Hard to criticise it for this, because as a puzzle game it’s meant to challenge, but the UI isn’t clear or hinted at at all so, for example, at first I thought the app was totally unresponsive because the interactive input operates like dials but there’s nothing to indicate this. A later level’s hint tells you to zoom in to analyse text but nowhere does it tell you that you have to tap on something to get the text - elsewhere, tapping does nothing. As I say, this is part of what makes it interesting but it treads a fine line between ‘oh, I should have tried that’ and ‘how was I supposed to know that would be a thing?’. In terms of more concrete annoyances, the fact the scrolling letters are at the bottom of the screen means my iPhone constantly tries to open pull-down menus when I scroll down through the letters; it needs moving. Overall an intriguing game but yeah, think outside the box!
First of all, a big thank you for taking the time to articulate and provide your feedback!I will start replying from the end in case other people stumble on this one 😄 If you drag the letter by holding it (without releasing at bottom), it will not trigger the reachability gesture. Another option is to disable interactive input from the game settings. I totally understand that this is not really an answer if some users prefer to interact with the app differently, and it is up to me to figure out how to make it work. In fact, I tried working around it in many different ways, but there is no official API to disable (only the user can disable this gesture in settings) or prevent the reachability gesture. I actually spent days on this trying various hacks. The only solution I was left with was to increase the bottom padding (which I did multiple times). Given that you still had issues, I might have to increase it even further, but there is a limit to how far I can go because 1) some levels might have more vertical content and 2) I want to keep a certain game aesthetic. All that being said, I understand your frustration and just wanted to share a bit from my side so it does not seem like I do not care about it.Regarding the UI, I understand what you are saying, and I am on the fence myself. The goal of this big 10-year anniversary update was to focus on the “feeling”. I have a full blog post on this, but here is an excerpt from the “feeling” part: “The first thing I wanted to create was mystery. No onboarding, no tutorials, no menus. You enter the game, and you see symbols that instantly spark your curiosity.” I beta tested with players and it seemed that majority of them started dragging symbols (that was one of the reasons why the first level is the way it is). I understand how this can seem broken or frustrating, but at the same time there is something very special about figuring something out without any dialogs, tutorials, or popups. However, as you said, there is a fine line between that feeling and frustration. For the future, I have some ideas on how to hint without being like a tutorial (for example, letters could start rotating if you have not interacted with them for some time), but I am still trying to understand user sentiment and how players interact with the game.While I will not make any instant changes (apart from playing more with the bottom padding in the next updates), I want to let you know that your feedback is definitely becoming part of the bigger picture of how I see the game. So thank you for that 🖤
