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Sacrifice

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Our player is a circle with a query in his mind. Play through and go through the story.

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Not bad at all, enraging but not in a bad way :)

Well, this is a difficult game.
Overall, I quite like the concept – a story-driven platformer sounds amazing, the controls are also pretty fluent and there's a lot of different sources of dangers, so you know it won't be boring.

Unfortunately, it can sometimes be pretty frustrating, which mostly boils down to two things:
As the levels progress, there are more and more sections which require very precise jumping and every tiny mistake makes you repeat the whole level. Sometimes you need to stop at the very edge of a platform to make a jump.

The second problem is the crazy circles; those which bounce in whatever direction they want and never stop. The first one I loved – I thought it's a nice addition since there the circle is in a small, clearly enclosed area and you have to jump up while avoiding it. The level in which you drop a lot of them behind the player was also pretty fun.
However, they are downright irritating when mixed with the previous concept – precision and calm doesn't mix well with panic and randomness. It does ramp up the difficulty quite a bit – however there's a point in which the satisfaction of overcoming a tough challenge just isn't quite worth the exhaustion you get from repeating a level twenty or thirty times before you somehow get through.
At least the tough spot was usually at the start, not at the end of a level, so you could give it another go right away.

The bouncy circles can also sometimes get out of their intended zone and make the level impossible to be beaten (e.g. they get into a narrow passage or push other circles around). Interestingly enough, you can also bounce the circles away yourself if you get close enough but not too close.

Unfortunately, I didn't finish the game for the above reasons. I wouldn't say it's impossible, just too difficult to keep interested in trying over and over and over again (I quit in the "split screen" level with the square right below you, but was already considering it before).

I noticed similar mentions of difficulty in the reviews of your other game, at which point I'd consider removing an obstacle here and there.
If it wasn't too much hassle for you, I'd try adding the "Newgrounds.io for Construct":
http://www.newgrounds.io/downloads/
and add some medal (achievements) to see how many people finish the *first* level and how large percentage of that gets to finish the *last* level.
If all the players, not just the reviewers, appear lackluster (or just lose interest halfway through), then perhaps the overall difficulty is worth reconsidering.

As for other things:
– the 'safe' dark grey is sometimes really hard to distinguish from the 'deadly' black, especially if you're moving fast and see the level for the first time
– reading a text box which bounces up and down is inconvenient, in the intro, it's actually done much better, with the text hovering at some fixed point while the character jumps under it
– the short text ("Hey") stays onscreen a bit too long, on the other hand, you might not have enough time to read longer texts (even more so since its size is smaller)

Since I quit halfway through, I really wouldn't want to be unfair in judging the story – perhaps it's really interesting – but at least the initial few conversations could use some improvements.
For example, the very first exchange doesn't really say much, it's just "Hey" - "Hey" - "I want to tell you something." - "I'm a little busy" - "Okay bye".
That doesn't actually say much – if it was a screenplay, it would've been cut. You played through the whole level to 'earn' this conversation, so the characters should say something meaningful to give information about themselves or to advance the plot (if it's meant to be story-driven).
It's also a pity that the conversations between levels stop pretty soon.

So in summary, it's a fine game and I believe it could be pretty good, but in my opinion, it's too difficult for most people to stay interested in finishing it.

BlackRavenGames responds:

Thank you for your advice

Unfortunately, there are two things which I think are letting this down. The story just slows the game down too much, and randomly moving obstacles are just frustrating rather than challenging. There should also be more contrast between platforms and things that kill you.

Credits & Info

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Faves:
4
Votes
88
Score
2.92 / 5.00

Uploaded
Feb 9, 2019
7:51 AM EST