Dear Mark,
I just tried both 4.0 and 4.1. The game is turning out great.
I wanted to give you some feedback about the new puzzles in 4.1. They are much better than the previous ones.
The puzzles in 4.0 were indeed harder, but because of how close and how mechanically precise they were made, there were many times in the demo where I felt that I had "barely made it", almost as if I was cheating the system instead of simply getting that "aha!" moment you talked about in the video.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I believe you should keep going in this direction of focusing more on the puzzle mechanics and less on the platforming/execution part of the game. Making the right moves and leaving the way permanently open results in a much stronger "aha" moment in my humble opinion, it feels more like you did something right and less like you were just lucky.
Finally, here are a few specific suggestions and observations i have:
- The retry icon seems to be bugged. It doesn't reset to white after you restart for the first time.
- Maybe the bow should be a fixed third color? I've seen at least one user here on itch.io getting confused by the fact that it also changes colors.
- Mapping the Polarity Swap to F feels a little weird. Maybe it should be S/Down since that button isnt used for movement anyways? That's how I mapped it and it felt smoother.
Much love and excited to play the next version!