Awesome.. thank you so much for the detailed feedback. All points noted, will work through them.
A new beta release coming tomorrow with the following:
1. Level 2 with its own music track and new wall patterns
2. Settings - player speed, themes, colors
As for your points:
1. Menu screen - will work on it to see how it can be simplified
2. Tutorial - yes its too slow even for my taste.. but for someone who doesn't have any idea what SH is.. maybe its alright. Someone like yourself would probably not even do a tutorial. But again, I will increase the speed a tiny bit. Completion screen etc will be added
3. Controls - added a setting screen with player speed setting.. so will wait for your feedback on that
4. Wall Side - this one I am not too sure about. but will definitely think about it. I will probably take a poll towards the end of the beta on this one.
5. Feel - hmmm... will have to see why that is.. maybe its the speed of things?
6. Retry time - yes I agree, I have to put that delay in there to load an ad. That's the only way to support a free game. BUT, I will provide an option to remove ad.. and when the ad is removed, there will be no delay, I will make sure retry is instantaneous.
7. Music random - the strategy I am using.. (beta 2) is that on player death, music is paused. and then resumed from the same place when player hits retry. So its continuation. This happens till the music is at the 1 minute mark. If you die after the music's 1-minute mark, the music is again reset from the start. All music tracks are approx. 3 minutes long. So hopefully this technique keeps the player from getting bored and will be able to at least listen 1 minute of music even if he keeps dying at 5 seconds in the level.
A new beta release coming tomorrow with the following:
1. Level 2 with its own music track and new wall patterns
2. Settings - player speed, themes, colors
As for your points:
1. Menu screen - will work on it to see how it can be simplified
2. Tutorial - yes its too slow even for my taste.. but for someone who doesn't have any idea what SH is.. maybe its alright. Someone like yourself would probably not even do a tutorial. But again, I will increase the speed a tiny bit. Completion screen etc will be added
3. Controls - added a setting screen with player speed setting.. so will wait for your feedback on that
4. Wall Side - this one I am not too sure about. but will definitely think about it. I will probably take a poll towards the end of the beta on this one.
5. Feel - hmmm... will have to see why that is.. maybe its the speed of things?
6. Retry time - yes I agree, I have to put that delay in there to load an ad. That's the only way to support a free game. BUT, I will provide an option to remove ad.. and when the ad is removed, there will be no delay, I will make sure retry is instantaneous.
7. Music random - the strategy I am using.. (beta 2) is that on player death, music is paused. and then resumed from the same place when player hits retry. So its continuation. This happens till the music is at the 1 minute mark. If you die after the music's 1-minute mark, the music is again reset from the start. All music tracks are approx. 3 minutes long. So hopefully this technique keeps the player from getting bored and will be able to at least listen 1 minute of music even if he keeps dying at 5 seconds in the level.
Sixth, Super Hexagon is all about twitch reactions and speed. One thing I noticed when retrying is that it takes a few seconds to reset, zoom out, and start to play again. I, and I assume many others, would appreciate faster restarts when we die so we can get right back in on the action (nothing quite like dying with 5 seconds on Hyper Hexagonest!)
And lastly, number seven... One of the key things I enjoyed about my time with Hexagon is that when I died and restarted... The music picked up at a different(semi-random) place. This really helped keep me enthralled and made me feel like what I was doing was less repetitive and I think is a huge part of why I went back for more and more of Hexagon.
Overall, I think you have a great base and am looking forward to trying out future revisions as well as being able to scratch my Hexagon itch when I'm away from my iOS device or my computer.
I'll continue to play and provide more feedback as well, can't wait to see what the higher difficulty levels look like and what kind of nee music they hold for us
EDIT - Sorry for the double post, the WPCentral app stopped displaying text in the text box partway through the paragraph so I posted what I had