•BS2 Feedback•

(Game)
A place to put long form feedback/criticisms for the beta for my game, Billding Site 2. If you have a short response (under 2000 characters) please Put it on the project itself.

(Archive of discussion on project)

ggenije2 wrote:

Feedback: First thing to mention is that usually when creating game you have to get inspired by some other game, put parts which make that game good , and give it unique twist.. And I feel this game is just “I'll put whatever comes on my mind” without clear vision. Simply you can't put such similar levels, it just don't give player enough stimulation. Bland flat level structure, always looking the same. And the way you place enemies, it's just so giving player feel of mundane. Just you can't expect to put different enemy combination and expect it will be more interesting, level 1 one rat, level 2 two rats… when you place multiple enemies, it's just same task over and over again, just slightly harder. It's fun to beat the furnace guy once or twice, but you place it so much times, it gets annoying. I feel like I have to do things I already done in the same way, I'm not experiencing anything new, it's like I'm doing some kind of labor not playing a game. So to fix that, and what other games actually do is to have different level setup, so most likely this would mean having bigger levels (zoomed out), where you will be given multiple options on what you can do. Rather than beating same enemies in the same way you would do usually. Then better freedom to player movement , some kind of faster/unique/easy controllable player moveset. This will again give the player more options to beat the levels. And about multiple chapters, there are just so much repeating enemies, rat, circle, turtle, essentially very similar. That reminds me of Undertale, it's very good how it managed to create each enemy unique, and even give combination of enemies for unique gameplay each time. And your is jump on this enemy, or just on this enemy at right time. Bosses are also lacking, but I would not critize that as those are very hard to make anyways especially is foundation is weak at beggining. Other is less or more fine, graphics is fine, style is fine, vibe is fine. Maybe just give morepersonality, sfx to enemies. I also like how you can break ground, so it gives you more options. But it gives you a option to soft lock, not that huge of deal, because player need to know to face consequences, but still something you would need to utilize, especially, when you beat level, you get autoscrolled, and you can fall into the hole.

Thanks for the criticisms! You brought up a few things that I would never have guessed, but I do want to address a few things. I'll start from small to big. First of all, there are level themes in the game, you can see that the enemies in the stage are themed after something, C1 is vermin, C2 is wind/air, C3 is automation, etc. I could definitely see why they would all blend together though, all being made out of bricks. How do you mean “give more personality” to enemies? Do you mean SFX like you said after, or animations or…? About the autoscroll softlock, I hoped that players would figure out that you can't control Bill when it's scrolling on the first few screens, and make the conclusion that when scroll, left side = bad. I thought that would encourage players to get to the right as quickly as possible, and perhaps they'd accidentally find that you can skip the wait by getting to the right, or even make a bit of ground onto the next screen by dashing onto it (still a bit buggy). Back late last year though, the respawn platform didn't exist, you would just spawn at the top-middle of the screen, and if you had a giant hole in the stage, you'd just keep falling! So this problem used to be way worse then, I hoped that it had been mostly fixed with the platform, but it seems not. And about the “similar enemies”, huh, I thought that they were different enough? Squeaker (rat), Checkerpiece (circle) and Spiker (turtle) wouldn't have been my first thought about similar enemies! How would you personally make them distinct? More effects like when Donimear (Monopoly man) hits you and scatters your knobbles? Also, how much are you using the hammer dash? You should try using it A LOT, it's really useful and it's way more satisfying to dash down onto enemies then defeat them slowly and normally (the game was built with that in mind). Yes, I can see the lack of traditional level design being boring. Being THAT much of an unconventional platformer is something that always plagued my mind during development, I was thinking it's so different to the status quo that it might not find an audience! OK. Now for the big one. From what you've said, it seems like you just played through all the Caverns once and then threw the game away. Most 80's-90's games are built upon the concept of its replayability (as in the more you play, the more you improve, which lets you get through it quicker/less damage and I think makes it more fun). Billding Site 2 fuses the gameplay idea of Billding Site 1 (that you have to carefully consider what bricks to break to give an advantage vs a detriment, though perhaps a bit more realised than BS1) and a formula closely inspired by that replayability philosophy. That's another doubt I had during development, as games these days are moreso built upon the premise of a single playthrough and most people wouldn't think about it. The way that I intended it to be played is in a three step process (survive, memorise, and thrive). Survive is pretty explanatory, and I think what you did. Memorise is playing through it until you're confident with beating all the enemies (a good indicator is how much damage you took) and in what order to defeat them on each screen. Someone just in the “survive” step might not think about that, but it and the specific placement of enemies becomes important here, as you can do stuff like bouncing between enemies or defeating multiple before landing on the ground. Every screen has a “correct” solution which doesn't cost you any damage and is usually quickest. It's hard to find the exact solution, but most should be good enough. For example, in C5 S8, the correct solution is to build yourself a “bomb shelter” by breaking a couple bricks beneath you to avoid all the fire from the bombs, then defeat the dripdrop (water guy), then go left to bounce high off the lavalamp to get enough height to defeat the springball, and finally get rid of all the dripdrops dispersed from the lavalamp by leading them onto the right side of the screen, ensuring you get to the other side faster than usual. This step is also where I would've thought most criticisms would've come from, maybe being hard to memorise because of the similarities between screens of the same Cavern. Also, how do you think you would remove the “repeating enemies” problem while still preserving this and making it fun for casual players? What I tried to do in this was introduce an idea (new enemy) in a variably safe environment (less safe the further on in the game), then expand on it (add more and introduce another enemy type into the mix), then at the end of the Cavern (last 2 screens or so) wrap up all of the ideas introduced in a way that meshes together. Finally, the step “thrive” is where you try and get the best time using what you learnt from the last step, while also learning new tech along the way that might save a few seconds to get you your personal record. Almost every enemy actually has more than one way to defeat it (more obvious and easier but slower, more hidden and harder but quicker). For example, with the Wyndians (I think those were the “furnace guys” you were talking about?) in C2-3. You would usually bounce off their hatch when it's open, but you can actually hit them before they open it by doing a somewhat precise jump+hammer dash onto their heads. Then, if you want an even quicker way on the 2nd-3rd hit, you can utilise their i-frames to break a couple bricks underneath them, and get a height advantage on them so you don't have to do that precise jump again. (Also, I kinda laughed when you said they were overplaced, because they're one of the least placed enemies in the game!) Anyways, another, more practical example: remember when I said you could dash onto new screens? That will come in use now. In C2 S3, if you dash onto the next screen knowing that that's where a springball is, you can make it JUST fast enough to hit it just before it jumps and get onto the whirly (thing that blows you upwards), saving a few seconds. This step overall feels like you're taking a test, and ace it because you've studied the levels enough to know what to do! Anyways, once again thanks for your feedback! It was pretty enlightening to know how most people would play through and think of it (perhaps not very good). In the final there will be an item system similar to classic MegaMan with slower but easier ways to defeat certain enemies, so if there's something you could do for me, list any enemies that seem too hard for the current difficulty curve (I've already got dripdrops pinned down!)! Sorry if my response was a little bit long, I just kinda started typing in a text document and didn't stop. And bosses… yeah, they're admittedly a pretty mixed bag, I'm not very proud of the bosses of C1-3 and 7, but fairly so about C5-6. I hope that before the final release I can make my intended playing experience more explained through the actual game (probably a save file percentage that's only 50% once completed the main game, drawing attention to the goals in the trial mode) and I hope players will pursue it with the goal of getting better at the game … I'll also explain to use the hammer dash a lot in the planned tutorial stage and other things I had to bring up here. About the graphics and style, yes, that's something I'm quite proud of. It straight up looks and sounds like an alternate universe evolution of 8-bit graphics/sound! The soundtrack is also something I think I did really well on. Some of the tracks even got broadcasted on radio in my city! Anyways, I don't think I'm prepared to completely change the game, if I haven't already stated it enough, I think this is quite fun to play at a higher level, and I'm quite accomplished by that. Though if you have any other suggestions on how to make a game more appealing to a casual audience, I'm all ears. Concluding, I encourage you to give the game another try with the mindset of replayability and speedrunning, even if you only do it for one Cavern. An inspiration for this game's fun was Crystal Seeker, getting to know the layout of each stage and constantly improving my times was maybe one of my top 10 experiences in a game, definitely #1 for a Scratch game! But once again, thank you for your feedback, and if I ever design another game, I'll remember this advice.

First thing to say, the most important thing for a game is that there is some group of people who would like to play it. Now there are many people and many tastes, obviously can't expect everyone to like it, and you have to clarify to yourself what is your target audience. Personally I don't like this kind of games, because… I just don't lol, which doesn't mean it's bad but it still , it's more hard for me to rate it. From what I understood so far, you wanted that retro game feeling, where you keep playing million times until you become a god in game. And I had encountered such people, which just don't like how forgiving modern games are. Now I don't know what your goals with this game are:

• There are games which would want to be prototype for future games,
  
• ones which will help you make better games for future,
  
• games designed to be presnted appealing with youtube video,
  
• game which purpose is profit/fame,
  
• and ofc game which you would want people to enjoy it.
  

The feedback I gave you previously is more from my perspective as player, rather than game designer. It's just to see how player would think if they had similar taste as me. Now additional feedback I could give you from standpoint of typical scratch player, is that they just prefer easy to play, or at least easy to start games. The problems I've encountered (and which would make people gave up), is that controls aren't very clear. Usually scratchers expect to use arrow keys to move, but you forced Z and X, and honestly who read instructions paragraph. On handheld console it would be clear what keys to use , but on keyboard there are over hundred of keys, and you can't expect everyone knows about Z and X. So the most obvious solution is simply write Z and X on starting level, or just write Z and X somehow on main menu, to make it clear. Also make pause screen. Currently it looks like game is frozen, and that can confuse players, especially they're forced to use space for selection, but next time using that key it pauses game instead. Very confusing…

Now about scrolling on end, I would make it make some kind of warning sound before moving, and then while moving, player will still have control over character. Idk is this possible with current implementation, but it just feels unintuitive to lose player control when something is happening. But scrolling is regardless fun design choice because it forces player to think even at end, but still, it's annoying when player freezes just to watch him die in agony.

• Now about ghost enemies, nerf them, make them easier to kill. Yeah I know you can destroy lamps by throwing them into abyss, but still, I feel they're so unfair to battle against.
  
• Sometimes you can get overwhelmed, not only with ghosts, but in other chapters too. Not even in difficulty, but it's just too hard to comprehend what is actually going.
  
• About chess boss, make queen phase easier.
  
• Shoopkeeper boss, you can stun lock it apparently.
  
• The server is to simple, dull bull also.
  
• The wind boss is same thing last 5 hits, or maybe it glitched? It took me probably 7 hits, where last 5 is just wind without boxes.
  
• Snowman enemies can be annoying if they are tile below. Very hard to beat in such cases.
  
• Electro turtles are almost impossible to defeat, the regular ones at least I managed to throw them into shadow realm, but these just refuse to fall. Their mechanics is just making them impossible to beat, only way to beat them is to get behind them while uncharged. But to decharge them you have to charge them by coming close, then go in forward direction but far enough they decharge, and then they turn direction, and you have to chase them while uncharged, but if you use hammer dash, they dash in same time, and if you try to stomp on them, they just somehow charge if you slightly forward from them. Most annoying enemy in whole game… And if you miss it, it leaves hole in ground making it even more hard to beat.
  
• And eggs sometimes work sometimes it kill you, kind of inconsistent.
  
• Rick roll boss is too long. Whole level took me 10 mins to beat, with unlimited life hack…
  

Overall I think problem with this game is that it makes you to use too much head for action game. Feels like puzzle game, but you don't have time to think. Since my preferences is that I don't like to replay things over if lose all lives, I hacked my lives, and I was much fun for me. You could give player option to enable infinite lives like easy mode.

You're right , when I played game again, it was much more fun. But the reason I found is that I was persistent , but you can't expect each player will be such way. I was probably too harsh with calling it too repetitive , but sure there are repetitive parts, where you place same enemies just in slightly larger amount. Maybe try to make level 7+1 stages instead of 8+1.

Now about enemy personality, I was thinking about giving characters like undertale did. Ofc you can't do exactly the same , it's not same kind of game. But you can like sonic, you always fight the same guy, kind feels there is story behind… and you…. you have have Rick Astley for boss battle

I feel player should be little more bit immersed into your world, maybe make level selection more looking real world, like super mario world level selection type.

Maybe give dialogs to bosses and mini bosses. Or do things which pizza tower did (unique art style). Your enemies feel kinda random, like you're battling circle? Battling mobile phone?

Also what is point of coins? Is this unfinished feature?

The move when you hold down is also not clearly explained how to use ,that is something I found confusing. So be sure you write and explain with enemy example how to use it properly, I was actually using only dash first time I played, and you questioned if I used that move, but the real move which I didn't used was the hold down move.

Well done! This is one of the best games on scratch for sure. Just make it easier for new players to understand and will be much better. And think what you can do to make your game having unique art style. And make it somehow easier, I don't want to use 100% of my brain to beat a funni scratch game (suggestions above).




confronting wall of text you say

ggenije2 wrote:

First thing to say, the most important thing for a game is that there is some group of people who would like to play it.
~snip~

…Well that was a turnaround! I fully expected you to make a speech about how it's important to ensure new players can beat the game (more on this later). You're right, that retro replayability was exactly what I was trying to replicate in this game. And yes, I grew up on retro games and I used to be with that “modern games are too forgiving” mentality. Now I can definitely see that I was wrong in thinking that… it's just a shift in the industry to appeal to more casual audiences, and I now appreciate many easy games. Anyways, I can still play an old game if I want to, they're not going anywhere! But I do think there was something about that difficulty that clicked with me as a kid, not directly the difficulty itself, but rather how the game was designed around it (I'll explain it in the next paragraph)

(Next paragraphs will be explaining my inspirations, not BS2. Be ready for that!)

I used to think that it was because of the raw difficulty that I liked it (don't judge my game design based on what I did in BS1, I knew nothing) but in the last few years I rethought that. It was because I kept feeling like I was improving. W6-Castle1 from Mario 3 sticks out as an example to me. When I played that when I was a kid, I thought it was the hardest thing, but when I finally beat it I felt really rewarded (I didn't give up during that play session, I kept at it for like an hour. A true testament to how much patience I had back then!). Why? Because of that one powerup (it's in a block over a huge lava pit while you're on a quickly moving platform). I didn't realise it, but the more I died and was sent back to the beginning, the more consistently and quickly I got that powerup before it fell, and that gave me more confidence. Mario 3 levels are also usually really short, so you only have to master a few setpieces and mechanics to get through it, so it doesn't feel too overwhelming.

Then when I later learnt that the classic Sonic games were made with improving yourself mind (in the form of time trials), I went to replay them, trying to find the best routes and getting my best times. This completely changed my perspective on those games, it was just like what I had experienced with Mario, just driven up to 11! What I originally thought of the games in the series completely flipped. Beforehand I had liked CD/3 the most (they were the most experimentive/climactic games respectively), but now my favourite game in the series is Mania (the most replayable, by far), what I had originally thought of as an underwhelming sequel! I can still appreciate those other games for what I used to though. Anyways, to this day I still delete my save file and play the whole game again, only trying to do it faster. I even got a really good time trial record on one of the game's levels! That was around mid 2023, when I was starting proper work on BS2. I thought to myself, “This is why I liked retro games so much, this is the secret sauce that I need to add!” And so I started analysing games from that perspective, and I still think that it's what makes games like this so fun for me.

When later playing the time trial section of Crystal Seeker, I thought that it must've been inspired by Sonic Adventure's A-rank missions. It seemed like it was built on exactly the same premise (replaying levels and using your environment to help you execute shortcuts through the level), but toned down to fit in Scratch's project.json file. So, I was really surprised to hear that you'd never played the game when you said it on your profile. And, I kinda just assumed that that was the type of game that you were inspired by/liked when making it. So when I asked you for feedback, I was more expecting it to be about the pacing of the game (like the autoscroll might be too slow and pace-breaking or enemy death animations being too long) but when you gave me your feedback, I realised that it's probably more useful from the perspective of the average player anyways. So yeah, sorry about that. Although, it might have been accidental, but you created some of my favourite gameplay in this “genre”, it's near to getting onto my absolute favourites list. I honestly think that if you made the time trial missions the focus, or at least gave the option to skip the coins mission, it would've been on there. Maybe someday I'll make a mod to remove the pre-boss padding, just once I deconstruct the code!

A way to sum up what I like about games like these is its high skill ceiling (preferably a way to teach the player about this too), and action-focussed but subversively puzzle-based gameplay!

Oh yeah, and I forgot to say it somewhere in the last 3 paragraphs and now it won't fit in, but the puzzle subversion was inspired by another MegaDrive game, “Bonanza Bros”. It's only really the concept of having to know where enemies are placed though.

Which was my goal in this project? Well… a bit of all of those! I don't know what you mean by “presented appealing by a YT video” though.

• I joined Scratch in a time where I saw a lot of slander for it, with people calling it “useless”. That was something I wanted to change, but, I don't know if it's just social media algorithms being funny, but I just haven't seen a lot of that in a while (now most people are putting it in a “worst game engines” list for clickbait, then explaining it's not actually THAT bad). Quite funnily, I think your games are some that have helped change that!
  
  
• I also wanted to replicate the magic I find in retro games (both aesthetics and design) while putting my own unique spin on it, but again, the more indie games like Celeste I play, I realise it's always been there. Also quite funnily, in the time that I've been developing BS2, there's been both Mario and Sonic fangames that have released and been praised doing the exact same thing I wanted to! The Mario fangame in particular has a theoretical release year of 1989 on a peripheral for an 8-bit console, the exact same scenario as BS2! How do these people see into my mind?
  
  
• Anyways, this is also the first game that I've made that I've really thought about the design of, and it's my first game that I consider quite well-programmed. So I've personally learnt a lot from making this. It's also got the longest and best soundtrack that I've made so far, also being accurate to something that could've been produced in 1989.
  
  
• With Billding Site 1 I got a small but dedicated fanbase who supported me. They were quite excited when Billd Battle (spinoff) released later that year. So I thought that if I made BS2 a huge improvement over BS1 and an overall well designed game, it would be quite a treat for longtime fans! And I also just want to make a really fun Scratch game for new people.
  
  
• Since this is my last Scratch game, I also think that it will carry the legacy of my games on this site. Even if my previous games weren't that good, haha. I'll also be able to point to this as a key point in my ventures in programming/game design, and maybe music or even art.
  
  
• Most of all, I want to show people that I care about what I'm doing! I don't hope or think it will get me those precious views, but what I do hope is that I can make a good name for myself in the Scratch community (and maybe even outside) because of that. OK, I'm not gonna pretend like I don't want a return on the hours I invested in this project though! I also want my games from now on (if/when I continue off of Scratch) to be increasingly better each time, and be at an at least acceptable quality.
  

You actually brought up a bunch of stuff that's planned for the game, or even unused in the code of the public beta! You can also see a few of these (but only the stuff in the really early game) in last year's gameplay trailer. In the viewer notes of the beta itself, I said a lot of these features can be accessed by setting the variable “TrialMode” to 0. Though it's not quite finished, so you might need to set “DebugMode” to 1 to get around! (Debug controls found in background sprite). If you care about spoilers for the final game's story (more on that in a few paragraphs), I wouldn't recommend doing this because it's got some things like the final boss in there. Meh, I'm sure people don't really care right now anyways, since the game's still a while away and there hasn't been anything explained about the story other than the exposition. Anyways:

• There is an overworld system which connects all the levels (you unlock them linearly, but can go back to them). There are 4 times that it can be in (day, afternoon, evening, night) that progresses throughout the game.
  
  
• There is an NPC house and two NPC shops (one hidden, that one isn't made yet) in the overworld. (placeholder sprite for NPC in gameplay demo)
  
  
• The first shop is run by the shopkeeper (the one who turns evil later in the story). You will be able to buy drupotions that boost your stats and some items which are necessary to unlock certain caverns. Yes, this is where you'll spend knobbles (currency).
  
  
• Pausing the game will open up your items screen and options to save/quit in a Zelda-like fashion (more on this later)
  
  
• Other than the items from the shop/NPCs, you know those cards at the end of each Cavern? Those will be used as items. Each one grants protection from a specific “element” it's themed after (mostly enemies in that same Cavern) and has an attack based on that “element”. (Enemy damage types are already in the code, they just aren't used for anything yet)
  
  
• Key bind system (already in code). I trust that players will at least be able to find it in the options menu because to get there will only require using the arrow keys and space. Even if they do skip the options menu and struggle in the first Cavern not knowing the controls, I hope they'll find the training course hosted by the shopkeeper! Or maybe they'll just figure it out by pressing random keys before they find it, IDK.
  
  
• About the training course, it will only go over the basic controls of the game like the two base attacks, and the premise that you have to defeat enemies to continue. I might put in a message encouraging players to get through quick, but I don't know how I'd phrase that yet.
  
  
• Item system (as mentioned before a few times). I compared it to Classic MegaMan before, but that's not exactly how it will work, they'll be easier but slower ways to defeat enemies. It will also replace the hammer dash attack when you select one (the button is for secondary attacks in general).
  

  For example, I imagine on enemies like the Dripdrops (huh… I guess it would be easy to mistake for a ghost):
  > You would shoot the flame item at it,
  > It would freeze it but make it invincible for a few seconds (glows white to signify this),
  > And then they completely freeze and you can defeat them easily with a regular hammer attack.

  I could also do things like make Frosties (snowmen of course) turn into Dripdrops when effected by the flame item, both solving the “tile below” problem and achieving the “easy but slow” thing. Only things that I'm worried about when implementing this system is that it would make all my enemy placements useless unless playing hammer-in-hand (perhaps making the game duller as you experienced beforehand) and I don't know how I'd make a proper difficulty curve using items (taking longer to defeat the further on would just make it boring, perhaps making it so that the only items you can defeat enemies with in later Caverns increasingly aren't unlocked yet would fix it?). This will hopefully also fix your issue with it being too puzzle-oriented, but like I said it might make playing the game less exciting.
  
  
• Save codes and mod codes. Save codes are pretty self explanatory, but mod codes will be able to change list data which controls stuff like enemy types/placement in Caverns, colour palettes, music, etc. I just need to work on the read/write system for them.
  
  
• After you beat any Cavern, it will unlock in Trial Mode. It will basically act like the public beta does, keeping track of records like time, hits takes, and score. You also won't be able to access your items, so hopefully players will learn that playing hammer-in-hand is quicker but harder! Of course you don't have to, but I intend for this to be played as sort of a post-game after beating the main story; there will be medals achieved for 100% for beating every Cavern damageless and under a certain time (times in the desc. of the beta).
  
  
• Climactic sequence before the final boss! (I will ask my friend to upload a clip to YT soon, though of course spoilers ahead)
  

With all of the items making the game easier for new players, you might be thinking, why did I make the demo version the “hard mode” of the game, the section that you would play after first beating the game? Well simply, it's what I'd been focussing on developing for the past months, and it was easier to showcase what I'd already made! I was supposed to put something in the description about it, but like everything else that I'm supposed to remember to put in my descriptions… I forgot

About story, I can't remember if I said, but I removed all story elements from the beta, (most story elements are found in places other than the Caverns). The story is not at all integral to the gameplay, it's just for fun if anybody wants to read it. I gave a bit of the exposition in the description/music descriptions of the OST project, but I'll sum it all up here.

Bill was walking outside the Darmstadium (the location at the end of the prologue animation), but Joe (antagonist from the first game) attacks him with an excavator, causing Bill to fall into the ravine that the stadium is situated next to! However, instead of just hitting a rock bottom, Bill is transported to a valley in a new world (the overworld in the game), inhabited by only the few other people who fell down that same ravine and had to live there live there, trapped. Unlike the others though, Bill has heard about this mysterious place from a book he read a long time ago.

Thousands of years ago, there was a thriving civilisation that lived there which was more advanced than our own. However, nobody knows why, but they had to leave the valley at some point in time. Before they did, leaders of the society forged the 8 “Cards of Power”, which can grant any travellers who could prove their worth with great abilities. It's said that one of these can even give the user total power over their environment. They put these cards into areas that people today only know as “Caverns”, which are inhabited by animals/machines that they forced to guard and control the areas.

Of course, Bill wants to escape this valley so that he doesn't have to spend the rest of his life down there, so he sets out to find these Caverns, with the goal to find that one card in specific. However, there's a catch he doesn't know about. Along with that, all the choices that he makes throughout the game have effects on the people of the valley. All of this culminates for the finale of the game…

It's definitely got quite a few loose ends even by the end of the game. However, the most important of them are implied through details in gameplay that correlate with each other if you connect the dots. BTW, the immediate plot (all that excludes the past stuff) will be explained in a few cutscenes throughout the game or actions that progresses the story through gameplay. The reason that there's random stuff in the Caverns is because the civilisation had to leave in a rush, so they had to make do with whatever was there at the current time. Is it an excuse? Yes, quite blatantly. The development reason behind it was… well each one is different, but some examples are that Squeaker is an enemy from BS1, the Nokias are a small joke that ties into gameplay (that they're really hard to break), and most like the the Springball and Dripdrops were just cool designs I had gameplay ideas for.

Wow, that was a lot of beating around the bush! Well, let me say some things on gameplay (other than the stuff I said I'd already planned in the other paragraph)!

• Yeah, the autoscroll was a common complaint. I'll add a warning sound before scrolling, but I think it might get annoying so I might go back on that decision. As long as it doesn't play immediately after all enemies are defeated and is only just before it starts scrolling, I think it should be absolutely fine. That brings up the problem that it might not be obvious enough though! My friend EBWW also said it's confusing when you can move on and I should add an arrow like some beat-'em-ups do. Do you think that's a problem?
  
  Anyways, about being able to move when scrolling… yeah, theoretically it's possible. It might take minor reworks though. It's probably a bug I never bothered to find the cause of, but moving Bill when the Cavern screen is scrolling is a bit inaccurate (it seems to be making him move faster than he would otherwise). It would also just make the incentive to get to the right less, as you could just jump over it easily. Not sure, but I think that would remove a key part of the gameplay in the “early game”. I'll try it out too though.
  
  
• Since… pretty much the start of 2023, I've been trying to make sure that the average Scratch player won't find beating the 1st Cavern too hard. Maybe for the 2nd, with a bit of practice with the controls in C1, but I've been less worried about that since it's not the introduction. Is it still too hard?
  
  
• Which screens are too overwhelming? I'm guessing screen 8 on all the later Caverns. I might nerf them, but TBH I don't think I will unless a bunch of people say the same thing. The respawn platform lets you get a grasp on the area too.
  
  
• I will make the flute item remove any unavoidable RNG that will stop runs or be too annoying. Looks like I'm adding Old King Chess to that list now. I made it really hard as a joke (because of both the absurdity that it's just a chess piece and it's a reference) but I guess I should keep gameplay first, and hopefully making it an item weakness will preserve both sides. Even without it, it has a secret boss tactic (more on this next point)
  
  
• About Blizzardbot, you actually found one of the secret boss tactics. About them, most bosses have a tactic that can easily and quickly defeat them, you just have to find them and execute them properly (basically cheese but intentional). In Blizzardbot's case, you need to do a few well timed dashes and a jump and you'll hit it before it can blow you back far enough to start its attack. Sir Windy, Old King Chess, the Shopkeeper, and Rick Astley all have some form of stun locking as their tactic, but it gets harder to do with each one. So I'm surprised you found it out on the Shopkeeper, but not Sir Windy! Also, with the tactic, Rick Astley takes literally 10 seconds to beat! But I will make his fight a bit faster.
  
  
• I intentionally made the first two bosses simple for new players, though is Dull Bull too simple? I'll probably add a proper tactic for the Servers though.
  
  
• You're not the first to say the Electric Spikers are too difficult. As its item weakness, I'll make a way to get off its outer shell and just become a regular Spiker. I'll also make the success hitbox a bit bigger, maybe 10-20 pixels (nothing extremely noticeable but still a bit more room for courtesy). I was contemplating whether to keep or remove the hovering feature, but I think I've come to the compromise of only making it be able to hover for a certain time, also avoiding potential softlocks.
  
  
• I'll also slightly extend the egg's success hitbox. It never left the impression of being too small to me, but I guess it doesn't hurt to make it a bit easier!
  
  
• Now that the respawn platform's fully implemented, yeah, I don't see why there shouldn't be an option to turn off lives. Softlocks that drain all your lives are pretty much eradicated because of that. Also, in the trial mode, lives will automatically be turned off and that counter will keep track of how many hits you've taken.
  
  
• I don't think I'll remove any screens, but I can see where you're coming from saying it's repetitive. I of course tried to ease the player into enemies like I said, but I guess I didn't change the scenario all too much, perhaps I should do it by mixing more combinations of enemies if I do a game like this again.

As for too much puzzle, yeah, I definitely don't expect anyone to get it immediately, let alone on their 10th or 20th try. Though it feels a bit like cheating, I wouldn't discourage using a guide for it, I'll record a walkthrough for it after it's released. Or, as a retro developer would say, “YES, this is the perfect way to sell guide books! NYEH HEH HEH!” But anyways, about giving enemies more personality, I haven't actually played Undertale! I might look up a playthrough to get some inspiration now that you've mentioned it. About artstyle, IDK, I quite like the Billding Site style that I've made during this project, having rigid straight lines for man-made objects with smoother curves more more natural ones (generally). Perhaps I should make one that pops out a bit more next time.

Overall, thanks for your input! I hope that the features that I'm going to introduce, namely the items, will give more options for how the game's played. The option to play hammer-in-hand will of course still be in all of the game for all the impatient rapscallions like me ! With the current content of the beta, nah, I don't think it's one of the best games on Scratch, you must just be trying to flatter me! But I hope the final version will be.









Hooray! I finally figured out how to use the enter key! If only I used it to break up those massive paragraphs a bit more

I read all of this, although I still won't going to directly respond to your questions because your text is overwhelming.
This reminds me of game design, you wrote your text presuming I know all your references and know your game in depth, and our interests don't real align.

Anyways the thing which surely is important , not only in game dev, but also in any other form like books and videos, is:

Always consider player's(viewer's or reader's) preknowledge.

In video editing the first 15 seconds (intro) are considered most important, because it will affect the watching of whole video.
I understand that your game is not finished, but if player can't easily find fun in it, they will not even try to find fun in later parts of the game.
Retro games we're practically forcing people to replay them because in that time, you literally couldn't play anything else because high chances you would have max 2-3 games , so you can't really complain.
And as said before, you really should know your target audience for that reason. Scratch audience and Steam audience could differ a lot for sure.

Now about items , as I understood they will affect the game drastically so I couldn't really comment on the resulting gameplay, that actually makes me wonder how accurate my previous feedback would be once you introduce them, so I can't say anything.

Next thing I want to say is about gaining game design experience over time. I can assume you played my games before, so I'll give my examples through that. Vectoid TD 3D was not my first tower defense game , scratch bloons TD was. And I can say when encountered all problems in scratch bloons TD, I simply just couldn't fix them for many reasons, one being bad game design on very start, second is lack of programming experience. But in vectoid I overcome all of those problems.
And now about crystal seeker, it's actually my first 3D platformer, and there are many things I would change (I explained basics in the yt video).
Now the mindset of me creating crystal seeker was 80% “I want to create 3D platformer regardless of the cost”, and this is right mindset. You could never make something very good until you make same thing before regardless of the results. So if I would make a 3D platformer (serioius not like cube 3D lol) it would be much better.

In conclusion I wouldn't pay too much attention now, just make game less or more playable, listen to other's feedback, and fix the game breaking designs like impossible metal turtles lol.