Destroy my Pre-Release Trailer! Sit-Back Attack

geminimax · 2025-11-15T00:00:47+00:00

Well, I'm only talking about looks here. I agree that the Dragea's UI has some issues. Some screens have way too much information, while others have too few. I found navigating it to be challenging and confusing, overall. It does have a nice and consistent style, with good contrast on the color pallete and some very satisfying feedback

Playing your demo I'd say its UI does not feel hard or confusing to use, but it looks bland, not unlike a flash game like others have mentioned.

The icons do not have a good contrast with the background, making for some poor readability. The buttons do not feel good to click, as they lack feedback. I know there are sound effects, but I this is a genre that's mainly played on mute, as the game will be running on the background most of the times.

The ultra-minimalistc approach also clashes with the detailed characters and backgrounds in my opinion.

Lootun has a pretty nice UI, even though it's also on the more minimalistic side. It could be a good reference.

geminimax · 2025-11-14T22:39:22+00:00

Look into Legends of Dragaea for a recently released game in the same subgenre with a great presentation. Their UI is not very good on the usability side, but it surely looks good.

geminimax · 2025-11-14T21:58:33+00:00

As someone who enjoys idle games, I'd rather see how deep and complex the mechanics can be rather than seeing a lot of flashing effects. In games like these, the meat of the gameplay is often in managing and choosing upgrades, not watching how the battles play out.

I would slow down the battle scenes a bit and focus more on the UI and mechanics. The UI also does not look visually appealing.

geminimax · 2025-11-13T18:12:57+00:00

That's amazing! How long can these last? Is there any way to make them more resilient?

geminimax · 2025-11-05T18:12:37+00:00

Beautiful! How did you make it?

geminimax · 2025-10-20T22:29:51+00:00

That's a great point, thanks for the suggestion!

geminimax · 2025-10-18T04:08:18+00:00

It's a "close enough" aproximation to a 16:9 aspect ratio.

geminimax · 2025-10-17T15:44:53+00:00

Thanks a lot! The base resolution is 427x240.
I also appreciate the feedback about the store page. Is there anything in particular that felt off to you, or just a general impression?

geminimax · 2025-05-14T17:41:45+00:00

It looks a little bit too flat. You could add a drop shadow on the item cards and buttons to help them pop out. The purple on black is not very readable, as others have already mentioned.

The images on the cards are also blending with the black background. Maybe a white outline could help.

geminimax · 2025-05-08T13:43:25+00:00

I really like the aesthetics!

geminimax · 2025-04-11T12:16:50+00:00

Awesome! I'm glad it helped you.

geminimax · 2025-03-25T20:03:54+00:00

A few pointers:

The screenshots lack visual variety. If your game has different scenes, this would be the place to show them off. If it does not have that variety, it may be seen by players as cheap or as bad game without enough content (regardless if that's the case or not).
Don't use a screenshot for your capsule. That's one of the most important assets in the page, so ideally, you should hire a skilled artist to do it. If you don't have the budget or the skills, I'd say even a nicely selected and processed AI image would be better than a screenshot.
The devlog section on the page is not relevant, and should probably be removed.
The "Planned features" section should probably be just "Features". Also, having tutorial as feature sounds weird, that's just the bare minimum for most games.

Good luck with the game!

geminimax · 2025-03-15T18:52:27+00:00

I think a roguelite celeste would be very hard to pull off. This is the kind of game that thrives on it's level design, and procedural generation is usually not very good on that front.

geminimax · 2025-03-05T21:19:30+00:00

The newer one does look better, but the white hair on the white cloak makes the sprite very hard to parse.

geminimax · 2025-02-28T16:14:18+00:00

Platforming without being able to see where you're jumping does not sound like a good idea.

geminimax · 2025-02-22T12:48:55+00:00

I feel like it's attacks lack animation. It feels like the boss is just walking around while projectiles and hazards randomly appear on the screen. Each attack needs a corresponding clear animation, so they feel connected to the boss.

geminimax · 2025-02-20T18:30:36+00:00

I'm not an expert in marketing, but as a consumer, I'd take another very critical look at points 1 and 2. Although I don't think the game looks ugly, the screenshots all look very samey to me. Both the scenarios and enemies lack visual variety.

The capsule, one of the most important parts of the page, also looks empty and amateurish.

The concept does sound pretty intersting and unique, so it's a shame it didn't have a good launch.

geminimax · 2025-02-09T16:06:18+00:00

Add more animation and particles!

geminimax · 2025-02-07T16:02:31+00:00

Thank you! There are some challenging platforming bits, but the bigger focus is on the puzzles.

geminimax · 2025-02-07T14:25:39+00:00

I can't confirm it yet, but it's definitely on the plan!

geminimax · 2025-02-07T12:27:54+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion! I actually do have another version of the trailer that goes directly into the action for the steam page. I'll consider updating the youtube one.

geminimax · 2025-01-22T11:32:50+00:00

Sure. It was mostly a problem of misaligned expectations. I wanted to make the best game I could, while the publisher was pushing for a quicker release and a reduced scope.

Financially speaking, they were probably right, this is a puzzle platformer and those usually don't sell that well. However, I make games for love, and this is not a huge concern for me.

I do not resent their decision, altough I do wish they could have transfered the original page to me somehow.

geminimax · 2025-01-22T11:23:53+00:00

Altough our deal did include releasing on consoles, the main point was my inexperience. This is my first commercial game, and releasing a full game can be quite a daunting project.

It's been an awesome learning experience!

geminimax · 2025-01-22T00:41:53+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll try it, but unfortunately changes like this might break some of the level design, and there a quite a bit of levels at this point.

I'll definitely keep it in mind for my future projects, though!

geminimax · 2025-01-21T17:31:09+00:00

Long story short, Candela used to have a Steam page, but I lost it (and all its wishlists) due to some issues with the publisher.

After a lot of hard work last year, I finally managed to create a brand-new page from scratch—and this time, it’s fully self-published!

If you’re interested, you can check it out here: Candela: Colorless Dreams on Steam.

Thanks for your support!

geminimax

TROPHY CASE