 1280x720, which should still work fine for this type of game. I am assuming (And perhaps jinxing) this will bite me in the butt later, with bigger levels and when I have to play with zoom levels, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
Introduced a menu - The first feedback I received, also by @yesko, and one that was on my to-do list for sure. But this update adds a menu with options for the sound volume, and a very basic title screen.
In addition I’ve done quite some cleanup of positioning of scenes, which I understand much better now and was giving me some issues with the menu before.
Now that the “basics” are done, I will start working on world 2, which I want to introduce a new mechanic to the player.
I’m curious about your thoughts and honest feedback. Feel free to provide it here or on Itch.
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