A Quest To Bear by Fis

Hey everyone,
This is our eleventh entry for Ludum Dare. For 57’s Depths we proudly present our next puzzle game A Quest To Bear. We hope you thoroughly enjoy it!
You play a Deer Pearl Bear who is obsessed with pink pearls from the depths of a mysterious cave, so he can win the title "Pearl King" and reign across this unconquered land after winter is over. Without hesitation, he starts to make his way down, determined to find all Star Seashells and optain those precious Pearls.
We made 11 levels so far for you to play through, so have fun and thanks for playing!
Best regards @nivbeth, @fis & @johncoffee
Screenshots
|Level 02|Level 03|
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Characters

Ratings
| Overall | 135th | 3.963⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 159th | 3.813⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 373th | 3.338⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 689th | 3.138⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 113th | 4.338⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 428th | 2.811⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 212th | 3.936⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 40🗳️ | 60🗨️ |
The only nitpick I can find with this entry is that the text fade in in the tutorial levels is a bit slow, but it's a really small thing in the grand scheme of things. Great job!
Didn't expect I could drop the rock during sliding in the beginning.
What could use a bit more iteration is collecting flowers and the step count. What I mean is that they are quite disconnected from each other, if you want a low step count you'll ignore the flowers and head towards the exit and if you decide to collect the flowers you are ignoring the step count.
Nice little bear! Good game ^_^
One thing regarding the graphics: I found I had trouble timing when to place the boulder. Not sure if it was just me, but maybe making the environment less round, and leaning more into the tile based aestetic would help? But not sure.
Anyways, great game love it!
Interesting puzzle mechanics -- I mean sliding is an old one, but to have an 'inventory' (of sorts) and making health part of the puzzle is inspired.
OK, nitpick time (a.k.a. it's easier to talk about the bad bits, even in a good game ... sometimes _especially_ in a good game):
That said, (talking about the 'drop rock' bit) I'm not always in favour if introducing time/skill based mechanics in what otherwise looks like a 100% puzzle-game. Now, if you're careful with this --like I think you have been in the released levels-- I think you'd want make sure the intended solution never follows a route where timing is important. Still, it's annoying to not place the rock in the right spot, even if all that this means is that you have to backtrack -- which is made a bit worse by the long slides, and the perspective/roundedness of the corners you need to line up to.
(Now that I'm picking nits anyway, I'd like a 'redo level' in case you didn't pick up all of the points.)
All in all, well, if you add a bunch of levels, add the point-total to the completed levels, and made a slightly better win-screen, you could sell me this as a completed premium game for phones and I wouldn't blink an eye.
It was fun to try new mechanics in an already familiar puzzle game, the levels are built in an interesting and varied way, each new mechanic is clearly explained in the tutorial levels. Thank you very much for the game!
Overall a great game
I really like the mechanics and puzzles, it's very good how having an inventory with ability to drop rocks changes this type of game! And the mood is very adorable with smooth animations. And the amount of levels is just right for a gamejam! Congratulations!
Some levels have a healing potions but nothing to be harmed with?
Small wish that I have is some kind of result screen after finishing the game. Perhaps the amount of steps taken overall and/or the amount of steps per each level. My entity in this GJ have this sort of screen (but with times instead of steps) so maybe this is why i am thinking about it, but also i feel that way i could compete with myself in trying to beat this game with the least steps possible, find the most optimized solution for each level.
Here is my let's play experience: https://youtu.be/_PGR70c0Rzo