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[zovirl]

Hi!

For Super Friendship Club's Mysticism pageant I made a game about meditation. I need help balancing it. Specifically, I'm trying to judge whether the difficulty is correct and whether the concept is too hidden/too obvious.

I'd love it if you could go play it (only takes 5 minutes to finish...) and then come back and answer a couple questions.

Game uses html5. I've tested with chrome 15, firefox 6, IE 9.

Play here: http://www.zovirl.com/2011/09/forest.html







Questions:
1. Did you understand it?
2. How many attempts did it take?
3. Was it enjoyable and/or relaxing?

Suggestions are, of course, welcome

[anonymous]

First attempt ran through it,
second attempt noticed the spirits, noticed how they reacted to running, kept it in sync with my breathing, it was actually kind of relaxing.
not difficult, and the message comes across.
I liked it, it was pleasant, many games are tense, this wasn't.

[sevn]

Love the usage of grass to make it seem like the player is moving. Love the usage of squares for leaves.

Only took me a couple times to work out how to do it.

It was kinda relaxing, but kinda frustrating because I didnt know what to do at first =[

[eigenbom]

1. Yep
2. 2
3. Kind of relaxing ... as much as staring at a luminescent screen can be relaxing.. :D

I think you did well with tackling meditation within a game. And props for html5!

[barley]

This is lovely. I'm not sure how much of a "game" it is, but it definitely succeeds in being relaxing and in making you feel a bit silly for initially running towards the end.

1. I think I understood it. What I got from it was that you should slow down, take your time and just breathe. Paying attention to your breathing is meditation 101 and if there was ever going to be a successful translation of that into game form, this is it.
2. Just one. I ran to begin with but as the messages about the spirits came up I realised what I was supposed to be doing and slowed down.
3. It was relaxing and, because of that, it was enjoyable!

[eclectocrat]

Nice job. Is there any music or sound? I'm on Safari.

I found it very relaxing, but it might benefit from some more feedback, like some light or sound operating at alpha brain wave frequency, or the frequency of breathing you're aiming to inspire (pun intended).

Overall, very nice little non-game game.

[Slace Diamond]

I think this is a great way to present a valuable lesson about patience and how perseverance sometimes involves waiting.  The game is relaxing and it can lead to more relaxation if the lesson is applied in the real world.  It took me three tries...

[harkme]

1) I didn't understand it.

2) Two tries. The first time I got bored and stopped. The second time, I used a keyboard macro. I'm not sure if I completed it though, since the macro was so fast that I saw a brown gradient and the text was slowly going through.

3) Personally, I didn't enjoy it and the repeated pressing of the spacebar prevented it from being relaxing. Is there supposed to be sound? I'm using firefox 8 and I did not hear anything. Sound may help with relaxation.

I'm not really fond of "small not-really-games with a message" though, so don't mind me.

[rek]

I beat it – I guess? – on the first try, but didn't find it relaxing or all that meditative really. As others have said, I think it needs sound.

The fireflies were the 'spirits' right?

[cirolve]

reminds me of this short "interesting" game
http://rjlayton.com/pond/

[zovirl]

Thanks for the help everyone! One thing I should have asked...assuming you saw the spirits, did you play all the way to the fade-to-black (5 minutes in)? Or quit earlier?

Nice job. Is there any music or sound? I'm on Safari.

There is no sound, but I should probably add some.

kinda frustrating because I didnt know what to do at first =[

I'm on the fence about whether it would be better to just tell the player "hold space as you breath" right up front, or wait until they try going slow before telling them. I like the sense of discovery/satisfaction from figuring it out, but on the other hand it can be frustrating, like you said.

I didn't understand it...the second time, I used a keyboard macro...the repeated pressing of the spacebar prevented it from being relaxing.

I'm guessing this means you were moving too fast and so never received the "press space as you breath in, release it as you breath out" instructions. That's unfortunate. Maybe I need to change things around to tell you that explicitly on the 2nd playthrough.

The fireflies were the 'spirits' right?

Yes. I originally wanted them to look more like Miyazaki's forest spirits but making them have faces looked terrible...it made the whole thing look horribly 2D.

reminds me of this short "interesting" game
http://rjlayton.com/pond/

Yeah, pOnd was an inspiration. The first half of pOnd, that is. I hated the ending...it cheapened the whole thing, IMO.

[rek]

It may be sacrilegious to say this here, but I think the low-res pixel art is hurting it too.

[PompiPompi]

I saw the glowing flies, and it was nice that you had to press the space according to your breadthing. I assume most people breadth in a certain range? At least when sitting in front of the computer.
However, after a while I found that the most fun thing to do was to try to run as fast as I can(too bad there is a maximum speed)

[eigenbom]

It may be sacrilegious to say this here, but I think the low-res pixel art is hurting it too.

ow, my freakin ears!

[Falmil]

I'm not sure what there is to "understand" really. I did finish it and I almost fell asleep a few times, but I always do that at work.