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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by JPedrosa@lemdro.id to c/android@lemdro.id

Hello everyone,

I’ve been working on a simple 3D maze game for Android. The main idea is a daily maze: everyone plays the same maze each day and competes on a global leaderboard.

It’s designed to be quick and casual. Wordle-style sessions you can finish in a few minutes.

Features:

  • Daily Maze: same maze for everyone, resets daily, global leaderboard
  • Random Mode: no competition, solution button available
  • Duels: real-time 1v1 races on a randomly generated maze

I’d really appreciate feedback, especially on what features or modes would be interesting to add.

The app isn’t public yet because Google requires a testing phase, but testing is open. You just need to join a Google Group and then use the Play Store link below.

Google group: (It may show "you don't have access to this content" but if you login you can request access. It's unfortunately a necessary step for the App links below to work.)

https://groups.google.com/g/maze-trials-3d-closed-testing

App links:

Web: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.mazegame3d.app

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mazegame3d.app

(The App links above will only be available after joining the group. I'm very sorry, those are google requirements.)

Thanks!

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[-] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

I tried it. Joining the group gave me the option of joining anonymously, so that was easy. Installing from the Play Store just worked once I was able to join.

My biggest issue was that the controls being in the corner as a historic didn't make any intuitive sense for me, so I kept going in directives I didn't anticipate. I have no idea what the "🎥+" button is for, but it gets in the way of having centre-of-screen controls, which would mean dragging to the left actually moves left instead of still being up/down because I didn't go left enough to get past the midline if the joystick.

Are you left handed, btw? Because it's weird to have the default control on the left side of the screen. I'd suggest the following UI changes:

  • Default: centre control, no video+ whatever button
  • Options for right-joystick or left joystick.
  • Change the default for horizontal orientation devices, or tablets, to default to right-have-side control with options for left or centre controls
  • The right- and left-hand-side joystick should be moved more centrally to give more space to go to the outside edge of the joystick
  • Whatever the video+ thing is should be explained. Does it Trevor video of your attempt, I'm guessing, in the hopes it will go viral? In that case, it should have options:
  1. Record every run
  2. Record only daily runs
  3. Keep n most recent daily run recordings
  4. Keep m most recent random run recordings
  • The graphics are a bit too simplistic. Some lighting would help, I expect. I get that you're going for a clean aesthetic, but the ball doesn't have any roll animation. If it was something like an 8-ball, then there would be a sense of speed and rotation as the texture rotates—granted, that greatly expands the scope of your engine. I haven't ever tried animating a sphere, but maybe take some cues from other genres to see how they impart a sense of motion instead of what could be a static sprite.

My biggest challenge with the concept is that the 3D view + first red walls doesn't allow seeing enough of the maze to give a realistic chance at skill affecting some maze solutions—important parts of the maze are a blur of light/medium red, so it's impossible to quickly scan for blocking walls between the start and the exit, so it's impossible to use skill to win.

Instead, fast run times depend on luck—if you go in the wrong direction right at the start, you can be screwed, and because you can't even see the exit as you move towards the side corners, you have no way of using skill to resolve this until you've wasted as long as it takes to fully solve the needed the correct way (and then it feels extra shitty to need to backtrack, eating even more time).

So, when I have a great run, I'm not proud of the score because it was lucky. And when I have a really bad run, it's just frustrating.

The visuals need to be clear enough from the start that it's actually a skill game, for your conveyor to work. A higher camera angle? Or maybe start with a 1-second animation that drops the ball, with the camera angle pointing down, then increasingly flat as it falls, until it ends with something similar to what you have now. Then there's a quick chance to scan the maze before the run starts.

The red-on-red needs higher contrast, too. It's frustrating and inaccessible for gamers with visual challenges. I'm not a designer, so idk about colour theory too much, but the walls and top of the maze you need to run through a contrast checker, imho, and maybe use Canva's colour wheel complimentary colour picker or a palette from Lospec to get colors that gel.

It has potential, but it takes flat in its current iteration, imho.

I hope that feedback is helpful!

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago
[-] JPedrosa@lemdro.id 2 points 1 day ago

Are you referring to the Google Group link?

It may show "You don't have permission to access this content", but if you are logged in to Google you should see a "Join/Access Group" link no?

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yes, but I'm not "logged into Google".

The two others are not working either.

Senior game dev here, Don't expect people to jump through hoops to check your stuff out, post screenshots, post a direct link to google play.

Make it as simple as possible to check out your game.

Good luck!

Edit: the general link in the post doesn't work either, welcome to the dreaded "demo effect" 😅

[-] JPedrosa@lemdro.id 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Don't even get me started on these requirements by google for personal developer accounts. This is a mandatory testing phase before they give me access to production. The google group is necessary for the app links to be unblocked for that particular google account.

I 100% understand the pain this is, but not sure I can do anything more to simplify the process.

My conclusion as of late is that I should just create a business google account to skip this haha.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Or publish it without google, is it an apk?

[-] Ghoelian@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago

You could just make it open source and post releases to gitlab/github or whatever

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago
[-] JPedrosa@lemdro.id 1 points 1 day ago

Isn't the imgur link working? I tried uploading the imgs directly but it was always failing.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Make a max 1MB (maybe 2 or more, but do you feel lycky 😁?) image and post it right here.

[-] JPedrosa@lemdro.id 1 points 1 day ago

I have images less than 1Mb, both jpg and png. The upload always fails either on the post or here in the comments. I'll try some different formats.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Nah jpg should work, I'd check your server lemdro.id, they are the ones managing the base image and lemmy.world works.

this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2025
28 points (100.0% liked)

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