First playthrough of void quick feedback

[jgbourque]

My stream of consciousness feedback! Just first thoughts...https://drive.google.com/file/d/14LekX1zKgqAnEyfKFLJXa4JQ4rPrfoez/view?usp=sharing

[wjt]

I don't want to continue

For future reference, you can pause the game (hit Esc or P or Pause, or menu on your gamepad), quit to the main menu, and then choose new game.

[wjt]

But what you really wanted was #432 - go straight back to Fray's End, abandoning your current quest.

[wjt]

Great feedback. Yes, some of the trees are obnoxiously placed.

How do you feel about running vs. walking? When prototyping this I struggled because:

• If the void moves at walking pace, you can easily outrun it by running;
• If the void moves at running pace, you have to run.

I tried to square this circle as follows:

• If the void is close to you, it moves at your walking pace;
• If it is ~4 tiles (from memory) away, it moves at your running pace.

It is possible to beat the level without running, but once I added the trees it became extremely hard.

[wjt]

I rewatched your video and I realised that you're not just saying that the trees are positioned in awkward places (which they are), but that maybe the hitboxes are the wrong shape because you seem to be clipping the trees on your way past.

I looked more closely and they actually are bigger than the visible bases of the trees!

[wjt]

There must be something I don't understand about how Godot's physics simulation works because it's really easy to get into a situation where you would expect the semi-circular end of the player's foot capsule to slide off the tree's circular collider, but it doesn't.

[manuq]

Yes, I remember that for Moddable Pong we had to play with the collision_priority parameter to prevent those odd situations.

[manuq]

CharacterBody2D also has parameters that affect how they slide when move_and_slide() is called. At the very least we should make sure that player and other characters have motion_mode set to "Floating" because the default "Grounded" is for platformers. Setting to "Floating" means that all colliisions are reported as walls, and the doc says that it "is suitable for top-down games".

[manuq]

I opened #1224 for the latter, after remembering that I did the walk behaviors for floating characters.

[Gatorrante]

I'm going to transcribe the feedback from my first impressions while playing the levels of "The Void" for the first time. This is a transcription of the PDF I wrote on 21/10/25 on the Discord channel "threadbare-development".

---

Level - Void

Stage 1 | Attempts: 2

Feedback:

• Add ambient sound effects to the background music to heighten the sense of urgency during escape sequences.
• Consider implementing a unique "death sound" specifically for the Void scene to reinforce its atmosphere.

---

Stage 2 | Attempts: 2

Issue:
Got stuck on a platform and had to restart the level the first time due to lack of clarity on what to do.

Feedback:

• Maybe we could add a visual cue — such as a glowing effect or directional arrow — to indicate which objects are within reach of the thread or interactable (like targeting systems in some 3D Zelda games). Example:

• Icons or buttons styled after the ability could help players intuitively understand which skill to use in each context.
• Some of the puzzles to collect the purple button coins might be challenging for casual players, especially considering these are early levels. However, the challenge is fun overall — we could consider rewarding the player's intent or effort.

---

Stage 3 | Attempts: 3

Feedback:

• Very fun level! It could feel even more intense and immersive with the addition of sound effects.
• Maybe adding more animations to static objects like the thread needles could make the scene feel more dynamic, although I'm not sure how this would affect the game's performance.