I really loved the concept of this game and super appreciate that you had the option to turn off the screen shakes and flashes! Something my viewers and I greatly appreciated :)
The retro black and green aesthetic was awesome and very much on theme. I liked the general layout for the screen and the difficulty options based on how many squares were in each piece. The color of the pieces were easy to tell apart.
The font choice for key control reminders did make some letters hard to distinguish; for example, the Q looked like an O. W being the hard drop was not fully intuitive, and I hit it by accident once or twice while trying to turn the pieces.
For me, the biggest issue was that there was just SOOO much going on in what to do. The How to Play threw so much information out that I just couldn't keep it all straight, and when I got to the color matching block, it never seemed to work no matter what I tried. I gave up on it and went into the main game, but really couldn't remember much beyond turning pieces, hard falling, and making rockets. And I had no idea what the budget and energy meant, other than they kept going down.
I don't mind that it has complexity, but with all the elements and options, it might be better to break up the tutorial into smaller chunks that are given at intervals in the game, so you do a few levels with one concept before adding another. It's a method that has worked well for other games with increasing elements of play that help the player get one idea down before they have to add another.
VOD of my playing: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2875282122?t=03h14m29s
Viewing post in Rocketrix jam comments
Thank you so much for the detailed feedback and for sharing the VOD!
I’m really glad you liked the concept, the retro aesthetic and especially the accessibility options. Knowing that the screen shake and flash settings were useful not only for you but also for your viewers is really valuable feedback for us.
The tutorial comments are especially helpful. You’re actually reinforcing something we’ve started seeing in other playtests as well: the game introduces too many systems before the player has had time to internalize the basics. We definitely don’t want to remove the complexity, but we do need to do a much better job of introducing it progressively.
Your point about learning one mechanic, playing with it for a while, and then introducing the next one is very much the direction we’re considering for the tutorial.
I’ll also take a close look at the color-matching section you mentioned, because if it felt like nothing you tried worked, that may be more than just an explanation issue.
The Q/O readability and accidental W hard drops are great smaller UX notes too.
Thanks again for taking the time to play Rocketrix and explain where things stopped being clear. The VOD will be really useful for us. ❤️