Brilliant from start to finish! My only problem was blowing smoke rings consistently. The story is fantastic, though (if heart breaking). Had to replay company of myself again, after.
Reviews for "Fixation"
FreeAsANerd responds:
Thanks for the review!
Okay, I have to say this could be a good game but the timing for blowing smoke rings is just stupid and I gave up after 5 minutes of trying to blow smoke rings with any sort of consistency. I agree with Omegathorion have a keyboard toggle and I'll come back and play this game.
FreeAsANerd responds:
Yup, lots of folks didn't like the smoke ring mechanic. Stuff to learn, I guess!
Great storyline, it ties completely with the company of myself. For the people who are lost, the story goes like this: Katherine is sent to a psychologist to curb her smoking habit when she meets Jack. Jack was a former magician which plays into the past game. Jack is also a drug user who uses drugs to stay calm, and side effects of drug overdose includes memory loss, which explains why in the end of the company of myself, he greets the psychologist the same way everyday.
FreeAsANerd responds:
Thanks for the review! Glad you enjoyed it.
Most annoying game I've played.
You know why? It's because you put an interesting and compelling premise on top of the most infuriating puzzle mechanics I've seen. Reflex-timing smoke rings! Unreliable rain drops! Lasers cutting you in half with unpredictable mirror paths! The worst kind of experience in a puzzle game is when you have the solution, you know the solution in your head, you're planning to take steps to achieve that solution, but you can't because of the mechanics, because you can't blow five perfect smoke rings in a row. Why on earth would you do such a thing? At times it becomes more of a death trap game than a puzzle game. Don't even try to explain this game with the whole "life is hard" metaphor, that's not an excuse for bad game design.
Some mechanics solutions: Have a keyboard button toggle between blowing smoke and blowing smoke rings. Make rain reliable rather than pitter-pattering on and off randomly. Add a button (shift or space, something easily reached) which makes some kind of smoke shield around you.
Level design needed work too. It took me a long time to catch on that rain activated buttons. Whenever you introduce a new gameplay mechanic, make sure that you ease the player into it properly, rather than just assuming that the player will automatically know. For example, the first swamp level should have been something with a bunch of open buttons under an alcove, then you blow a smoke ring to destroy the alcove and all the buttons activate. That would let me know immediately that rain pushes buttons. But the first swamp level didn't accomplish that at all.
As for the story, it was cool and all, but a little underwhelming. Felt more like teenage drama than something actually meaningful. Nothing ever actually happened with Kathryn's smoking addiction. Henry doesn't stick around long enough to develop a close connection to the player for *that moment* to have as deep of a impact as you probably wanted. Worst part was, I kept playing hoping that something really big and mind-blowing would happen, but it didn't.
The music and art style was nice. That gives you two stars.
FreeAsANerd responds:
D'oh, oh well.
I enjoyed beating the game thoroughly, as the puzzles were hard without being frustrating. I quite enjoyed the tingly feeling of beating the upstairs level of the office too, which was a nice touch for those of us who wanted to figure it out.
I probably would have kept the smoking bar thing on the side throughout the game, as it was only there for one screen and many people seem to have issues with the timing on the smoke rings, which becomes pretty key on some levels. That said, I don't think it's unreasonably difficult to get the timing down, and by the end of the game muscle memory pretty much took care of it. (Perhaps a option/cheat to display the smoke bar instead?)
Of course, that feedback may be of limited use if you use a different mechanic for a 3rd installment of this storyline, but you seem to know what you're doing in any case so I'm not too worried. Well done on coming up with interesting dialogue to read, although I imagine that was even more tolerable because you could be doing the puzzle while in conversation, rather then being locked in place (well, other then the very first conversation).
Anyway, great job. I hope you'll make a third.
FreeAsANerd responds:
Thanks for the review!
I'm not sure if I'll make a third or not, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see about that.
The smoke ring bar was a weird thing because it would have to be manually placed in each level, since there's no set rule for which parts of the screen are available for HUD elements. It probably should have stayed visible for more than one level, though...