Nice work. Here’s some crit from someone with a game design degree if you’re interested in refining the visual design. If you’re happy with it as is as a your own little project, feel free to summarily disregard this comment!
Through the comments of the folks here, you’ve surely noticed that some people aren’t really ‘getting’ some of the stuff right off the bat. One of the toughest things about games is the visual communication aspect of it. Notice how little explanatory text most games have now — even the more low-bit style ones? Choosing coins as a mechanism is a deliberate communication strategy— it’s a game mechanic near everyone is familiar with so they don’t need explanation for how it works. A game’s (or any interface’s) visual components must be approached with the same mindset. A designer’s job is to take a step back and ask “what makes a [coin for example] look like a coin? What are the visual signals— from the most obvious, such as a metallic texture and being a round disk, that make people think it’s a coin? How do they tell it’s a coin and not a blank punch-out from a steel electrical junction box? If I take a bunch of pictures of coins into a photo editor and reduce the resolution to something extremely pixelated, what’s the lowest res I can go to while still realizing it’s a coin, and what about those coins are the few remaining pixels conveying?”
And deeper beyond that is figuring out how you can convey things like slowing the ball down without having a little icon. The cognitive load required to parse which icon you’re looking at and the implications of that is a bit much while trying to play a fast-paced reflex-oriented game. It doesn’t seem as hard as it is when you’re the one that chose the icons and configured their behavior, but especially in a deliberately casual game, people probably won’t take the time to become familiar enough with that system to push through the initial cognitive resistance. Identifying objects is a bit different than labelling a button on a control panel because it has context, physical form, and animation. A turtle might be a great way to label a slow-down button out-of-context, but maybe instead that brick could look gloopy and sticky? Conversely, maybe a speed up brick might be arcing or the shape of a lightning bolt, or vibrating like a revving engine block? Maybe you could have a little starburst where the ball teleported from and to when it teleports to visually orient the user better and on the trigger blocks include some of the graphical elements from that to identify it?
Like I said, if you’re happy with this as your personal project I’m not trying to say there’s anything wrong with it! But if you’re looking to refine the playability for broader audience, the visual design would be a great place to start.
You're right, thanks for that feedback. Changing the looks and sound of coins is now on top of my to-do list. For your second paragraph, are you talking about the V1 ? This is where you need to quickly identify all sorts of pictures to realize what you need. I added tooltips and all, but then thought that it would be better to separate the quick action reflex time and the strategic choices, which is what happens in v3 with upgrade choices between levels instead of timed pickups. The coins in v3 look even less like coins, though.
Through the comments of the folks here, you’ve surely noticed that some people aren’t really ‘getting’ some of the stuff right off the bat. One of the toughest things about games is the visual communication aspect of it. Notice how little explanatory text most games have now — even the more low-bit style ones? Choosing coins as a mechanism is a deliberate communication strategy— it’s a game mechanic near everyone is familiar with so they don’t need explanation for how it works. A game’s (or any interface’s) visual components must be approached with the same mindset. A designer’s job is to take a step back and ask “what makes a [coin for example] look like a coin? What are the visual signals— from the most obvious, such as a metallic texture and being a round disk, that make people think it’s a coin? How do they tell it’s a coin and not a blank punch-out from a steel electrical junction box? If I take a bunch of pictures of coins into a photo editor and reduce the resolution to something extremely pixelated, what’s the lowest res I can go to while still realizing it’s a coin, and what about those coins are the few remaining pixels conveying?”
And deeper beyond that is figuring out how you can convey things like slowing the ball down without having a little icon. The cognitive load required to parse which icon you’re looking at and the implications of that is a bit much while trying to play a fast-paced reflex-oriented game. It doesn’t seem as hard as it is when you’re the one that chose the icons and configured their behavior, but especially in a deliberately casual game, people probably won’t take the time to become familiar enough with that system to push through the initial cognitive resistance. Identifying objects is a bit different than labelling a button on a control panel because it has context, physical form, and animation. A turtle might be a great way to label a slow-down button out-of-context, but maybe instead that brick could look gloopy and sticky? Conversely, maybe a speed up brick might be arcing or the shape of a lightning bolt, or vibrating like a revving engine block? Maybe you could have a little starburst where the ball teleported from and to when it teleports to visually orient the user better and on the trigger blocks include some of the graphical elements from that to identify it?
Like I said, if you’re happy with this as your personal project I’m not trying to say there’s anything wrong with it! But if you’re looking to refine the playability for broader audience, the visual design would be a great place to start.