Towards 0.3

A few days ago, I published version 0.2 and took a few days off from all projects. Now, it's time to take a look towards the next release.

Levels

The game stands at 22 levels at this point, which is (coincidentally) 22% of the 100 levels I'm aiming for. When I say 22 levels, it means that these 22 levels are fleshed out to the point they're playable and viable candidates to be included in the v1.0 release. Most (if not all) levels don't have their graphics drawn and are bare-bone layouts, but playable nonetheless. I have scrapped seven or eight levels due to mechanisms that did not work as intended or the puzzles being tedious or just not fun to play through. I try to keep the pacing and feeling of progress throughout the levels while exploring the mechanisms to their fullest extents - which is not as easy as I thought it would be!

Gameplay

In the last update, I stripped out the "wait near the pink ball for three seconds before level completes" timer, and I must say, this was a welcome change. I originally envisioned this to be a fun mechanic so that player not only needs to reach the pink ball but also balance and wait there for a bit. Turns out, however, that when playing with a keyboard, balancing the ball becomes tedious, and when playing on a smartphone with accelerometer, the balancing is too easy and becomes just a delay. I also think that removing the timer streamlines the gameplay and lets me focus on puzzles that don't rely on balancing gimmicks.

UI and UX

Little has been done so far regarding the UI and the UX. In the latest release, I added a restart button, which was requested in a comment by a playtester. The roadmap does include a more extensive UI, but I will probably be focusing on level design for now. A level timer is something I'd really like to add for the next release, though! I'd love to see how fast the levels can be completed.

Sound and Music

Nothing yet! I've been fiddling around with some musical themes, but nothing remarkable so far.

Next stop: v0.3

All in all, progress has been slow but steady. For the next update, I'll aim to have plenty of new levels and some new game mechanics introduced, as well as progression and level choosing thingamajig so any of you who try the game out don't have to play through all the levels every single time.