(Nothing serious at all, but sometimes, getting such little details help you prevent future huge bugs elsewhere. I am taking it down because I think the pieces were are their final positions in the previous puzzles. 4th puzzle: maybe expected, but I notice that the puzzle is considered solved while the final piece (the lower-right cog) is just to the right of its final position I guess it was moving towards the right place.:) (On a side note, at the beginning of the game, I thought these were giant aubergines rather than a mark of evil. Ah, I like how the purple plants apparently take over the land! It makes the world feel subtly alive (less static).:) Or, the places where you can put pieces/cogs are shown, but not which type, and you have to figure out if you should put one that turns leftwards or rightwards so that the mechanism activates something properly, for example. This way, you can have proper (progressive) riddles. Third piece puzzle: I think a way of making the puzzles less straightforward would be to imagine some rules governing the cogs and how one is to join them together, and not have the ‘blueprints’ telling the player where to put the missing pieces.Not saying that the compromise between freedom of exploration and not getting the player lost is an easy one, but such a game can surely benefit from a reflection around this point. Trying to visit just a bit eastwards of the clock master’s house: oh, I am taken back automatically to go to the house! :o I definitely think some of these constraints may be too visible.Small detail: I notice that if you are walking while reading a panel, the character keeps on walking is it expected?.Taking more time to listen to the success music, this time: I like how this is a sped-up version of the solving music, this reminds me nebulously of various games that apply this technique.Second piece puzzle: still rather straightforward, but I already see that the upper piece can block you from moving the long rightward piece this means there is definitely potential for more intricate such puzzles.I do not mean to copy the concept, but there is surely some inspiration to draw from it. A suggestion that crosses my mind: you can inject more gameplay even with simple walking, by having little(?) labyrinths, or Zelda-esque ‘Lost Woods’ sequences.
This is entirely reasonable for practical reasons, but makes the experience feel more one-track. Once eastwards, you cannot go back westwards, and once northwards (of the East… :p), you cannot go back southwards: so, apparently, what happens is the contrary of my first impression: to make up for the possibility of the player’s losing his bearings, backtracking is strictly forbidden.I guess this is for precision purposes, but I think continuous movement would still be manageable for this first puzzle, at least. Ah, moving pieces is achieved through punctual press, as opposed to the continuous moving of the character this caught me off-guard, I took some seconds to realize it.Side note: the mayor tells me I was quick, but I actually took the time to explore the whose local map.Found out now that you can run with the other key.(later: oh, you are blocked if you try to leave East! Maybe it is better to let the player roam a bit as you did, after all it was a reasonable amount. An often used (dirty?) trick is to block some unused ways, and then only allow passing once you have gained some power/key, or accomplished some action a less constrained technique would be to use subtle environmental guidance. I had read in the comments that the map was somewhat huge, and indeed… getting kind of lost right from the start! XD Then again, I may have poor sense of direction.(later: Now, I wonder why these games prevented you from it. Outside: oh, you can move diagonally! I was conditioned by several games to think this would not be possible here.X) Either I am clumsy (which may well be) or the corridor is a bit tight? This may sound silly, but I got stuck for some seconds trying to leave the house.Hey there! I found out about your game through one of your videos (on Game Boy Showdown, since I have a recent interest in Game Boy development) and decided to give it a try.
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