Aw thank you so much!!! I'm glad ^^
There is room for improvement for sure...! The main issue currently is definitely the lack of BE content, which will be the focus of the next major update. It will also contain various additions, a bunch of QoL and balance changes, and the Ocean dungeon will become simpler.
Are there any puzzles in particular that tripped you up?
Super happy to hear the next update will be majorly focusing on BE! Two puzzles come to mind that were way too hard for me.
The constelation puzzles in the nightdome. I tried over and over to get the constelations set up correctly, but i was clearly missing a single line or i had unknowingly made an extra line. When you slam down and it shows the path for the constelation, the star paths are so insanely quick & the star paths were so visually noisey that i couldnt keep up and actually learn what the constelation was. I tried slamming a single star over and over trying to memorize how many connections it had & to which star it went to. I did end up using a walkthrough for the complex constelations (trilobite, swan).
I realize while writing this i never thought to draw out the constelations on paper and checking each star's connections one by one. I feel like it shouldnt have been needed, though.
The mushroom puzzles broke my brain too, idk if i just was missing something but the color mixing for the mushrooms was 10x harder than color mixing in the ocean. I brute forced one and looked up a video on another because i just didnt get it. This one might just be a skill diff.
Also, just in general, some switches and puzzles were probably too well hidden, but some background elements were interactable, but not puzzle related. I noticed this in the tower specifically (The switch to open the two pits that lead to the power orb was basically invisible). In the post demo (or as an unlock maybe?) Having the ability to highlight rooms that still had puzzles / puzzle chains in them would be really helpful. Maybe even purchaseable treasure maps that give you hints for areas.
I think my puzzle solving issues go away if:
A) i was better.
B) i could make drawing notes in game along regular notes to help visualize the puzzles. (Especially in the nightdome.)
Also, do you have any idea of when the next update would be ready?
Thank you for the detailed answer!
Interesting, I've not heard this about the constellation puzzles before but it's true that they are very visually noisy. Mmh, maybe slowing down the Smash check's speed a tad and touching up the particles would work then, it wouldn't really take away from the concept either.
Haha I figured the mushroom puzzles were part of it ^^ I'm happy with the system, but they're hard to visualize for sure. I'm not sure how much I can do to change that sadly but I do plan on having Alma give better hints if you ask her for help multiple times, for the non optional ones at least.
Ah true, some of these are too well hidden. I have ideas on how to make a few of them easier to notice, but some do need to be hard to find. And yeah, treasure location hints are planned! ^^
Aw man, I only had the idea to add a drawing notes only a few months ago, it sounds like a lot of fun, but it's a tough addition at this point in development... I haven't fully given up on it yet, so maybe possibly, but I wish I'd thought of that from the start...!
I don't have a clean date for the next update, I'm currently hoping for late 2026 but I can't make any promise!
Thank again, this is very helpful! ^^
