Thanks, and yeah I've been stuck on alpha for a long time now. Since your comment is so detailed let me go into a bit of the thinking behind it.
One of the leading goals I've been following is design by subtraction. The idea that you should take away everything but the core gameplay and let that drive the game. So the format settled on focusing just on the color matching gameplay and each gate that comes adds its own mixup of the core. There were times when I tried messing with the core gameplay and tried some more complexity, but it just didn't feel like BoxByte anymore.
It could always use some more polish, I'm really a one man team though so it's been a struggle to get even what I have lol.
I'm not sure what's up with the warning. I think that's just a Unity thing because there's no actual networking code in the game itself.
I agree about the text. I find ui design to be some of the most boring work involved with a game so there are some instances where the ui could definitely be better.
The tutorial seems to be something that people are the most divided on. Some people really like it and some really hate it. I just think that's how it goes with tutorials. No one wants to be stuck reading when they want to be playing. But I found it was really important for people to understand the game. I tried to make it as short as I could if that helps :)
It's funny that you mention those three, because every one of those had significant changes in the past three months. Ultimately the game is one big challenge though, so what I did was try to focus on what the hardcore BoxByte player would want. The downside of course is that there are a lot of cool things later on in the game that some players will never see. In the end I just didn't want to make it easier at a detriment to those core players who will play it most.
I really would have liked to have had more puzzles, but it's mostly a game about skill and tactics. However I don't agree about there being artificial difficulty. But I definitely think it could be too hard and that's part of the reason I'm posting this to hear experiences.
What makes you think it's a general sci-fi world? It's actually a very dark oppressive world. Is there a game world? ;)
I can't comment much on the background, I've already said too much on the world... But all is not as it seems...
About the score, I guess it could be handled better. But it's really meant to be a kind of goal. I don't really want to gravitate towards a kind of participation award though. Of course that leaves it with some sharp edges but that's part of what makes it BoxByte. It's unforgiving but always fair.
With a game like BoxByte I don't think it's something that can cater well to every demographic. I definitely made efforts to try to smooth it out, but in some cases I decided to leave it as is and hopefully the demographic that likes it will like it more for that.
Having said that, I might be completely off. This isn't an exact science after all. In that case I'm definitely willing accept that and take input :)