ColourMapster & the Tomes of Life

Hey Hob,

Tested out your game multiple times to give good feedback on my experience. My feedback and my experience with your game is from the windows version and the web version. They play quite differently.

The game is very easy to understand. I didn't have any issue beating the game the first time (window version). You did very well to give players clear instructions on what to do. And I think it is good that you have a beginning and a clear end. 

I do have comments, questions and concerns. I have separated them by both, windows only, and web only.

Both versions

• Avoiding enemies is made pointless since stamina is regenerated slowly over time. If a player doesn't mind waiting, the game is left with very little challenge. 
• The hitbox of the player is too large. Most of the damage I received was from enemies that I never touched visually. If you trim down the sides of the hitbox to fit more with the main body of the character rather than the entire sprite, it would help to avoid this issue.
• The player feels like they are sliding on ice making for more unavoidable damage from enemies/hazards.
• Having the player use a close range "attack" to defeat bosses is counter intuitive to established rules of avoiding enemies. It would be better if the attack was mid range to allow the player to more easily avoid taking damage.
• The jump sound is signaled by the button press rather than the player actually jumping.
• Some of the sign's graphics are infront of enemy objects. Their depth needs to be adjusted.
• Why does the heart "attack" not work on normal enemies?
• It would be great if tomes had more purpose. A reward of a new ability or power would making collecting them actually worthwhile.
• I think the level design of the windows version is better than the web version. Also the speed of the player is faster and enemies/hazards are easier to avoid due to their placement.

Windows Only

• You can't die. I let the stamina run down and noticed I would never get a game over.
• Rocks can still damage players even after they are on the ground. Also the last rock trap in this version caused the character to slide left through the wall, take damage from another fallen rock and end up in the shallow pit between the first rock trap and the second.
• You can get stuck in the walls and stand on top of the doors.
• The spider has a weak spot. By standing inside the spider out of the way of its attack and spamming the heart attack you can avoid taking touch damage from the spider.
• I wanted to check and see if I could complete the game without all the tomes. And you can't, which is good. However if you miss any before defeating the wasp the door remains locked even after you retrieve them and you are unable to complete the game.
• What is with the "?" in the background of the first water room?

Web Only

• The placement of some enemies/hazards are almost unavoidable due to the speed of the enemy/hazard (rock traps are much faster in this version), the speed of the player, lack of traction of the player, placement of walls/ceilings, and lack of controllable jump height.
• The player moves too slow making it hard to avoid enemies and land on platforms.
• The heart "attack" harms the player. This isn't a big issue more so than a annoyance. Even though stamina regenerates over time, getting attacked along with attacking in this case can quickly lead to a game-over without the player fully realizing what happened. On top of that it is punishing the player for using what was given to them to deal with the boss. Avoiding the attacks from bosses is almost impossible, which leaves only one strategy to defeat them. Attack once, loose stamina, get attacked, loose more stamina, wait a few seconds to regenerate stamina, and repeat. And for me that isn't very fun.
• After I got my first game over the stamina bar disappeared when I started over. I had to refresh the page for it to fully reappear.

Overall, this is a good start. It just needs more work to become great. Hope this helps to improve you game and keep making progress.