It has been over a week since submission, so I have had time to watch people play and see where I stumbled. I certainly goofed in a lot of areas. This is my first completed game, and I believe it was successful if I consider it a prototype. I am very satisfied with the primary mechanics and goal of this game.  I am going to start work on the post-compo version. I will add requested features such as a restart button, UI, and animation. But I will also make sweeping changes to the underlying game design, so it might end up feeling like a new game.

Check out the original

Successes:

• Camera control – Moving the sphere feels pretty good and might feel great on a touch screen.
• Rings – Forming a ring can require thinking a few moves ahead. And although I am getting better at it, I still flub. This says to me that this goal might have some depth.
• Audio – Hey, I picked a pleasant song! I will do my best to pick another for the post-compo version.
• Mood – The difficulty is outrageous, but still feels really chill. Many games of this genre give the player a sense of urgency, but you are not rushed in my game. There is no time limit of any kind, so you can plan your moves at your own pace. You are challenged to think carefully,  but not to think quickly.

Observed Problems

• Technical – Players must refresh the page after GAME OVER because no restart button is offered. This was a double-edged failure because it helped to alleviate the MASSIVE memory leak (nearly 2GB used during my last run).
• Mechanics – Few players were aware of both sliding and twisting, although most knew of one. At least one player did not know that the entire sphere could be rotated. Tiles instantly moved or were destroyed, so players were not always fully aware of how they were modifying the sphere.
• Goal – I used the term “rings” to describe a situation in which a tile was surrounded by tiles of a single color. But this was interpreted as great circles around the sphere (e.g. equator).
• Antigoal – Nearly every player was confused by the end game. Every time a player moved tiles, a black layer was added to one of twelve pentagons. GAME OVER was triggered if all pentagons were full (had 4 layers). Few knew that the game could be extended by surrounding full pentagons, which removed its layers from play.
• Late game – If you make it past 2000 points, the game starts to creep to a halt. Few options are available because no new layers are introduced and black layers are everywhere. No move can be wasted.

Possible Solutions:

• Tutorial – My list of rules was hard to decipher. An integrated tutorial of some sort might go a long way to communicate the goal and mechanics.
• Visuals – A lot of important information is obfuscated, such as moves left until GAME OVER. Simple UI elements could express this information.
• Animations – This game needs tile movement and destruction animations. The player will feel more agency when moving tiles if the transformation occurs slowly enough to be perceivable.