I like the game, it is unique, challenging! You've made a nice platform to build levels. Undo is impressive, quick rewind is fun.
Finish it or not?
Yeah, write down what it means to be finished, and do what you wrote.
Optional parts
I think for these things to be attractive you've got to have the easy bits, and the tricky bits.
In your levels, have side rooms that are not required.
Have the main part of the level be not impossibly hard like the ones you have today.
Make them hard enough that a new person takes less than 2 minutes per level to get through.
Have side advanced parts that take longer
How to make money on it:
Four ideas come to mind:
1. Pay for progress
2. Pay for choice
3. Pay to share
4. Pay for speaking engagements
The three big motivators are progress, choice and community. People want these so much that they'll pay for it.
Have everything be possible to do for free, but paying can make it happen more quickly, or less randomly.
Pay for Progress
a. Provide levels, lots of levels, mostly very simple. Give a sense of movement and progress.
b. Give positive feedback as they progress. Maybe put in level milestones that change the wall color.
c. Put in extra stuff that is not required, but can be collected, such as coins or treats.
d. After x coins have been collected, let them cash in the coins to do some hack, like consume a cell, or push something in a way not allowed.
e. Make the coins possible to earn, but it takes some time, maybe put in a max per minute, so they have to wait.
f. Provide a way to pay real money to buy more coins.
g. Have some levels which take a very long time that provide a lucky spin of the wheel at the end.
h. Side doors to bonus levels cost coins to unlock
Pay to Publish
a. Provide a level editor
b. Make contests every so often where people vote on the best submission
c. Submitting a level costs coins
d. Voting for a level costs coins
e. Record how often a level is played, make a leader board.
Pay to Learn
a. Provide tutorials, or levels that give very basic examples.
b. Give practice rooms to try it out
c. The first few rooms are free
d. Advanced rooms for training cost coins
e. Learning applies to not only playing the game, but also designing a level.
f. Have some tutorial levels show how to create a level, or explain the critical parts
Pay to have you the Developer come and Lecture
a. Provide your services as a coach of game developers and level designers
b. Create a few you tube videos which demonstrate your ability to speak
c. Speaking topics : platform design, level design, game design, time management, publishing, play testing, self motivation, keeping the vision, trade offs, making money, the list goes on forever. Indy game design is really hard, you have a lot to share!
e. Practice speaking and showing. Join toastmasters and learn to public speak.
f. Offer to speak for free : schools, meet ups, videos, software company, dev workshop, test workshop
You can do this, you can make money on your passion, try to give more than you receive.
-tom
Developer
