update: i took your advice and started over. the game now opens inside a small linear tutorial built from its own mechanics, one idea at a time: take-in, hang, jump, then scissors. about two minutes. it's a first pass and i'm not sure about it yet tbh, so if you feel like a second look, i'd rather hear where it breaks than where it works
"Every area feels like a piece of someone's inner world" -> i really like this one, thank you very much. I will try Recipe Frenzy within two days and let you know
thank you for useful feedback and kind words :) and you were right about onboarding: after your and ace's notes i rebuilt the first five minutes as a small tutorial that uses the game's own rules, one thing at a time. i still don't like it much, but will fix it day by day. it's live now
on the art: i'm not an artist at all :) trying to learn as i go i'll climb into BEAT BAES within two days and leave notes inside its head. thanks for the wishlist!
hey, thank you, this is exactly the kind of feedback i can't get from friends. don't feel bad at all :)), you played the new version and still got lost, that's the most useful thing anyone told me this month lol. i'm a dev too but not a game dev xd, so the "you can't see it as a new player anymore" part hits, i literally can't.
i'll watch it and read it in my free time and rethink the beginning from scratch. thank youu!
thanks a lot for the vod, it was gold -> i cannot see the game the way you do anymore, because basically i'm the only playtester and i got way too used to it lol. I watched it frame by frame and changed the opening because of it: the game now starts on the platform instead of the zoom out. I added more on-screen hints. If you ever feel like a second look, same link
Not a great player myself, so it was a sweet kind of frustrating, but it kept me playing and I finished it. Liked the vibe a lot. The only thing: the camera pan gets a bit annoying at times, a small amount of freedom to pan would take it to a better place I guess. I think it can become a full game as it is, but I'd keep it short, something like 60 to 90 minutes feels right for it imo.
That flight combo is completely legit you routed around a puzzle instead of solving it, and that honestly made me happy. small reveal since you earned it: only singing girl is you. when you hang him, you're wearing his voice.
(And the suppressing field can be dealt with, but that one you'll have to figure out. I'll accept it if you call the design poor once you're done.)
First of all, have no idea how you managed to arrive there lol.
Two clarifications, since both clearly bothered you:
The cutter enemies can only cut the red edges and your tether (down to half), nothing else in your tree is ever at risk, and what's cut drops back so you can re-collect it. So the "I'll lose everything" fear was the game failing to communicate the threat's limits. Noted. (You can only lose one slot inventory)
The graveyard lever isn't broken, it has a deliberate condition: you need to cut your own hand first. You apparently triggered it without realizing or cutter enemy cut your hand, which is a fair hit on how badly it communicates itself.
One more thing I forgot to mention: you can hold R to rewind a bit, it takes the world back a certain amount.
This is the most useful feedback i got so far, thanks.
Your model is almost entirely right, including the jumper thing, that's intentional. I won't fill in the small gaps you have, because figuring that out is kind of the point of the game.
And yeah, fair hit on the "too much insight" part. Teaching without tooltips is the most important thing for the game and I know I don't have a clear solution for it yet. That's why this kind of feedback helps a lot.
One hint: you're just a head like the others in the game :)
Two questions if you don't mind: what was the first thing that confused you? And where did you stop playing?
Fair, you're the third person to say this, so it's real. Pushed an update today: the game now tells you what you gained when someone ends up in your head, and you can press S on someone to enter them without jumping. If you give it another five minutes, tell me if it lands better
