Okay REVIEW REVIEW TIME... or something like that...
Anyway, thanks again for all the replies, I highly appreciate that you guys like my game and I will give my best to make it better in the future, I am certainly not done with the concept yet.
Also I am glad that you like the short trailer, I am not entirely happy with it, but I had that crazy idea and so I made it  

  some stuff might make more sense when the games get's its story though.
I am not directly replying to all reviews because there are certain things I would like to address directly, so please don't feel bad if you are left out (also I guess there is a quote limit and I don't want to spam too many posts, I feel like I already hit my quota for this week).
	
		
	
	
		
		
			[...] It took me 15 minutes to figure out that L/R buttons are for  switching bodies in grayout.
		
		
	 
Actually there is a reason why I chose that keys as those keys represent the opposite sides of your Pandora similar to how black and white represent the opposite sides of the intensity of natural light.
I also felt that those buttons would come as the most natural to switch bodies, still I have not really tested that and had no real means to test that.
On that note, does anyone actually use X to jump - does anyone notice you can jump on X anyway? If not, that button would be free, but that would also not work on the Playground level (which does not make much sense anyway, but I thought I would give people the chance to play around with the engine like I did in the videos and since the functionality was already there...). I really don't want to set this on the d-pad as you might trigger it too lightly, the same reason suicide is B+Y and not just B or Y.
Also there will be more levels, I am working on that.  
	
		
	
	
		
		
			I liked the way he slides >_<
		
		
	 
I, too, kinda like that, but as I said if you want to keep it, you will have to change the level design, make more levels like the second one (and less like the third) and it will be great because players will be able to build up that kind of "flow" and momentum which feels really great, though currently you are deliberately breaking it by tricky single-platforms and constant direction changes.
There is a great Flash game which I would like to post as an example, but I forgot the name, I will try to dig that up, though.
	
		
	
	
		
		
			Greyout
This is my personal favorite, one of the most  memorable games I've played.  It's such a cool idea and well  realized.  I like the graphic style, so simple but it really works  well.  The menu effect makes this my favourite game menu of all time!  I  voted for Greyout because it's a great puzzler with with arcade  gameplay, and a surprise twist that bends your mind.  It's mostly about  the puzzles, but you need your controlz skillz too.  I'm hoping Foxblock  will whip up some more levels.  Maybe his fans can come up with some  good ones too, from what he said it's easy to create new levels.  I  played Greyout in the dark, backseat of a car, and it did something  strange to my mind and vision.  It's like you have to think in a  different dimension and it's very challenging for me to think that  way.  I imagine some truly confounding and even more mind-warping levels  could be created for Greyout.  How about tri-tone?  play with the  colors of three-stripe national flags, with the characters themed  appropraitely - maybe a french-style hat or something...  hehe I think  that would be awesome.  Foxblock, I never thought from your vids that  you were making such a great game, although the elite menu should have  tipped me off to it.  It really looked like pong with the monochrome  blocks!  I'd like to see how Greyout plays with a pong ball bouncing  around, either as an enemy or a object to be transported, that might be  some fun too - another 'extra' for a later level, to keep the interest  building.
		
		
	 
I love how you describe your feelings when playing the game, I actually kind of hoped for that kind of reaction (also the thought process like Esn described it before). I am also glad the game can already deliver that kind of feeling even without a story.
I like the three-tone idea, I will see what could be done with that. Currently that would not be that easy though as the colour of the character sprite is loaded from the image and not set at runtime, I think I could implement that though (to get the tri-tone effect you simply would have to create three coloured spritesheets, it is not impossible to do...).
I thought about adding independently moving and thinking objects to the game, also real enemies, but I decided against it because in my eyes it would not work that well with the overall feeling. Though I guess some other moving objects, only affected by physics could be a good idea, thanks  
Also I really like how you seem to consider your son with everything you are doing (your own game) and also playtesting (the other games), to me that is highly interesting, because I never looked at game design from this point of view.
While I don't think every game should be playable by a 3 year old there certainly are some things you can learn from simply letting a kid play your game. So thanks for that train of thought  
I also really like how you seem to have put a lot of thought into every aspect of the game (not saying other did not), from the physics engine (which might simply be regarded as "It has to work, no special meaning behind that") to the sprites and gameplay, that is really great to read and is the stuff I am interested in.
	
		
	
	
		
		
			greyout
My  favorite game. It's not because I am very good (I fail even at the  second level atm, don't get it, why I burst on the exit ^^), but the  idea is great. But this game needs a tutorial. I were confused, why I  sometimes can walk through the wall and sometimes not.
		
		
	 
Yes, I agree, that is a shortcoming also none I have a real explanation for, except for that it becomes obvious when looking at the plain level file not blended to the black background  

  (also it was obvious to me, so I never really thought about that).
At one place however I deliberately did not tell the player that he could wrap from one end to the other, which was on the second level, you are supposed to figure that out by yourself (for example you can see the horizontally moving  red block at the top giving you a slight clue). I revisited that level and thought about making it more obvious to the player, but decided against it - half the fun is what happens in your mind anyway, it is the same in Braid.
I am thinking about how to better indicate that in later levels though... (though for now I guess it is not too bad as simply trying and restarting is very quick, but that should not be an excuse for sloppy game design).
Also I hear many people complain about the difficulty level in the level "Greyout" and I agree it is hard.
First of all, I will not separate the two players so you can rescue one after the other and the game only resets the one you are controlling, that just would not work (not from a technical point of view, rather from a gameplay or story/feeling point of view).
I have not really playtested the game by any person apart from myself and I feel that is one of my personal biggest shortcomings and I will never do something like that again. Therefore I will try to get some data on the level and remove certain spikes which are too unfair or frustrating.
But finally, this level actually was intended to be the very last (or one of the last) levels, I just shifted it because of time constraints and because I did not get the number of levels done I intended and the game would not have worked that well if it still would be the last I guess (the levels are in a particular order and it is supposed to have a meaning), so... yeah... that is that.
	
		
	
	
		
		
			@foxblock, interesting how your  review mentions many of the same things that I was talking about! For  example, moving left/right in Raedr, the annoying "sliding on ice"  acceleration in Robo Hell, the too many unforgiving jumps &  backtracking in Wars Commando, and the difficulty of starting later  levels from scratch in Snowman.
		
		
	 
Yes, in fact I kind of borrowed some of those ideas as I read your reviews earlier and tried to pay more intention to that when playing the games again and I noticed some stuff over and over again.
Though I did not want to copy the exact wording, I just had the general comments in mind, so thanks for that I guess (and sorry for not mentioning that earlier, I guess I kind of was in a writing frenzy and at the end just wanted to get that behemoth of a post out there).
	
		
	
	
		
		
			In  other news, I really like all the reviews here! I haven't had much time  to comment on them as I have been diving to the wonderful world of  OpenGL. Expect a more hardware accelerated game from me next time  

 .  Anyways, many reviews have been spot on, I think foxblock's gathered  the most touted praises/critiques while adding some of his own. I'd love  to explain my game design reasoning behind some of the choices I've  made if someone's interested. For example, both the one-axis shooting  and double tap running have a rationale compared to other solutions. I  tested run button, walk button and running with acceleration, and  considered even smash-bros style sprinting, but this one with all its  flaws fit the gameplay best  

 .  Oh, and about taping the fire button down? Don't. You can fire faster  by tapping the button. Makes those tanks go down more easily too  
		 
		
	 
I can see the reason behind the design choice made with the one-axis shooting as I said before (though I stand by my point that it does not feel right in certain situations), but I would really like to hear about the rationale behind the double-tap or even better try a version with a dedicated run button.
In general I would love to chat with the devs a bit about this whole competition and their entries, hear about the design choices made and maybe give a bit insight into the design of Greyout if anybody is interested. I am on IRC (#openpandora on freenode) sometimes and always available via PM.
And btw, here some Greyout trivia namely the games which inspired me the most (apart from the two entries mentioned in the credits) and which also are referenced in the game and/or trailer (some only barely others more clearly):
Super Mario, Portal, Braid, Nidhogg and VVVVVV
Maybe you can spot the references  
foxblock out
PS: Because I just stumbled across this and am highly impressed by and interested in it (and it also started another few thoughts in my head) I would like to share it:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/SqFu5O-oPmU?feature=oembed is also very interesting and if you have 3 hours to spare you should watch both.