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Tessel Run's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Sound/Music | #79 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
| Art / Graphics | #90 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
| Controls / UI | #92 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Overall Fun | #97 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Ai Usage
Human made
If you have competed before, how has your game changed?
This game has been out on steam for months but this is our first time taking and implementing feedback from a game jam!
Genre
Action
Shooter | Platformer | Slasher | Beat em Up | Base Defense | Survival | Racing
Puzzle
Mystery | Advenure
Sandbox
Open World
Rating
Family Friendly
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Comments
Sorry for the delay in posting your review! I'm very behind in these, and will keep the text portion brief. I really enjoyed this game and all the puzzles I had time to try out! I do find there's a little difficulty telling / remembering which shapes are which colors and what those colors mean (most of the time I just poked it to remind myself). I feel there may also be slight color blindness concern with some of the colors so close to each other, possibly some additional edge designs would go along way to convey more meaning. Otherwise, I love the look and feel of this game, great work!
The VOD for the review is linked below and will be available for 60 days from the date of broadcast:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2876269268?t=1h29m3s
Hey thanks so much, really appreciate the feedback!
A couple of the colors are pretty similar (orange and red in particular) and I can understand why they can be hard to remember. Glad poking them was sufficient most of the time XD
RE: accessibility concerns. So valid. I recently ran this by someone who is legally blind and who did accessibility work for XBox, until recently being laid off :( Their main suggestion was to use the language of shapes instead of the language of colors whenever possible. That got me thinking about more readable gameplay overlays for things like gravity changing tiles to have moving orange chevrons on top of it or something to give the information faster and more reliably
I was surprised to hear that this game is not completely dead in the water regarding accessibility as the individual tiles and their artwork are technically unique so a determined individual could learn them. That and that the white tiles are coming off better than the others due to their bold broad strokes of color through the middle. Food for thought for sure. Accessibility is one of those secret super powers when it comes to reach for your game and I want to allow as many people to experience my games as possible so its a great call out, thanks!
Edge designs is a great idea I'll definitely consider that. Red tiles could have spiky outsides for instance.
Cheers, thanks!
(I only played the "Tooturial")
Having the word Tooturial instead of Tutorial, gave me the expectation that this will be a silly game, idk if that what you wanted. lol
Took a little bit for me to learn the controls (that in itself was easy) but the physics side of it. But once I learned it, I can see myself pull some stunts off in later levels.
I liked that when I got through a section, I could then see it as a backdrop behind everything. That made me feel like I was on the same level, and these are just sections (otherwise I would feel I'm passing several short levels).
In past sections, when dead, I got to the start of that section. But after the first-green-key section, when I die, I am sent back to that key-area. And made me wonder if teleports do not mean checkpoint like the last times (It's the faint-ish sparkle circles?).
(I've read Hythrania's review partly), as another pov. I actually liked the human "oomf" when jumping, for me it built on the silliness of the game overall, and in a lore-standpoint (idk if you have a story/lore, I assume might be me adding to it) that I'm a sentient-marble-orb-thing. I also liked that the norm and boosted jump have different sounds, made boosted more special.
I've only played exactly 24 minutes (how long I took on Tooturial), so I didn't do very much in that regard.
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Random thought: Putting this here, because it was a thought and you can do as you will with it. But I thought of how it might be if marble picked up speed as it moved forward like most games (this was initial expectation until I learned the actual physics).
Reason I would not do this, is the physics is already established, and a change like this can cause more issues then fix because the levels would be designed around the physics already present.
Was just a thought.
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I believe that was everything, might have forgotten something idk. I liked the silliness and different physics.
I wonder if there would be enemy types to chase me around? In later levels, whether killable (perhaps with in-map traps) or invincible. that's just another random thought.
Thanks so much for the detailed feedback! Really appreciate it!
Yeah "Tooturial" as a name felt funny at the time but it does indeed stick out so I'll consider whether that's the tone. I intend to redo the whole first set of levels anyway including Tooturial so I'll probably keep these levels as the deep dark forgotten forest lol and instead have some nicer more "color biome" oriented levels that walk you through a path like a map. Hope that will make the whole entry to the game a lot smoother.
I like your idea about the picking up speed, like during the ice slide it feels like we could go even faster but yeah it would change the physics so we'll just have to see. I have other game changing ideas like a stored boost and/or a sonic like spin in place and zoom type behavior.
Yep the sparkling circles are checkpoints, you've got to touch them to engage so maybe you skipped that one? I noticed that if you hold right during Tooturial you actually skip most of the checkpoints so I've seen that behavior you described happen under those conditions.
Haha yay glad the "oomf" landed better with you lol. I had fun with Foley for that one, I might consider trying a few options as I re-examine the audio design of this whole game. I like the inferred lore and might have to build on that....
Including enemies is a great shout I like that idea whether they chase you or are invincible. I could even see like the left side of the "page" chasing you so that you always have to keep moving to the right. That could bring a lot of fun.
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Thanks again for the feedback!! I'll lean into the silliness and the physics fun zones. Your words and kind intentionality will go a long way to making Tessel Run a better game! Thank youuuuuuuu
Hello and welcome to Feedback Quest 9! My name is Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts for this lovely event! I'm also one of the streamers, so both the game and this feedback are being done live! If you want to see the see the VOD, let me know and I'll link you to it when it's uploaded to YouTube!
I find myself challenged to write an introduction to this. I've played similar styles of games in the past in Feedback Quest and have generally had a good time, but aspects of this one just... left me confused. The first level that this happened in was... ugh, my memory is bad... Developmental Something. It's where the moment you spawn, there's a gravity block right on you. The gravity block then will make you automatically fall down and to the right, where you hit a green block to unlock something. If you don't do anything, though, the ball will roll and die the moment it reaches the red block below the green one (even though technically it shouldn't as you should be sent away from it. This level I struggled to figure out the solution, instead janking my way through this first part by hitting the orange block that sends you rightward, then nudging myself down to hit another orange block that fixes gravity to go down. I'd then jump the moment i hit it and use the momentum in the air to let me get up and over the ice blocks. What made this weird, though, is that there's clearly another key block I can't reach if I do this, making me feel like I didn't do the solution right.
Then I got to the level after, called... Glorbbz's Revenge? Huh? Who the heck is Glorbbz? This level just stumped me because it feels like you can't do it. When you hit the key blocks, it causes gravity blocks to fall in your path. Not a big deal on the first one as you can jump the gap with ease. The same cannot be said for the second one, though, where jumping the gap is impossible. So I thought maybe I need to land on the gravity blocks and jump, but that didn't work either. In the end, I gave up here in frustration because I legitimately don't see how it's possible unless there's something in the gameplay that I've not discovered yet that you, as the developer, would know about.
When it comes to feedback to improve the game, I'm honestly unsure what to say. I'd like to see if that catching the corner of a red block while rolling along other, more prominent blocks didn't kill me, but that's about it. I also think it'd be better if the player was taught about each block organically instead of having to read a "how to play" to have an idea of what each one does. Lastly... I'll be honest I hate the sounds of a guy when I jump. I'm a marble, not a person. Why do I sound like a person?
This is all I can give you, unfortunately. I don't really have much without being able to experience more of the game.
Yo thanks for the in depth comments! And for hosting this lovely event!
I hear your pain and frustration regarding Development Default and Glorbbz Revenge levels in particular and your confusion more generally regarding the gameplay experience. We spent too much time on the level editor (available on steam version only) and didn't make the levels good enough or flow well enough. I think our next turn of the crank will focus on what you described with the teaching of each block individually maybe with "biome" type level design that really focuses on each block one at a time. A little "map" or something of levels youve completed and bundling levels into categories might help a bit as well.
For the jumping sound that was me having fun with my first attempts at foley but I agree it's a bit odd to have a marble / ball making a human jumping sound 😅 I'll likely swap that one out or at least try some other ones that are more fitting. Cheers!
Sorry for being so late (I'm bad at remembering things)! Here is the VOD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6KUjQZcZ-U
https://youtu.be/KRefEBZr5M0 skip to 2:41:30
Yay for having controller support! The graphics and music are solid. The aesthetic is trippy, in a good way. Figuring out which blocks act as heavy/gravity warping/bouncing is easy and intuitive. One thing I'd add, if possible, is the ability to go to the next level after finishing a level. Currently, the only options are retry/main menu. Otherwise, it's a fun physics based puzzle game!
Thank you so much for playing, streaming, and providing feedback! Really appreciate you!! Glad that the mechanics are overall making good sense.
That is such a good call out about the next level option. Funny enough its actually supposed to show up but is straight up bugged and does not show up XD not the very worst issue but that surely explains part of the drop off and is an easy fix so I'll get on that. Great find, thank you!