Fizzles – Original Puzzle Rescue Game With Playable 5-Level Demo

[HPWsoft]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to share Fizzles, an original puzzle rescue game I'm developing under the HPWsoft label.

Fizzles is inspired by the spirit of classic guide-and-rescue puzzle games, but it does not use any Lemmings, Pingus or other existing game assets, characters, levels or code. The goal is to build something clearly independent, with its own tiny round creatures, visual style, abilities, world and mobile-first interface.

The current demo includes five playable handcrafted levels. Each level introduces one Fizzle ability:

* Level 1 – Digger
* Level 2 – Floater
* Level 3 – Blocker
* Level 4 – Climber
* Level 5 – Planter

The demo also includes player profiles, difficulty settings, progression, highscore systems, music, sound effects, HUD, and a browser-playable version on itch.io.

Playable demo:
https://hpwsoft.itch.io/fizzles

The Kickstarter campaign for the next development phase is also live:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hpwsoft/fizzles-from-5-playable-levels-to-the-first-release?ref=bxjuid

The campaign is intentionally small and transparent. It is meant to support the next concrete development steps: additional handcrafted levels, new abilities, onboarding, mobile UI polish, audio and presentation improvements, testing, and preparation for a first public mobile release.

I'm intentionally not promising a huge game all at once. The current focus is to continue from the existing playable foundation and build Fizzles carefully, step by step.

I'd be especially interested in feedback from people who enjoy this kind of puzzle rescue gameplay:

* Are the goals and abilities easy to understand?
* Does the creature-first selection approach feel clear?
* Is the HUD readable?
* Does the demo already suggest enough puzzle potential for later levels?
* What would you expect from future abilities or level mechanics?

Thanks for taking a look.

[Guigui]

I think it'd be better to continue the discussion on the 5 levels demo in the correct thread.

For Fizzles, I still want to keep the core direction mobile-first and more real-time than NeoLemmix. I do not currently plan to make paused skill assignment part of the main gameplay, because that would change the feel of the levels quite a lot.

But your concern about the moving skill popup is very valid. If later levels offer four or five possible skills at once, clicking the correct icon above a moving Fizzle could become too fiddly, especially on touch devices. That is something I need to handle carefully.

Possible solutions could be larger skill buttons, a more stable popup position, better spacing, limiting the number of visible choices depending on context, or another mobile-friendly selection layout. The goal should not be to make players fight the interface. If a level is difficult, it should be difficult because of the puzzle decision, not because the correct icon is hard to tap.

So I will keep the pause design as a separate question, but I fully agree that the skill selection UI must stay readable and reliable once more abilities are available.

Another solution to make assigning skills easier may be to allow to assign skills from the non-moving bottom skill bar in addition to the popup above fizzle ?
Select a (moving) fizzle, have the (non moving) bottom bar highlight which skills are currently available to that fizzle, click on the bottom bar to assign skill to the selected lemmings.
This could be a flow different from Lemmings and not too prone to wrong assignements.

[HPWsoft]

I think it'd be better to continue the discussion on the 5 levels demo in the correct thread.

For Fizzles, I still want to keep the core direction mobile-first and more real-time than NeoLemmix. I do not currently plan to make paused skill assignment part of the main gameplay, because that would change the feel of the levels quite a lot.

But your concern about the moving skill popup is very valid. If later levels offer four or five possible skills at once, clicking the correct icon above a moving Fizzle could become too fiddly, especially on touch devices. That is something I need to handle carefully.

Possible solutions could be larger skill buttons, a more stable popup position, better spacing, limiting the number of visible choices depending on context, or another mobile-friendly selection layout. The goal should not be to make players fight the interface. If a level is difficult, it should be difficult because of the puzzle decision, not because the correct icon is hard to tap.

So I will keep the pause design as a separate question, but I fully agree that the skill selection UI must stay readable and reliable once more abilities are available.

Another solution to make assigning skills easier may be to allow to assign skills from the non-moving bottom skill bar in addition to the popup above fizzle ?
Select a (moving) fizzle, have the (non moving) bottom bar highlight which skills are currently available to that fizzle, click on the bottom bar to assign skill to the selected lemmings.
This could be a flow different from Lemmings and not too prone to wrong assignements.

That is a good suggestion, and I can see why it might help in some situations.

However, I also see a possible downside with a fixed skill bar. The player would select a Fizzle in the play area, but then the actual ability menu would appear somewhere else on the screen. That could become confusing, especially on mobile: the player has to keep watching the selected Fizzle, find the correct UI area, move the finger or mouse there, choose the correct ability, and then return attention to the moving level.

In faster levels, that could create its own coordination problem. The player would have to track the Fizzle and interact with a separate UI area at the same time.

The current popup has a reason: it keeps the available actions visually connected to the selected Fizzle. You select a Fizzle, and the possible actions appear directly at that Fizzle. Hitting the correct ability button is part of the gameplay, as long as the buttons remain large enough, readable enough, and fair to use.

I also test every newly designed level myself. If I cannot solve it reliably, or if it feels more like fighting the interface than solving the level, then I adjust the balancing, speed, ability counts, layout, or UI until it works.

So I see the fixed skill bar idea as one possible option among several. I will think about whether it makes sense, maybe as an alternative input method or for specific situations, but at the moment I still think the current popup approach fits the intended Fizzles gameplay better.

The important goal for me is: the controls must stay fair and readable, but Fizzles should still keep its own creature-first, mobile-first interaction style.