Another week in the books, and we're back with some exciting updates! This week we had a fantastic meeting with folks over at Unity who provided some invaluable feedback on our somewhat current build. They highlighted some key areas for improvement, including the slidey stick feel, wavey wall complaints, and issues with the size bar - all things we're definitely going to be tackling in the coming weeks. We're really grateful for their insights and are excited to implement their suggestions as we continue polishing the game. Here's what has been going on this week:

Gameplay:

• We've made significant progress on the intro screen overhaul, giving players a much cleaner and more polished first impression when they boot up the game. The new design should feel a little more professional and also more fun and gamey!
• A new size indicator bar has been added to help players better understand their current scale in relation to the world around them. This was something that came up in our Unity meeting as well as a bunch of meetings before - players were getting confused about their size state, so this should make the mechanic much more intuitive, however, if may yet get removed.
• We're still deep in the weeds with the mouse puzzle implementation and figuring out exactly how we want to incorporate it into our final level. It's proving to be trickier than expected to incorporate, but we're gonna nail down something that feels both challenging and fair.

Art:

• Animations have been added across the board! While they're still getting refined and polished, having actual animated movement makes the whole experience feel so much more alive and engaging.
• We've implemented a proper pause menu complete with a sensitivity slider and music volume settings. Players can now fine-tune their experience mid-game, which should make the controls feel much more personalized and comfortable (very helpful since different players like playing at different paces).

Design:

• We're moving forward with implementing the functionality for wavey walls to be walk-throughable but not swap-throughable. This should open up some really interesting puzzle design possibilities and address some of the confusion players have been experiencing since it seems very similar to the red highlights which ARE walk throughable.
• The picture level is staying put for now as we slowly iterate and improve upon it. We're taking a more measured approach rather than scrapping it entirely, since we think there's still potential there with the right tweaks.
• The mirror level might soon be getting a complete rethink since feedback has been all over the place - some players find it too easy while others aren't sure where to look. We want to find that sweet spot where it's challenging but not frustrating. For now we have made it a little more clear where the player should be looking with different player leading methods to stand certain things out but there is a worry that this may make it far too simple to even be a puzzle.

Regardless however, we hope you enjoy the updates we've made, with our latest build being the unity playtesting build, so feel free to check it out!