Everything is so HARD !!!

I totally agree with everything you say there, Blox.

Knytt/KS had one control-style, which was perfect for them as it was integral to the design of those games.

Saira has a very different control-style, which is perfect for Saira as it's integral to the world you explore in that.

They're different game-systems, and I think many of the "criticisms" of Saira are simply misplaced expectations. Saira is not a Knytt-style game in the same way KS was. 

The platforming is not hard to me, i love a challenge with platforming, and the controls are brilliant for me. It's the puzzles that I cant handle, so I stopped playing. Specifically, the Function puzzles. I feel the same way I felt when I played Braid. Like crushing something.

It's the speedrun parts that defeated me. (But I don't blame Nifflas for it. I'm just not good enough; you can't be good at *everything*...)

I thought most parts were pretty easy. An XH version would be fun...

I thought most parts were pretty easy. An XH version would be fun...

Seconded.

I don't thing that in Saira is everything so hard. In some parts, you need to use your logic, the planet in left down conner is not easy, but most of places in Saira are easy.

I just dislike how I can't turn around in mid air... it can be done in real life with just a shift of weight (backpack).

I just dislike how I can't turn around in mid air... it can be done in real life with just a shift of weight (backpack).

True, but you can't change the direction of your jump in midair, so implementing it would just be pointless anyways.

It wouldn't be pointless because then you could grab onto a wall behind you. If you're facing the wrong way you can't grab onto the wall!

Sorry, I've tested it when I developed the game and it looks incredibly stupid and wrong with the character, no matter if I base the direction on the X speed or the last pressed arrow key. This is how the movements does and should work and nobody can convince me otherwise. You just have to jump in such a way that you don't end up facing the wrong direction, it's as simple as that.

It wouldn't be pointless because then you could grab onto a wall behind you. If you're facing the wrong way you can't grab onto the wall!

But if you are facing the wrong way you can't jump towards the wall at all.

You do have limited air control, so it is possible. Particularily stuff that jumping off a cliff and grabbing on to it would be possible if you could turn in mid air, which could probably be useful (although I specifically designed the game to never require the player to do it). As I mentioned earlier though, it looked too stupid in Saira for me to add it.

No point in getting  the full game when I can't beat the demo.

Sorry for waking a slightly old thread but this seems to be a very relevant comment!!

I've been playing the demo and whilst I love the style and concept - the execution created a game which punishes me rather than rewards me and which discourages exploration - and buying the full game!

When I finally manage a difficult set of jumps or timed section I feel it was 'more by luck than skill' - wheras I should be feeling that I'd learned something and could replicate that easily (the feeling of progress).

There's a fine line between making something challenging and making it frustrating and that line varies depending on who's playing it which is why almost every game on earth has difficulty settings.

By not having those - and by making challenges frustratingly hard - you drive away custom.  When the challenge is largely based on a timer - a difficulty setting would be effortless too!!

I've lost count of the comments I've seen which were something along the lines of

"Lovely game - then I got to the gas planet and just closed and uninstalled it because it was taking the piss".  

and it's a shame because there's so much to love.here,

A genuinely bad game gets no comments at all, when people complain a game is too hard it's because they WANT to play it but it's not letting them - you should listen to that...

There's a fine line between making something challenging and making it frustrating and that line varies depending on who's playing it which is why almost every game on earth has difficulty settings.

...

By not having those - and by making challenges frustratingly hard - you drive away custom.  When the challenge is largely based on a timer - a difficulty setting would be effortless too!!

I agree when it comes to that fine line, and that the fine line, in some respects, is a personal evaluation.
But i don't think this game is punishing. Some parts require the gamer to retry a few times (which is a good feat - nothing feels rewarding if there's no struggle, which i think is the major problem with many modern games), but every part is fairly beatable. The easiest way to get through a special part seems to be more reliant of rethinking, putting up a new strategy on how to move ahead, rather than refining jumping/running/climbing skills.

Personally, i love this game for daring to be a bit more challengin than many seem to expect and at the same time doesn't give you the hopeless feeling (Like Die Hard or Contra for NES).

Difficulty levels have downsides, too. When i played KS for the first time, i chose easy because i thought i would never make it otherways. It wasn't until later i realized it was much more fun to play through on the harder difficulty setting which actually suited me better (it simply feels mor rewarding to discover a new scenario/scene/level/environment/bit of story or whatever after overcoming an obstacle which actually stopped you on the first try ). That's a mistake i've done ever since i was a kid playing doom and such early 3d shooters.

Still, it's incredibly hard to design something for everyone. Some people thought it was too hard, while others said the difficulty made the game extremely rewarding and that they really enjoyed it. Besides, when it comes to difficulty Saira can't come anywhere close to e.g. Mega Man 9 which I specifically enjoyed for it's insane difficulty. They didn't offer an easy mode yet the game seems to do well.

If I had more time, the game would have an easier mode to appeal to more people. I wish I had time to add it, but I don't regret how I designed the game considering my limited time. One person's frustration is another person's "finally a game that's not way too easy", and I've heard both the former and latter. I chose to appeal to the second group this time, because that's the type of player I am, and a lot of players I know are too. I can't stand many "big" games today where the entire first portion of the game is a long boring tutorial that holds the player's hand and repeats everything many times to make sure I don't get stuck, and then it takes a few hours before I die the first time. Even I'm forced to make my tutorials longer than I wish and remind them about features in the middle of the games, because people aren't good at figuring things out today. Mirror's Edge is an example of a game people expected to have this awesome flow like it ran on some auto pilot, then a lot of people gave it negative reviews because the obstacles were in the way and they would stop the momentum all the time. I think it was just perfect, it's just those reviewers who aren't good enough playing it. Machinarium is an example of a game where many puzzles was said to be too hard. I can't understand that, I beat the game without a walkthrough thinking that it was great! It's also extremely common that games today have great puzzles but have this sidekick character that almost gives away the entire solution, like in Okami. In Saira, the device solver is at least optional

Then, one downside of me trying different things in different games is that it does usually not not appeal to people who didn't like my previous game. Many WaDF players didn't like Knytt, because Knytt had no challenge or clever puzzles. However, Knytt found its own new group of players. Knytt players usually liked Knytt Stories because they weren't that different. Knytt Stories players didn't like Saira because it was so hard (but really, is it harder than Within a Deep Forest? That game is said by many to be incredibly frustrating, but it's still really popular) and usually gave it negative reveiws, but there were new players who liked Saira and the positive opinions and reviews started to show up. Same with FiNCK, it put a lot of people off due to it not being very atmospheric, but it's being downloaded a lot (the soundtrack is selling too although I admit I should have done the custom world support differently). I've just accepted that this is what happens when I release a new game, and that it'd be very boring to create games if this was not allowed to happen.