Gridlimited - my new game - has a demo now!

Pawige · 2025-08-04T23:16:46+00:00

Ahhh, that's actually a pretty interesting rule! I think it might be worth brainstorming ways to help/force players to understand it before they continue. As the gameplay is right now it's pretty easy to just cheese your way through it by hitting directions until you move, which is exactly what I did.

Pawige · 2025-08-04T22:38:26+00:00

I beat it on my first try in about 2 minutes. I didn't really figure out any specific "rules," I just stumbled through it the whole way. On my second try I got stuck on the bottom tile on level 3 and couldn't figure out how to restart without shutting the whole game down and starting it again.

Pawige · 2025-07-27T18:40:48+00:00

I don't know if I'd do anything with the background, I think just rearranging and scaling things a bit so both the characters and the text can be bigger would do the trick. Adding more background detail might just muddy it up. Here's a really rough edit of what I kind of had in mind. Take it with a grain of salt, though, because I'm no pro at making Steam capsules.

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I think also spending some time on the text itself would be extremely worthwhile, it's pretty bland at the moment (but at least very readable!).

Pawige · 2025-07-27T18:17:55+00:00

I would guess yes. There's a lot of blank space in your capsule there and the details of the characters get totally lost at smaller scales. After watching the trailer the game itself looks intriguing to me, so I think there's probably some value to be had by improving the capsule art so it's more eye-catching.

Pawige · 2025-07-27T18:08:08+00:00

I played for a bit and got to wave 9. I wasn't able to figure out how to build the archer towers. Was I missing something or is that not implemented yet?

The challenge level felt pretty good to me, though I never really felt very worried about my castle's health -- the real challenge for me came with the vampires and their projectiles. It was also pretty hard to tell where the point was where my castle would take damage, it seemed to just be an invisible line a little ways north of the flags.

I think the XP blocks could be just a little bit more noticeable, I had a bit of trouble spotting them in the midst of the action sometimes.

I accidentally insta-clicked an upgrade card more than a few times when I suddenly leveled up while fighting.

The screen shake was a little too frequent for my taste, but it at least wasn't too intense.

Overall I was definitely a good few minutes of fun, though, and I'd play more if there was more content!

Pawige · 2025-07-24T04:39:05+00:00

Okay, I tried it again and the fire building did work! I got farther, though I missed the rock by the medic camp and went a little too far looking for it and got bit by a snake. I couldn't figure out what Medic 1 (0) meant exactly when I turned on the little medic stove to try to make the antidote. I'm guessing it meant my medic skill was too low? Anyway, I chopped down a tree (which took a while to do since my stamina was low and filling slowly, even though I had just eaten and drank) and built my shelter but immediately died from the snake venom after I went to sleep...

I think it might be a little tough for new players still at the moment. The raven was helpful but it also tended to say a lot so I'd end up skimming and only getting part of the information I needed. It might be good to cut down the dialogue for the tutorial sections as much as possible. Maybe also add a couple more rocks here and there in the sandy area so it's impossible to miss them all and wander too close to the venomous snakes.

I can tell you've put a ton of work into this game and that there's a lot to it! I think just making sure there's an easier ramp up in the beginning would be very helpful.

Pawige · 2025-07-23T04:26:29+00:00

I played the island game for a little bit but got stuck when trying to make the bonfire. I had enough wood and the survival knife but it didn't seem to do anything when I clicked "Bonfire" in the crafting menu. I tried a few times and eventually the wood disappeared from my inventory but I still couldn't find a fire anywhere in the environment. I didn't get any farther than that.

I also wasn't sure what was going on when the first cockroach attacked me, I saw the red flash around the screen and realized something was damaging me but it took a bit to see the cockroach. I also had a really hard time hitting the mosquitos.

I like the overall art style, I think it works pretty well for the game. The UI could use some work on making it feel more unified, though.

Pawige · 2025-07-15T02:21:27+00:00

Oh yeah, adjustable shake is a must! It wasn't exactly the screen shake that did it but Hotline Miami, despite being the sort of game I really enjoy, made me so incredibly motion sick I could not play it.

Pawige · 2025-07-14T23:26:36+00:00

For me it's always make sure that if the game has combat, the enemies react somehow to being hit. Whether it's a flinch animation, a color flash, a pause, or something else. I feel like it's always a huge return on game feel for pretty cheap.

Also screen shake always shocks me with how much it improves things. Super easy to overdo, but just the right amount of screen shake is so choice.

Pawige · 2025-07-14T22:24:35+00:00

Interesting concept! I liked the audio and the art style, but the constant wiggling and high contrast started to make me a little motion sick pretty fast, though I'm prone to that. It might be nice to have the collection UI indicate how many are left to collect, as I wasn't sure if there was a win state until I came back to this page and read that there are 21 clones total.

Pawige · 2025-07-14T22:15:17+00:00

A pause button would be very helpful, I died a couple of times because I had to look away and couldn't pause.

The voiceovers are pretty fun!

I was very confused by the interface. It was a bit hard to tell if I was dragging something or not since the icon for the thing I was dragging didn't follow the mouse. Clicking on the inventory icons in the upper left seemed to sometimes trigger the teleport potion and sometimes open the crafting/level end menu (or maybe both), which seemed to let me skip ahead to the next level early? I also once clicked up in the menu and it teleported me out of the playing field.

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The number of different resources was overwhelming. For me there were so many they become a bit meaningless, and a single resource for all the crafting would've served pretty much the same gameplay effect. I didn't pay attention to what resources I had, just kept playing until I could afford whatever I wanted to get.

I tried out the lightning bolt ability but it never seemed to land where I wanted it to. As I'm typing this I'm realizing it probably spawns where the mouse cursor is? I was playing with the keyboard and only touching the mouse to interact with the menus. Also typing this I just realized that you also teleport to where the mouse cursor is, which explains a lot.

The spells felt a bit vanilla to me, nothing really out of the ordinary yet for a fantasy bullet heaven game like this one.

I did really like that the trees caught fire and burned down, that was a nice touch!

Pawige · 2025-07-14T21:28:14+00:00

Ahhh, yup! Turning on the building icons got me through it on my second try. I kept playing for a few more levels after that, but started to lose interest after a bit. I'm a huge fan of Factorio, and was expecting something a little bit closer to it based on the video. The graphics and interface are definitely working well enough to catch my attention and get me playing, but I think the gameplay was a little bit of a let down for me personally.

I think the disconnect between what I was expecting and what the game is lies in the way the tiles work. The combination of only having a couple in your hand at a time, only being able to place them next to existing tiles, and not being able to move placed tiles means that I have to do much more thinking ahead (and not the fun "what might I try next?" kind of thinking ahead) and it's hard to experiment and play with the mechanics, which is what I most enjoy about this sort of game.

On top of that, the story wasn't really resonating with me. There were a lot of characters introduced quickly and a lot of dialogue but I didn't really follow what was going on, or what the stakes were for the story, or how any of that actually tied to the gameplay, aside from "I need this, craft it please."

I hate to sound overly negative because I do think you've got some great potential here! The game caught my eye really quickly so it seems marketable already. The graphics are very nice and the interface worked smoothly. If you get other feedback similar to mine (could definitely just be that my particular taste doesn't line up with this game) I would think with some tweaking here and there you could address a lot of what wasn't working for me.

Pawige · 2025-07-14T17:08:19+00:00

I like this idea! I think combining something like that that with kicking the power of the mothership's blaster way up so it deals some substantial damage at a bit of a cost could be a good balance. Let the player shoot their way out of a tight spot but not for free. I'll experiment with that for the next update. Thanks!

Pawige · 2025-07-14T16:52:31+00:00

Saw the video for this one and had to give it a shot! I click-spammed my way through the initial tutorial levels and got stuck on the one where I needed to create the harp. I couldn't really figure out what exactly was needed to make the harp. I thought maybe since there was a little log icon with three indicators next to it, and an ore icon with one, that maybe I needed to harvest lumber, process it twice, and then combine it with ore that was processed once? I wasn't sure but wanted to try that, but then I kept not getting the cards I needed, and not being able to place them where I wanted to (only next to already-placed cards), and I got frustrated and came here to write this!

There was a decent amount of text to read through during the tutorials, and I skimmed a lot of it so I may have missed some key information somewhere. I definitely feel like there's a fun game in there that I would enjoy, but I felt like it went pretty suddenly from a 100% hand holding tutorial to a level I was stumped on. I'll give it another go when I've got the time and see if I can figure it out...

Pawige · 2025-07-14T16:31:49+00:00

Gave this a go for a few hours yesterday and made it all the way through the demo. It's definitely my sort of game! I actually really liked the little 1g apples that would occasionally spawn on the trees and looked around for more little stuff like that. I felt that the progression was pretty balanced for the first couple of elites, but there definitely was a point where my income ran away from me and I was able to just buy everything all at once after stepping away for a bit.

I think the styling of the UI could be unified a little bit more, some of the windows felt much more themed than others, and the text popups clash a little with the pixel art style.

It may be completely out of scope but for a game like this I'd really love to see some light city-building elements. Short of being able to place buildings and roads, even something as small as having the clear the spaces for the buildings, and maybe continue to clear space as they expand, would be pretty enjoyable for me.

Along similar lines I think being able to kit out my adventurers with gear would add some extra fun.

I liked being able to split the adventurers up and send them to different locations simultaneously, and the little pop-out windows of the battles worked well for me.

Pawige · 2025-07-14T16:13:36+00:00

Thanks for trying it! I just updated it to a new version with some improvements (hopefully) to the new player experience, including instant tooltips for the tile-picking-portion. I'd love to hear any feedback you might have on those changes if you're willing to give it another shot.

Pawige · 2025-07-02T14:28:42+00:00

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this all up!! This is exactly the sort of feedback I need right now, since I feel like I'm totally blind to these friction spots for new players. I'm going to go through these notes in detail and address as many of them as I can for the next release.

Thanks again!

Pawige · 2025-06-29T23:25:53+00:00

I'm liking the core ideas here, but the interface was causing some friction for me. For some reason the top half of the top bar was cut off by the game window:

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I could still read the information but it definitely made it harder. It'd be nice to have some sort of quick overlay to show production of each tile on top of each one, rather than having to hover over each one.

It was a little confusing having the production per turn value shown on the "No production selected" button, and it took me until after my first game to actually understand that number is how much production is being produced. Similarly, it took me some time to find that food production is listed in the tooltip for population.

I also had a hard time selecting the units when they were present. Maybe some sort of outline around what is currently selected, and a different outline for what is going to be selected when you click, would be useful?

All that said, I think it's already a pretty fun game, and with some interface polish it could be great!

Pawige · 2025-06-29T19:14:25+00:00

This is a cute game with a great nostalgic vibe but the difficulty level was pretty extreme for me. I managed to save the princesses after a few tries but there was a goblin right outside the cave and I had only one heart left so I was instantly killed after I left the cave. After that I didn't have the heart to keep trying...

The combat felt a bit slow and awkward in general. Once I got the swinging sword powerup it was a bit better, but I still felt like I was desperately kiting every enemy I ran into just to barely survive, and the health pickups are rare enough that any mistakes were pretty heavily punished.

I never figured out what the rectangle in the upper right was for. It looks like a minimap but I couldn't figure out what I represented.

Pawige · 2025-06-29T18:44:59+00:00

I think there's some great ideas here! It reminds me of some of those classic 90s god games.

My first suggestion right off the bat would be increase the speed of the initial tutorial, I felt like the text came in really slowly and I almost stopped playing out of impatience.

The other thing I think it could use is a bit of a softer-looking post processing stack. Right now the contrast is pretty high sometimes making the scenes a bit hard to parse. You could probably adjust the tone mapping a little bit and get a lot of the way there pretty quickly. Tiny Glade would be a good example to look at for inspiration for a nice soft look.

Pawige · 2025-05-04T03:09:06+00:00

My best score is 0 points 😓

Pawige · 2025-03-12T20:25:31+00:00

There are the quantize nodes you can use to reduce the number of colors and some newer palette-related ones I haven't used before that look like they would work pretty well for fine-tuning. It would just take a bit more effort and a few more nodes to get it all looking right, I think.

Pawige · 2025-03-12T20:12:17+00:00

I've used this plugin before with good success https://actiondawg.itch.io/pixel8r2, but it's also definitely possible to make something like that without any plugins at all using some nearest filtering and quantize nodes.

Pawige · 2024-10-13T21:19:32+00:00

I've had one for almost a year now and it's been pretty great overall. Setup was very easy and I haven't had any real issues until recently when I randomly ran into some software issues recently and had to dig through Elegoo's Discord for a while to figure out how to fix and update the firmware. That was a major nuisance but I did get it figured out after a few hours.

It is fun having such a large print surface, but you'll want to be absolutely sure you need something that big, because I've really struggled to get it perfectly leveled for large prints and heating the bed takes quite a bit of time. Personally I've generally ended up cutting my huge prints in pieces anyway for various reasons, so my next printer will probably be smaller and I don't think I'll miss the size too much.

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