I'm making another Flash game.



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Air Bud
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If you were here two years ago, you might remember when I made a Flash game. It was a pretty fun experience, and I felt like I got a lot of positive feedback from people here (most notably Hasty).

I've recently been working on another game, which I've decided to title Constellation. The premise of the game is fairly simple: build constellations by connecting stars.

Feel free to check it out and leave me some feedback if you find any bugs, have any suggestions, or think it's cool/sucks/meh. It's still a work in progress and I'm adding more and more every day.

edit:

If you have any suggestions for making this better, please let me know! I'm actively looking for feedback and new ideas to make this more fun, interesting, etc.

Note: This game is still under heavy development, and is not complete by any means.

This reply was last edited on 08-20-15 02:03:51 PM by Air Bud.

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That's pretty entertaining. Kinda game where I could just lose long blocks of time connecting stars. Neat concept.

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It is interesting and fun to play around with, but after poking at it for a while I kind of felt like what's the point? Like I didn't really understand what I was supposed to do especially when there weren't any more black holes in my way (have you only placed a few in the map?)

There needs to be more positive feedback when you complete a constellation maybe

also it seemed pretty easy after I realized I could just pan over to the star and click directly on them to shoot there.

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I felt like there were a lot of black holes near the beginning and then none as well. It was better with the black holes

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Yeah, it seems like the lack of black holes after the starting constellation was a bug.

And while I can echo Ice's statements and lost motivation to play after I got all the constellations in sight, I really do like the concept of this game. A flash game that is addictive, but can actually teach someone something like how the constellations are shaped is very cool in my book.

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I probably should have mentioned that it's still very much under development. Only been working on this for a week or so.

The only two constellations with any obstacles at the moment are Aries and Taurus.

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So your plan is to use real-world constellations? Any thoughts on procedurally generating new star patterns for each game? Or is that to much work for a flash game?

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the only problem with that imo is that it means you have to just guess what will make a path and what wont

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That's what I was doing...

I didn't notice any pattern I just saw white lines pointing off to other stars so I shot in that direction

Air Bud
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Quoted from Flaming Arrow:
So your plan is to use real-world constellations? Any thoughts on procedurally generating new star patterns for each game? Or is that to much work for a flash game?

Yeah, no plans to do that for this version of the game. Maybe if I make this for PC and try to release it on Steam. It wouldn't be too hard to randomly generate stars and non-intersecting paths between them; however, placing obstacles would be a huge hassle, especially since it'd be really difficult to guarantee that all constellation paths could be connected.

So yeah, going to stick with real-world constellations for the moment. I still plan on adding some more constellations in the middle of the zodiac ones. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.

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It's neat. I'm having fun with it.

One thing I'd love is if there were a way to cancel a shot. Like, it's very annoying when you've obviously missed target and you have to wait for the thing to finish its trajectory. Would be cool if maybe double-clicking cancels the shot or something.

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Or a faster fire rate.

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Quoted from CANTSTANDYA:
One thing I'd love is if there were a way to cancel a shot. Like, it's very annoying when you've obviously missed target and you have to wait for the thing to finish its trajectory. Would be cool if maybe double-clicking cancels the shot or something.

Totally agree. I think my plan was to make it into a"flare of some sorts, where if you terminate it prematurely, it will blow up and illuminate a larger area around than it does already.

I may end up making that some kind of power up that you gain once you complete a couple constellations. Just a thought.

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One thing I think would help a lot is a little shadow showing where your last shot was, so you could adjust the angle more easily.

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For some reason my company blocks the Dartmouth math servers. I'll try to check this out when I get home. The premise sounds fun.

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Maybe the stars could move slightly to make things more challenging? Perhaps a light oscillation or twinkling or what have you. Alternatively, have the whole zodiac move as it would as seen from the Earth?

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I was able only to complete the first and non-black hole constellations. The wormhole puzzle was not making sense to me, and I got frustrated with how many black holes there were and the shot time between each, especially if I accidentally got sent to another star.

The rest here is just stuff about making the game easier/more accessible for me:

I also had the issue of blindly firing to connect the dots around, and zooming out to the World Map to see what I needed to connect. As far as "more positive feedback for completion", it might make sense to make it a distinct puzzle game (and not to overstep or tell you what or how to design) and have individual constellations be puzzles or levels. It would reduce the amount of "Wait, that's not connected? Well, now I have to go back.", create a method of "advancing" (getting to the next level/constellation is progress, and gives a free "starting point", which would help set up puzzle design), and would also allow for options such as a challenge mode (you have x shots/types of shots to complete this constellation, etc.). Based on the designs, there are times when a "split shot" could be useful, too.

The option to rotate between stars that have already been lit up/activated would be helpful, too. It's a kind of artificial difficulty barrier that accidentally hitting another star delays progress. That would be much easier to accomplish in a single-level per constellation format as well. As far as the "education" side of things, there could be introduction notes and completion notes about the constellations (including the graphic for the picture the stars make and so on).

Right now, I feel that I have to make a bunch of near pixel-perfect clicks to make progress, which doesn't help me have fun when each shot is delayed (but I don't just want to chain gun out rays, either).

Also, black holes seem to vary wildly in their power, which makes estimating my shot trajectory really difficult. I don't know if there's somehow some kind of graphical indicator for their gravitational pull that could be implemented?

Also, anyone want to tell me how to complete the wormhole puzzle in Taurus? It sounds like I'm the only one not getting it. I made all but that connection.

how is this for a quote

This reply was last edited on 08-18-15 06:03:05 PM by Hasty Penguin.

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Quoted from Hasty Penguin:

Also, anyone want to tell me how to complete the wormhole puzzle in Taurus? It sounds like I'm the only one not getting it. I made all but that connection.

Oh, I see. I was finding it easy because my left-handed instinct is to go from Aries to Pisces and proceed clockwise. K, I tried Taurus and I can't quite figure it out either.

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Quote:
Maybe the stars could move slightly to make things more challenging? Perhaps a light oscillation or twinkling or what have you.

I'm not really trying to make the game harder. I think the precision required to connect stars is hard and frustrating enough (when black holes and other obstacles are present, of course). I feel like adding moving targets would be a bit of a cheat. I do actually intend on creating "n-ary black holes" in the sense that they all will simultaneously rotate around a central location. I still need to code it up and test it out though.

Quote:
Alternatively, have the whole zodiac move as it would as seen from the Earth?

Much easier said than done. Unfortunately, Flash is a bit limited in terms of memory available, and keep in mind this would be running in a browser. I think this would be an incredible idea if I were to make this for PC, where memory isn't so much of an issue.

Quote:
I also had the issue of blindly firing to connect the dots around, and zooming out to the World Map to see what I needed to connect.

I'm working on an in-game zoom feature at the moment, so that you can see more of the map while in game.

Quote:
As far as "more positive feedback for completion", it might make sense to make it a distinct puzzle game (and not to overstep or tell you what or how to design) and have individual constellations be puzzles or levels. It would reduce the amount of "Wait, that's not connected? Well, now I have to go back.", create a method of "advancing" (getting to the next level/constellation is progress, and gives a free "starting point", which would help set up puzzle design), and would also allow for options such as a challenge mode (you have x shots/types of shots to complete this constellation, etc.). Based on the designs, there are times when a "split shot" could be useful, too.

This is something I've been struggling with since I first came up with the idea for this game: small isolated constellations or big open world? I obviously chose the latter for the main part of the game. As a space-themed game, it seemed unnatural to me to limit the space in which you're allowed to work. I wanted the world to feel large.

I do like the idea of a challenge puzzles and will likely end up implementing that outside of the main game world. Probably set it up from the main menu:

CONSTELLATION

Play
Challenge Mode
Credits

...or something like that.

Quote:
The option to rotate between stars that have already been lit up/activated would be helpful, too.

This is definitely on my list of things to add to the game, just hasn't been done yet. If you click on a star that has already been activated, you'll just regain control of it, instead of shooting a ray of light.

Quote:
Also, black holes seem to vary wildly in their power, which makes estimating my shot trajectory really difficult. I don't know if there's somehow some kind of graphical indicator for their gravitational pull that could be implemented?

Their size indicates the strength of their gravitational pull. The closer you are, the stronger it is, the further away, the weaker it is.

Quote:
Also, anyone want to tell me how to complete the wormhole puzzle in Taurus? It sounds like I'm the only one not getting it. I made all but that connection.

Gotta use those nearby black holes!

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Their size indicates the strength of their gravitational pull. The closer you are, the stronger it is, the further away, the weaker it is.

They are actually programmed consistently. Huh. I guess it makes sense, as it was easier to bend or "orbit" slow shots around the large black holes, but I had difficulty using the idea that small meant less strong, especially in tight quarters. It seemed to bend the light really distinctly (even when relatively close to a larger black hole, which felt like it [the larger black hole] doesn't have much pull when around a smaller one). This added to my feeling that I needed "pixel perfect" shots. Maybe it's the shape that throws me off, because it has a different way of affecting the trajectory/angle than I expect (i.e. smaller has a sharper curve). If that's the case, it's just a failure on my part to really grasp the physics of the game properly, although I could also say it feels less "intuitive" as a player. I guess it's something I'll look out for as it develops, and we'll see if my "feel" for the game becomes more comfortable (or if I'm just bad at video games). It may be analogous to "jump physics" being difficult to program in games, as well.

Quote:
This is something I've been struggling with since I first came up with the idea for this game: small isolated constellations or big open world? I obviously chose the latter for the main part of the game. As a space-themed game, it seemed unnatural to me to limit the space in which you're allowed to work. I wanted the world to feel large.

That depends on your future plans, I guess. Is there going to be more of an exploratory/space theme, or will it remain as constellations? I think if the world is going to be that large, the "space" feeling is going to need to be enhanced beyond constellations in order to justify that (having "Easter Egg" discoveries in the levels/world for exploring some of the further reaches might be fun, too, but still wouldn't justify a large world to me, beyond an aesthetic that hasn't enhanced the experience yet beyond "there's a lot of [empty] space"), but that's just my feeling. If you've got a plan that makes that aesthetic feel important and/or unique, then it's a good idea.

This is, of course, all with the understanding that this is under development, so the above comment about empty space is not meant as harsh as it sounds. I think it has already been mentioned that it reduces the feeling of advancement, as I do not seem to benefit from completing a constellation in any clear way in an open setting. Maybe there is a unique upgrade every couple of constellations (such as the option to send out a "satellite" as a map revealer, a "comet" that can blow through objects like an asteroid field or something - I don't know if that even makes sense to have given the stars/light idea) that could help with that? Or something else is revealed to help indicate reward for progress?

In a large, open world, getting stuck in a particular area is going to be very frustrating. Giving a "starting point" star in each constellation, accessible from the World Map (clicking on the name of a constellation to travel to that point) might mitigate that to some extent. Completing two constellations (or more) in a single "level" might also be a fun way to build puzzles.

As I said, though, if the design expands on the premise of the large open world being significant, then it could be really great.

Quote:
Gotta use those nearby black holes!

Is the idea to shoot "up" and have the black hole curve it to the distant worm-hole? I tried to make that shot a bunch of times and could never get the angle right, even when I managed to send it through the wormhole. I managed to light up the other star, just not from the star I needed to!

how is this for a quote

Air Bud
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Made some major adjustments to the game (mostly to the codebase, but I've also added some new features):

-- Added ability to change screen resolution.
-- Added ability to zoom in/out of the viewport (I don't have a scroll wheel on my laptop, so you have to click +/- on the UI to zoom -- I will add scroll wheel feature when I can actually test it out).
-- Can now click on stars you've already activated to regain control of them without having to navigate back to them.
-- Added "white holes" which repel light instead of attracting it.
-- Redesigned the world map so that fades over the world map instead of scaling it.
-- Added feature that pans your viewport to the star you click on in the world map.
-- Background music and some sound effects.

I also came up with some kind of motivation for the game, it's not amazing by any means, but I'll try to get it working within the next couple days. Stay tuned.

Quote:
Is the idea to shoot "up" and have the black hole curve it to the distant worm-hole? I tried to make that shot a bunch of times and could never get the angle right, even when I managed to send it through the wormhole. I managed to light up the other star, just not from the star I needed to!

Definitely use the black hole, but don't aim for the worm hole, just need to bend it around black hole to hit the star directly. If you're having issues with accuracy, try to fire your shots from points further away from your active star.

The key to this game, as far as I can tell, is relative trial-and-error. This is vastly different than Momentum, where you can almost always logically deduce the puzzle solutions with enough understanding of the level design and icons.

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So this happened. I refreshed and it works fine, I'm trying out some of the new features now. Not sure what caused this?

Edit: I was able to complete the three areas that have puzzles in them. Finally! Once I figured out the "slingshot" move, it made later puzzles with the white holes a lot easier to navigate as well. The wormholes are a real red herring in that situation, but it's a good puzzle. I wonder if I would have figured it out sooner with the white hole instead? At this point, they're functionally the same thing, although I can definitely see wormholes being significant later.

The timing of "tutorial" messages seems to vary quite a lot. Not sure what to do about that. I suppose in the finished product, there might be a way to create a stage specifically designed to introduce the player to individual concepts, removing the need for the tutorial in the "main game" or something. It just feels a bit clunky and disorganized right now. The tips are usually pretty helpful, but I don't know why I don't get the message about cancelling my shots until mid-way through the second constellation.

The moving black holes are neat, but also really annoying as far as the trial and error aspect goes, because now it's something else I have to wait for as the player when trying out different shot trajectories (especially with two differently sized black holes). I don't think there's a good way around it, unless the player can shoot rays of light more frequently?

The white holes are also good and effective, and a natural build from the black holes.

I'm still having trouble navigating the strength of the black holes. I think it's slowly getting better, but still kind of frustrating and I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't record the coordinates that work as I continue to test. That seems less "fun" as a player to just have to make these pixel perfect shots - especially when a shot just grazes (and misses) the target. I realize that some amount of precision is part of the point, but it's somewhat deterring for any kind of time investment for playing. I realize that precision platforming like Super Meat Boy or I Wanna Be The Guy could also make this argument ("If you learn the pattern, you can win everytime!"), but in a game like that, the action is more constant and the controls never really feel unfair, and a mistake won't necessarily kill you (although it's likely), but once I figure out what I need to do, I feel like it should be a bit easier for me to accomplish in this game. The physics around the black holes are still unintuitive for me when I'm playing.

The shot cancelling "burst" effect is nice, especially for revealing the map. It might be a thought to program a second button for shot cancelling in the event that the player is allowed to shoot light more frequently, but that's a question and consideration for further on in development.

Sometimes when I click to shoot, the star flashes half black and does not shoot? I'm not sure why this is. It can be really frustrating when I just want to test a shot and I keep getting a sound effect and nothing shoots.

On a desktop computer, using the arrow keys to shift my perspective and scroll around the map was possible, but on a laptop, the arrow keys don't seem to respond to anything, making consecutive shots difficult to make sometimes. Not sure why it doesn't work on the laptop?

The zoom in/out feature is nice, and I could see it being useful in situations where the map is more revealed in a more complicated puzzle, but I found myself wanting far more to have the ability just to scroll freely than zoom in or out (again, that seems to be a laptop only problem for me).

The World Map feature is really nice, and helped correct the scrolling problem when my perspective got too screwed up, and is also great for navigating from one end of a constellation to the other. It would be nice if the option to turn it on/off were a bit more distinct, rather than waiting for it to fade out, but it's good and works well and did more or less exactly what I wanted it to when I made use of it.

Background music (and sound effects) disappear for me after a few minutes in game, and I'm not sure why (especially the sound effects).

Upon completing constellations other than Aries, the World Map indicates I have made all connections, but I did not receive any message confirming this (or a happy sound effect). Is it just be the result of early development and it hasn't been implemented yet?

All the concepts are working well for me, and some of the puzzles are feeling rewarding to complete. I'm curious as to how the overall package is going to really make it satisfying.

how is this for a quote

This reply was last edited on 08-20-15 10:37:30 PM by Hasty Penguin.

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At the moment, the trial and error aspect reminds me of pixel hunting in old adventure games. It's easy to see what the outcome will be, but I just have to try clicking on a whole bunch of different pixels to get the shot just right. This is made worse by the need to reveal the map. What purpose does that serve? It doesn't seem to support anything thematically - it seems to just require arbitrarily that you waste a few shots in each area. There is no sense of exploration from it because all you can hope to find is the pattern of stars (which you already know) and where the arbitrary obstacles will be, which are all approximately the same.

To be harshly blunt, the level of rote trial and error is honestly pretty game-breaking for me. I don't see why I'd want to play such a mechanic, unless you really motivate it well narratively somehow. It doesn't really function as a puzzle game in which I am deploying logic, because there is far more time deploying rote trial and error than in thinking, so that becomes uninteresting even in the short amount of time required to complete these. Put a different way, I don't understand the "why" of this game. It feels like an approximate gravity solver came first, and then that was smushed into a game framework without much motivation for doing so. It encourages neither thinking nor reflex or dexterity, and I have trouble seeing how this could be made compelling via narrative or metaphor.

I don't think Hasty's comparison to precision platformers is apt. In those, the solution is apparent conceptually and the interest lies in the physical mastery. Here, the solution is apparent conceptually, but you merely have to try pixels because you neither have a way of making measurements to precisely plan nor can you react reflexively during the execution as in a precision platformer. It has neither action nor strategy. Rather than being like a precision platformer, it's more like an action platformer in which you have a gun to shoot enemies, but neither you nor the enemies move and the only control is where to point your gun, which must be done with pixel-precision but with infinite ammo and health.

I don't think the game adequately answers ice's initial question of, "what's the point?"

This reply was last edited on 08-21-15 12:35:25 AM by emtilt.

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Quote:
The timing of "tutorial" messages seems to vary quite a lot. Not sure what to do about that. I suppose in the finished product, there might be a way to create a stage specifically designed to introduce the player to individual concepts, removing the need for the tutorial in the "main game" or something. It just feels a bit clunky and disorganized right now. The tips are usually pretty helpful, but I don't know why I don't get the message about cancelling my shots until mid-way through the second constellation.

It's currently set up to give you that message after your second ray of light fades out, so if that doesn't happen for a while, it won't show up. I'll probably either need to state that earlier, or relegate it to the instructions.

Quote:
The moving black holes are neat, but also really annoying as far as the trial and error aspect goes, because now it's something else I have to wait for as the player when trying out different shot trajectories (especially with two differently sized black holes). I don't think there's a good way around it, unless the player can shoot rays of light more frequently?

I'm not very happy with the moving black holes at the moment, they seem to artificially make things way too difficult, especially when they rotate so closely around a star. I will either need to remove them, or spread them out much further so that they aren't such a nuisance.

Quote:
Sometimes when I click to shoot, the star flashes half black and does not shoot? I'm not sure why this is. It can be really frustrating when I just want to test a shot and I keep getting a sound effect and nothing shoots.

Whenever you take a shot, the collision detector for the star you're shooting from gets turned off for a few milliseconds to allow for the ray of light to get away. It appears that maybe having a timed mechanism isn't a good idea given the wide variety of computers this will be played on. Does your computer lag a bit while playing this?

Quote:
On a desktop computer, using the arrow keys to shift my perspective and scroll around the map was possible, but on a laptop, the arrow keys don't seem to respond to anything, making consecutive shots difficult to make sometimes. Not sure why it doesn't work on the laptop?

I never reimplemented arrow panning in this version of the game.

Quote:
On a desktop computer, using the arrow keys to shift my perspective and scroll around the map was possible, but on a laptop, the arrow keys don't seem to respond to anything, making consecutive shots difficult to make sometimes. Not sure why it doesn't work on the laptop?

The World Map feature is really nice, and helped correct the scrolling problem when my perspective got too screwed up, and is also great for navigating from one end of a constellation to the other. It would be nice if the option to turn it on/off were a bit more distinct, rather than waiting for it to fade out, but it's good and works well and did more or less exactly what I wanted it to when I made use of it.

You can actually click and drag to move your viewport around. I will need to state this explicitly in the game.

Quote:
Background music (and sound effects) disappear for me after a few minutes in game, and I'm not sure why (especially the sound effects).

Come to think of it, the left/right arrows are currently bound to volume control, so if you pressed LEFT enough, everything would just get muted.

Quote:
Upon completing constellations other than Aries, the World Map indicates I have made all connections, but I did not receive any message confirming this (or a happy sound effect). Is it just be the result of early development and it hasn't been implemented yet?

I encountered this bug last night before going to bed, and think I managed to fix it, but never re-uploaded the game file.

Quote:
At the moment, the trial and error aspect reminds me of pixel hunting in old adventure games. It's easy to see what the outcome will be, but I just have to try clicking on a whole bunch of different pixels to get the shot just right.

There's a part of me that is fine with that in this game. I've never really intended this game to be much beyond point-and-click. From the start, I've kinda envisioned this being something that would be better suited for mobile devices, hence the incredibly simplistic control system (you literally only ever click on the screen). Keep in mind, I'm releasing this as a Flash game, a platform notorious for people looking to waste time. If I were trying to put this on Steam, I think this would be a much more serious problem.

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This is made worse by the need to reveal the map. What purpose does that serve? It doesn't seem to support anything thematically - it seems to just require arbitrarily that you waste a few shots in each area. There is no sense of exploration from it because all you can hope to find is the pattern of stars (which you already know) and where the arbitrary obstacles will be, which are all approximately the same.

This is totally fair. The fog-of-war was originally intended to make this game more about exploration, where not even stars were shown on the map. I later made all stars visible, and now the fog-of-war is just an annoying barrier (which takes up a TON of memory). About the only thing you can hope to discover at the moment are wormholes that may or may not help you connect two stars. In case you can't tell, I've been toying with the idea of removing the fog altogether for a while.

As for the rest of your post, I understand what you are saying, but it seems as if the only option you leave me is to go to my menu bar and select Project -> Close Project.

That's not going to happen. This may sound cynical, but this is a Flash game that will end up on Kongregate and Newgrounds... for a week, maybe a month if I'm lucky. People will play this for either 30 seconds, five minutes, or two hours.

The point I'm trying to make is that while you are absolutely correct, the target audience and platform matters a great deal here. If I were trying to sell this commercially (on Steam for example), I would probably hire you as a consultant because everything you're saying is correct. However, it's a free-to-play Flash game that I'm making in my spare time. To put things into perspective, I have another two weeks with this before I have to put it behind me and return to grad school.

emtilt

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That's a fine and reasonable response, I just figured I'd be clear about my feelings on it in case any of it happened to be helpful somehow. I'm always impressed by your game making regardless, because I've always wanted to do something similar but never manage to make time.

I am in favor of removing the fog if the current basic design stays the same. I could see it being a benefit if you were to add new mechanics of some sort, but at the moment it doesn't do anything. Well, really, it *almost* doesn't do anything. As others have mentioned, the game is a bit weak at signaling progress, and the fog (or lack thereof) is one of the few indicators of it. So at the moment, it's mechanically annoying but does sort of serve as an ad hoc progress marker. EDIT: Refreshing the page, it looks like you DID remove it, which I hadn't noticed before writing this paragraph.

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