so, the first build of the game has been out for 24 hours now, and it's been a pretty successful launch! analytics show 75 browser plays, and i've received a lot of feedback over at Telegram and Discord. the feedback has been all-around positive, with some fine-tuning requested. even Mark Brown (of Game Maker's Tool Kit) played this!

based on playtester reports, the median time for clearing the game in its current state is 5 minutes, with first-time runs ranging from 3½ minutes to over 9 minutes. so it seems like the difficulty of the first puzzle area is just right, i've had no complaints about that.

luckily, players have discovered no bugs or soft-locks in the game. though i found out myself that the map screen cursor can go off-screen and applied a hotfix.

also, a speedrunner by the name Jayrude totally crushed this early build of the game, his efforts culminating in a 44-second run with a truly clever route thru the maze! it's a delight as a game developer when players discover stuff in your game that you didn't even think of. it seems like games are the only medium where that happens. it like, brings out the hidden potential of the game, y'know?

development continues next week at the Spelcasters studio - i have some more puzzles brewing, and i think i'll add enemies and traps to spice up the gem collecting.

catch you soon!