The attack itself doesn't really need to be slow. Just make sure there is a way for the player to read an incoming attack. The most natural way to go about this is to give the enemy a lot of anticipation prior to attacking.

For example, an enemy that punches at the player would just require the enemy drawing back their hand to emphasize the punching motion. Because of this antic pose, the player will think "the enemy is about to punch!" and then can dodge before the actual punch happens.

This is basically how real combat works as well. This is why martial arts training teaches you to hide your anticipation and watch for your opponent's. Anybody who draws their hand far back to punch is going to lose the fight to anyone with any fight training.

But it works well for enemies in videogames. For most attacks you can achieve this by just pulling back the attacking limb (arm, leg, etc) before bringing it toward the player. For enemies with no limbs or whatever, you're going to need to get creative and have them flash red or shake or make a particular sound or something. Just anything to alert the player of an incoming attack before it's too late to dodge.

Pretty much. You can speed up the moving pieces by holding the left mouse button. By uniting the pieces quickly you can build up combos to get a higher score.

When I developed the game I was sort of trying to use other casual puzzle games as inspiration. Games such as Bejeweled and Tetris which have really simple rules but are addicting to play.

edit: also some other things... As you unite more sockets, more will begin to appear on the board, until there are dozens and dozens of them, so it really becomes challenging to unite the right ones. The pieces that move with your cursor are also constantly moving toward the center. If you don't unite the pieces to the correct socket in time, it counts as a penalty.

[Unite early gameplay video]

Hey TIGForums! I'm new here but I figure my first post can be my DevLog for my current game that I'm planning to complete soon.

To save some time explaining the game, it's much easier to show what I have done so far:

Unite early gameplay video

So basically the goal is to keep uniting these colored sockets with the pieces that you get. Right now the main gameplay is all there, but I'm having a bit of trouble polishing it up any further. Right now I'm in need of audio, both SFX and music... I can "sort of" make them myself, but I'm really interested in getting someone else to do these, as that isn't really my strong department.

Another problem I'm having is that the game just isn't screaming "fun" to me. After a lot of playtesting I feel that the game is a bit tedious, and while I can play it for 10 minutes nonstop, it eventually just gets boring doing the same thing over and over.

I'm open to suggestions on what I can do to improve the gameplay. Right now the powerups (that aren't really visible in the video) help to alleviate a bit of the repetitiveness, but it's just not enough. I really would like to finish this game and sell it at some point, but I just don't think there's enough to warrant purchasing it.

I've considered maybe reducing sockets to be two-toned, which would make them easier to match up, but also possible adding in the need to rotate the moving pieces to match up... I'm not sure if this would increase the fun by much though, or if it would just make things more difficult.

Either way, I'd love to hear some feedback and any ideas as to how I can make the game more exciting. Thanks!