"It seems like the game doesn't know whether it wants to be a puzzler or a dexterity game at times" That's something the developer can lean into. They can have levels dedicated to one of the two styles. This could work really well with an adventure level select kind of design where you don't have to complete every level to move on. I also want to concur strongly with his mention that the non-flat geometry gets weird at times. Sphere games aren't made for little ledges and lips, they're made for slopes. The doctor also mentions a fairy tale kind of story being a good direction for the game, and personally I was imagining a sort of lighthearted classic fantasy adventure story. Maybe our hero was a person who got turned into a sphere, or maybe they're a sphere who finds they're the only one left for the job. He then mentions being maybe an offscreen entity manipulating the ball, and I think that would pair nicely with making the ball some sort of plot device He then mentions feedback, particularly in regards to jumping. There are 2 very important ways to indicate things with a ball: squash, and stretch. I see some of that when the ball initially jumps, but I personally think the ball should stay stretched upwards for as long as the player's input to go higher is actually making it go higher (so it ends when they've held it for the maximum effective time, or when they stop holding the button). I also think squashing is a fantastic indicator for situatons like a hard landing or when some force suddenly imparts a lot of momentum to the ball (especially when that momentum is counter to player inputs), but I didn't notice any squashing. Finally, while there's nowhere in the doctor's discussion that particularly correlates to this point, I will say that looking at this beachball pattern, I expected a decently floaty ball with some bounce to it, but that's not really what it does in this footage. Remember that the type of ball you display affects expectations, and you can even potentially use that to your advantage by offering different balls with different physics for players to use (either tied to levels or as decisions to be made)
This channel looks amazing. Thank you for what you do here, it's immensely valuable. Also - I love the artistic touch you're giving here and there. And the humor... oh boi, top notch.
Thank you! I know it’s very janky and lofi but I find it fun to do that way. If I set the bar for polish too high I’ll never finish anything ; I’m making RU-vid vids, not a $20 game 🤣
@@IndieGameClinic Paraphrasing some Dr. from RU-vid - "I don't care if it's very janky and lofi and I really don't mind; what I do mind about is the kind of creative consistency". You know what you're doing and you're executing it well... and I adore that.
I was gonna say you have some great insight on how to take this game to the next level, especially with theming. But then you finished the video with that totally-real Deftones song and that's gonna be rolling and bouncing around in my head for a while.
Admittedly, I have a hard time picking up games where the protagonist is a plain circle or square. Bad character design is one thing, but no character design is sometimes even more of a turn-off, for a lot of the reasons this video goes into. Both the theming and mechanics would have to stand out enough for me to give them a chance.
Yeah I think there is an audience who would go for this, but it would be a much larger audience if it had a kooky theme slapped on it. Which is why I think Rock of Ages is such a good example.
Maybe the game already has this in the unlocks, but different skins like a bowling ball or eight ball would be cool. Also enemies like bowling pins and tennis rackets might fit better than cubes. I do find the bright color palette of the game charming, I think the level geometry could be simplified tho (not the visual models but just the collision).
I think those are good ideas for the skins! Personally I do not get much value out of personalisation in this kind of game, especially not if no-one else can see my choices. But I'm glad to see there is an audience who might.
They should really look at Marble Madness on the Amiga and learn from that. Possibly make a hill level to roll down and worms that hump on the ball to find out how things feel from that perspective. Limiting the uphill rolling is also a good forcing function to pace the game and force the player to make choices. Roll down the left side for reward x or right for y...or possibly still find a way to get both. To me the game seems going in multiple directions because the ball can do to much and it's too slow paced for an agility game. It can only be a puzzle game, but the agility tests get in the way of the thinking. A puzzle game would also have a way to overview the level such as a top down camera, so you can ponder the route. Currently it's really a 3d platformer like Mario on the N64. It has the clouds already. Maybe replace the ball with a cute monster (or robot like BB8) so things match up again. (edit) The monster/robot could have lights or appendages indicating the things in the upper right corner, but simple enough to match the environment.
Rolling robo feels like a good theme, simple to achieve and would add more value to the customisation options the dev has already started working on. I don't know many people who would just like to choose between different geometric patterns if it's not doing anything for them to express their tastes.
@@IndieGameClinic some people also want to make lemonade when they have oranges, I always say to our lead developer that if we have lemons we should make (the best) lemonade and it probably will have more success, even if it's a simple lemonade 🍋
@@IndieGameClinic you can try Suno and other Ai agents, they're not half bad for the purpose! But yeah.. you really hit a soft spot with the Deftones vibe 🤙
Marble blast ultra i love tha xbox 360 arcarde game omfg , study the crap out of that game and the more recent one that came out ... this is definetely worth 5$ on steam ! Great job
@@FerousFolly I think it might be an issue later on - and probably due to optimized art assets - but I do not think it is a key problem at this stage. Vines with too many polys which aren't fun to roll on is a bigger issue than vines with too many polys making a game run at 25fps.
