Impressions of the Indie Game Fest | Roadmap to the demo

Hello dear friends of Fluff,

The Indie Game Fest is over ... and with it a very exciting date for me. I've spent a lot of time over the last two months (and before that, of course) getting Fluff's Adventure to a presentable state. This has worked so far and so interested players were finally able to control Fluff to explore and puzzle themselves for the first time.

The venue at the Wasserturmhotel in Cologne was perfect and there were lots of developers on site - each with their own ideas and unique games. You can see a few impressions of my stand here:

I also had the absolutely fantastic opportunity to show my game in the “Lets Play 4 Charity” stream to an interested crowd of viewers who weren't there. You can watch the stream clip on my YouTube channel:

What happens now?

From the dizzyingly high number of wish list entries, I can see that many of you can hardly wait to visit Fluff in his world yourselves. Unfortunately, I'll have to give you a quick heads up at this point. I noticed a few bugs at the Indie Game Fest and some of you also gave me some damn good feedback, which I will incorporate. I want to offer you a good demo game experience, which I can do with my time for development and at the same time lay the foundation for further work. The following points still need to be improved (spoilers redacted):

• Enlarge trigger zones: Carts, Bells, Glass panes (slide up to the window itself)
• Input Hints: Also tell what is triggered
• Better emphasize what can be interacted with
• Differentiate between decoration and interactable objects (possibly with rune-like decorations on interactable objects)
• Bug: Crate already on door opener before plateau, puzzle is assumed to be solved by savegame
• IMPLEMENT SPRINT
• Following fluff is awkward: fluffs still follow after switching to another fluff. Better: Resolve sequences when switching. Conga Line should remain a feature (can only be created by switching to another fluff)
• Enable fluff changes in the other direction as well
• Interaction via “What is closest?” is not handy enough. Possibly use the viewing direction of the camera
• Moving platform puzzle cubes via sliding leads to accidental “kicking” of platforms. Frustration! Possibly “lift” (but still affected by gravity so the cube can fall) like cube in later stages
• Getting carts to access the plateau requires too much backtracking. Possibly place carts on buildings on the way up. Use the wagon below to make the sad Fluff happy at the start
• Dialog between Fluffs is assumed to be puzzle relevant, but is just decoration. Possibly make speech bubbles smaller
• Platform puzzle: Ramps (collider) to better move cubes across platforms
• Grid puzzle: when other fluff is on the board and close to controlled fluff, interaction with columns is difficult
• Opening the bell tower not obvious enough: lay cables
• Waking big fluff not obvious enough: tease big bell somehow
• Players do not find association between organ and rear uplift. Possibly make the disk burst when all three organs are activated
• Lift behind bell tower too strong
• Bug: Fluff still affected by buoyancy even though it is outside the buoyancy. Possibly triggered by change of fluff during flight
• Area behind the coin under the river is recognized as water and Fluff gets buoyancy, leading to softlock. Possibly block area with deco
• Level skip past large fluff possible. Make the path behind the cave exit inaccessible from the outside
• Grid puzzle: Level skip prevented by invisible wall, but too obvious if large pillar is moved to the back right . Possibly place a visible barrier there
• Make trigger zone for jumping hint smaller. Players thought they could interact with sad fluff by jumping
• Bug: Interaction hint sometimes still active, although no interaction possible
• In the area of the rocks next to the bell tower you can get behind invisible walls
• Simon says riddle: less distance between catapulting fluff away and next sequence
• Simon says riddle: players get on buttons before sequence is finished. Possibly turn buttons gray (except when the sequence highlights them)
• Simon says puzzle: Make glass transparent for the camera again
• Plank to operate the elevator: make coloring at connection more obvious (also at the wooden backside)
• Jumping while picking up the plank: Glitch in Fluff's body
• Simon says puzzle: Move glass body down faster
• Grid puzzle: Move columns faster
• Implementation pause menu

As you can see, a lot has come together! But I will take care of all the problems and finish a demo build afterwards. If I find the time (probably on the weekend), I will also stream again! You can watch on the channel the_joy_of_coding, I look forward to seeing each and every one of you!

See you then! Your Kai