Devlog #2 - Making actions readable

Not many playtest responses yet, but I've had a chance to talk with a few colleagues and friends who tried the game. Some of their feedback was spot on.

The main observation: the game already gives clear feedback on consequences - matches, cascades, board clears all feel punchy. But the actions themselves - moving, cycling, dropping, rotating - were almost silent. You'd press a key and something would happen, but there was no visual acknowledgment that the game had registered what you did. On a fast-paced puzzle game with a sweep timer running in the background, that's a problem.

So here's a first pass at fixing that.

Move

The active quad now slides along the bottom row instead of jumping instantly from cell to cell. Small thing, but it makes the movement feel grounded.

Cycle

Color cycling was instant before - you'd press the button and the rings would swap with no transition. There's now a short animation when the colors rotate. It's probably still a bit too fast, something to tune.

Drop

Two things here. The drop line (the dotted trail showing where the quad will land) now has a travelling light effect flowing toward the landing cell - makes the destination clearer before you commit.

And the quad itself now has a small squash animation on landing, a quick compress-and-bounce when it hits the cell. Adds a bit of weight to the placement.

Edge ready

When the active quad reaches the edge of the bottom row - one more move and the grid rotates - the orbit cell gets a visual state change: a soft lavender glow signals that the next input will trigger a rotation, not just a move.

Grid rotation

A flash behind the grid when it rotates, to punctuate the pivot. Probably a bit too basic as-is, I may revisit this one.

More to come. I've been thinking about the overall rhythm of the game - there's something off with the pacing around the sweep timer that I want to address. More on that soon, maybe.

PRJ-CQUADS is a working title. Solo project - code, audio, and design.