Hello, I have created a game called Color Labyrinth, in which you need to use your mouse to dodge obstacles. I worked hard on this game for about a month, but on Newgrounds, it got low ratings. I would like your criticism on this game and tips on how to improve it. The voters complained mostly about the color scheme (I just heavily modified the color scheme, but I would still like to know whether that has room for improvement) and the difficulty progression (the difficulty increases way too quickly), so I would like your tips on how I can change the colors and modify the current level design. 

It's a nice game, but yeah some levels are harder than others.  What I think you need however is a scoring system.  You can make the levels less hard, but have a score per level, like how long it takes to finish it.  Then players can compete against themselves or others to get the lowest possible scores on the levels.  So, you'd need some leaderboards or something like that.

I might take your advice on that. But the timer is quite unnecessary. There are some fast-paced levels but other levels require taking your time to win, so it is questionable whether I will put that in or not. Also, I put in an anti-cheat system and the game could possibly penalize you if you move your mouse too quickly. 

8 hours ago, Gary Lu Productions said:

I might take your advice on that. But the timer is quite unnecessary.

The main essence of orod's suggestion is that a scoring system might improve your game (you asked for criticism and improvement tips) - his suggestion of timing the player's performance was just an example. The best response you can give to someone's suggestion in response to your request for criticism is "thanks, I'll take that into consideration," rather than giving reasons why the suggestion doesn't work for you. Check this out: https://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/

23 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

The main essence of orod's suggestion is that a scoring system might improve your game (you asked for criticism and improvement tips) - his suggestion of timing the player's performance was just an example. The best response you can give to someone's suggestion in response to your request for criticism is "thanks, I'll take that into consideration," rather than giving reasons why the suggestion doesn't work for you. Check this out: https://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/

 

Yeah, sorry about that. I did not mean to say it in a mean way. I am still taking his idea into consideration though.

I would say build a more progressive level structure. So players don't feel that something that they learnt from the previous level isn't helping with a later level.

So you need better level designs that allows player to practice a certain skill or knowledge while slowly adding in new elements.

On 8/17/2017 at 7:44 AM, Gary Lu Productions said:

I might take your advice on that. But the timer is quite unnecessary. There are some fast-paced levels but other levels require taking your time to win, so it is questionable whether I will put that in or not. Also, I put in an anti-cheat system and the game could possibly penalize you if you move your mouse too quickly. 

This is a contradiction.

If the point of the game is completing the level as fast as possible, measuring how long does it take is a straightforward way to provide a well-behaved score.

If it's the sort of puzzle that requires careful planning and there is no reason to rush, moving the mouse "too quickly" is not useful, not a way to cheat, and not something you should avoid with anti-cheat measures

Thanks for your tip. So, my plan is to add six more levels to the game. I am going to put each of the six levels between two levels between which the player feels like the game is not rushing them in terms of learning to mechanics. For example, if there is a sudden change in difficulty between levels one and two, I would put at least one level between them so the player does not feel rushed. Do you have any suggestions of what to add? 

On 8/16/2017 at 10:44 PM, Gary Lu Productions said:

I might take your advice on that. But the timer is quite unnecessary. There are some fast-paced levels but other levels require taking your time to win, so it is questionable whether I will put that in or not. Also, I put in an anti-cheat system and the game could possibly penalize you if you move your mouse too quickly. 

Well, if the game is only geared towards a pass/fail type system, then yes the timer scoring is unnecessary.   Only you can decide that.  But, in that case you're only giving the player 1 way to succeed.  They either finish the level or not.  With a timing score, you give the player another way to succeed, even if they never finish the level.  They can always improve their time.  And with a leaderboard you give players another way to compete with each other.  

This is similar to games like Tetris or other games that go on forever.  The point is not whether you finish the game, it's how far you get and how that compares to other players.  Your game could benefit from this on a per level basis, and that allows you to have arbitrarily hard levels and not even have to worry about tweaking or balancing them.  If non one can ever finish a level, so what?  They can still keep playing it and improving and competing in it.  If it's just pass/fail, then once a player finishes a level they're done.  No need to come back to it.  

Give the player more ways to succeed and more replay value,

You know, the game is not bad. I also did the same game when learning to make games. You need to complicate the game and make something beautiful. Your game is interesting, but primitive. 
If you want, you can go to my channel game developer.
Good luck to you in development.