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[Bishop]

My original vision for my game, a 2D platform puzzler, was to have the game switch between high dexterity tasks (akin so super meat boy or so), a real feat of the hands and non combat areas of pure puzzle solving.

So I've been conducting play testing and this is what has really got me stumped and worried.

Half of the testers love the puzzles, but hate the difficulty of the dexterity parts (might hate them if they weren't hard too)

The other half didn't enjoy the puzzles as much and thought the dexterity parts were too easy and didn't really rate the game overall.

The questions I'm asking myself are;

Do they dislike it because they're not the right audience for my game?
Do they dislike it because it's too hard?
How would I identify which audience matches my game?
Should I aim it at a different audience?

I do currently have difficulty levels and I'm working on separating them out even more. But the core question of 'who is my game for?' and 'Do I know them?' is really troubling me.

I'm really grateful for any advice anyone has.

Thanks,
Lawrie.

[C.A. Sinner]

I'd say focus on one of the two parts of your game and flesh it out, keep the other part but make it light enough to add some variety without being a "showstopper." As is, your game really seems to be two games in one, each of which caters to a very different skillset and taste.

[Bishop]

Yea, maybe the balance of the two is the big problem. Trine mixes it abit, but their's is much more puzzle than stab. Metroid is a lot more shoot than solve.

I never really thought about how my play testers abilities are a limit to my resources until now. I think my next game will cater to friends tastes, just for easy of play testing.

[Core Xii]

There's people who like genre A.
There's people who like genre B.
People who like both genre A and genre B are obviously going to be a fraction of the intersection of those two groups.

You can make a game for those people and accept that it's a niche audience, but it'll also be more difficult. Not only do you have to do one thing well, you have to do two things well; If either one sucks, the game as a whole does.

Or you can opt to please a single audience and focus on perfecting a single genre. More appeal, easier to make, but perhaps doesn't push the boundary of the art medium as much.

Personally, I make games I want to play; That's the kind I enjoy making the most and can do the best job at. Whether anyone else does is irrelevant.