Praise and a few suggestions

First of all, i want to thank all involved in making Saira. I've just plowed through the demo (and handed cash over to my girlfriend to get a license for me since i somehow have misplaced bank security thingy), and it left me with the feeling that i've probably never have played such a good platformer for PCs since Abuse. The graphics are wonderful and dreamy, the challenges varying and interesting, the music fits very well, the levels are well concieved and balanced and the controls run smooth, and from a MetroidVania perspective, this game really does a lot that many games from the proffesional dev houses don't. I think that in many ways, this is the perfect refinement of Knytt Stories (which also deserves lots and lots of praise). This is a very personal thing but i think the difficulty level is very balanced aswell - it feels like a good match and with a bit of practice it is beatable.

That said, here's a few ideas for any future build. Some might be too hard or time-wasting, some not even desireable, but i hope i by writing this can contribute with something useful.

1. On Haakon, i noticed one is able to hang on to a cliff with most of Saira's body dipping into the lava (the zone i discovered this is where the spare part can be found), without getting her killed. While it has saved me a few times from my clumsyness, it seems a bit odd.

2. On the same level, the game is far more demanding in some screens than in any other place in the game. I've tested this on two different laptops in full-screen and windowed mode. Full screen seems to help a bit. I feel this is a hot spot that might need a bit of either optimization, or maybe perhaps optional sprite reduction (perhaps avaible from some graphics options menu/config file).

3. In an eventual graphics options menu/config file, it could be useful to turn down the colour light effects a bit. The reason for this is that I feel it a bit frustration during the checkpoint race that the light sometimes make it hard to See exactly where Saira is in the middle of the action. On the other hand, that could be solved equally well if not even better with the idea written right below:

4. In real life and through a camera, objects between a bright light and the observer becomes more dark. An idea is to let Saira blend with a dark silhouette when she's running in front of the sun or bright lights. I think it could add both to the atmosphere and sense of (already great) quality aswell as make the game a bit more user friendly as mentioned in the paragraph above.

5. Controlwise, the game is very smooth and feels natural. Compare with SMB 3 with the almost unending momentum when mario plants his feet onto the ground after a long jump. However, I've noticed that it is very easy for Saira, when wall-jumping to and fro, to accidentaly turn her body in the wrong direction and therefore be unable to continue the wall-jumping. It might simply be part of the game control ideal to have it a bit unforgiving (as opposed to the very smooth wall jumping in for example Batman for NES or Metroid Prime Pinbal for NDS), for the challenge. I find it to be more of a subject of frustration rather than an interesting challenge.

6. Installation file-wise, I've noticed the following quirk: In windows 7 Professional (64bit), the setup starts without any trace of a GUI (but it does start, proof can be found in the activity manager, under the process tab). This is easily solved by running the setup through compability mode (i chose windows xp service pack 3 and it worked just fine). It might be worth to mention on the site or in any setup help document. The game in itself runs just fine on win 7 pro 64bit.

I think there was a few more things i was supposed to mention, but I've forgot them by now. Oh well. I hope this is of any use.

And again, thank you very much for this really fantastic game!

A lot of the stuff you're suggesting with light may not be possible because there is no light function of Saira, just objects and backgrounds that are drawn with light, so you can't edit or detect them in any way. (Of course you probably could do it, but it would be tedious and Nifflas generally doesn't make changes once a game's released.)

A lot of the stuff you're suggesting with light may not be possible because there is no light function of Saira, just objects and backgrounds that are drawn with light, so you can't edit or detect them in any way. (Of course you probably could do it, but it would be tedious and Nifflas generally doesn't make changes once a game's released.)

I see. I guess the first step to separate 'light' objects from other objects would be to give them a 1/0 flag, but what is necessary to do after that is way beyond my knowing. An alpha blending silhouette (i don't know if that's the correct english spelling) in a dark color should be easily applicable (given that there's time enough on the developer's hand to go through such things), where one simply measures the distance between a 'light' flagged object and saira. But there might be more to it, especially if one is to avoid more CPU work. But honestly, i don't know much about these things.

That would also mean completely remaking the original 'Teleportation' level, as well as any levels currently under construction. Besides, I mentioned earlier that Nifflas generally doesn't go back to change his games.

That would also mean completely remaking the original 'Teleportation' level, as well as any levels currently under construction. Besides, I mentioned earlier that Nifflas generally doesn't go back to change his games.

Yes, i saw that. Generally a good choice since one doesn't want to mess too much with what people have grown familiar with.

EDIT: I just realized while reviewing these posts that "Yes, i saw that." sounds very ..grumpy/negative. It wasn't meant that way anyway, my apologies.