Gravity Castle Reviews

[h2] Great game, but needs more playtesting [/h2] This game is incredible in terms of visuals and easy to pick-up mechanics, and I thoroughly enjoyed my playthrough. This negative review isn't meant to sway you away from playing (far from it) but there are many bugs and issues which I found throughout the game, through normal means you are unlikely to encounter any but if you try to experiment or stray off of the intended path then you may encounter several. If you plan to play the game then go ahead but I warn you of one issue: [b] The game is currently impossible to 100% [/b] , I mention this later in the bugs section but to keep it brief here: level 3 has a max collectable count of 8/10 and level 4 has a max collectable count of 9/14. Also FYI the user tags are incorrect, this is [b]not[/b] a Metroidvania. The negative review is to get the developer to notice these issues and hopefully fix them as this is an otherwise fun albeit quick game. The game has been released roughly a month ago and other reviews have mentioned issues but many have gone unfixed. [h3] Minor/QOL Issues [/h3] [list] [*] English translation for controls menu is a bit off, 'move do[i]nw[/i]side' should be 'move downward', and 'running left/right' should just be changed to 'run'. [*]You can pause during a screen fade in (e.g., after dying) causing it to also freeze meaning you are stuck with a black screen until you unpause again. [*]Every flip object has 'E' listed but this is not the right button to use it, rather the up button is. This incorrect button prompt on flippers persists through the entire game. [*]When the player presses against a lever on a wall, the player sprite is slightly visible between the wall and lever. [*]Player is forced to repress [up] to grab a ladder after jumping off of it, possibly change to automatically regrab after a set amount of time has passed. [*]The shadow sprite at the bottom of ladders also overlaps with the player. [*]The player can attach to a ladder further than they can climb up one normally by jumping off and re-grabbing it. [*]The death sound does not play if the player is climbing a ladder. [*]Some blocks that are moved by lever can be controlled to move continuously against walls causing the move SFX to rapidly play. [*]Large elevator activation sequences have no (or too quiet of) sound so can be a bit confusing to wait for a second or two where the elevator doesn't move. [*]The music in sub-area transitions (which use the same music) restarts awkwardly. [*]The pit under the last elevator in the lava forge has blocks you can land on both sides which you can land on safely provided you don't touch the middle killzone. [*]Player can softlock themselves in multiple different areas, there is no restart button so the player is forced to either exit to the main menu or go to the map selection to unstuck themselves. [*]You can stand inside of arrow/missile turret blocks without taking damage. [*]Too often the player is forced to rotate a certain way as otherwise they fall right into spikes without anyway of recovering, very bad level design that needs to be replaced by a flip object that turns you a specific direction instead. [*]Character can attempt to pull a box off a ledge causing a prototype sprite of the character to appear. [*]No guidance on where the hidden braziers could be, making the task of finding them all quite tedious. (The pause menu has a dial that shows your current rotation but this doesn't serve much functionality, might be good to repurpose it to point at braziers possibly?) [*]The 'point of view' eye icon is visible during the end cutscene. [/list] The game sometimes features movable flip objects but they aren't clear at all and aren't taught initially, often you will waste a lot of time in a puzzle trying to solve it without knowing you can move a flip object. -This happened to me 3 times These need a better tutorial and possibly have more distinguishable features other than being on a stand, possibly change the colour of the flip icon from blue to pink? [h3] Major Issues [/h3] [list] [*]Player character can get squished in several different places but won't die, this sometimes results in them getting softlocked inside objects. [*]Player can often run back out of puzzle rooms before the gate fully closes causing them to get softlocked. [*]The blocks destroyed by the bell in the underground fortress return if the player dies causing them to get stuck in the bonus room. [*]Various other softlocks which include using the physics to get the blocks into places which allow the player to climb out of rooms at the wrong angle and get stuck in pits. [*]The player can easily skip the flip object before 800m causing them to freefall through the next rooms and eventually fall into the abyss if they walk right. [*]Placing a movable flip object on a edge and using it while falling will cause the character to slow fall and will break the object when they flip as well as doing a 180 degree turn instead of a 90 degree turn. [*]Player can move the movable flip at 1100m before the moving object gate closes causing it to be inaccessible. [/list] I spent a while going around level 3 and 4 looking for the remaining braziers but got stuck at 8/10 and 9/14, eventually I gave up and decided to check the Unity project files, as it turns out; the game is missing the second areas for both of them. This meant that level 3 was missing the 4th and 5th collectable and level 4 was missing all collectables 5 through 9. Despite being skipped; their collectables are still counted towards the final counts and therefore the (possible) hidden cutscene at the end can never play. I want to give this game a positive rating but there are far too many small issues with it currently.