Starmaker: Please don't take it personally, but there's no activity in this forum (because the game was released during the winter sale when you could buy like six recent releases for the price of one new release - also, hardly any bugs), and I absolutely adore Teslagrad, so I feel I have to post my impressions. I was recently burned on two way less pretty and imaginative games, so I can imagine how frustrating it must be to have to give up on a game this promising.

Anyway:

I'm the stereotypical "sucks at platformers" gamer, and I found Teslagrad easy. I played it with a keyboard at work, then with an xbox controller at home; even better, Teslagrad finally taught me to use a controller, after a year of trying other games, sucking and poitless wallbanging. The controller was configured thusly:
left analog: movement
A, B: red & blue attack
X, Y: blue & red cloak
left trigger: jump
right trigger: dash
back: menu
start: map
(Sometimes, during a scene which demanded extended cloak use, I would switch the cloak buttons, then switch back.)

I have encountered exactly one problem: sometimes, when I was climbing a wall in the last tehater room while carrying a charge from an external source, I would fall off when the charge expired. That was the only place it was happening in. And then it stopped happening.

Rooms are clean and spacious, with every interactable object clearly visible. Characters are cute without being annoying, and the hero's facial expressions are a joy to look at.

The puzzles are fairly easy, and no crazy acrobatics whatsoever are required to win. I feel the game rewards observation, cool-headedness, and a sense of timing: it doesn't often demand that I, say, dash or switch magnetism on at an exact moment during a fall (and on the rare occasions when it does, I get it right after a couple of tries), but it does require that I face the correct direction and use the correct polarity.

[Pseudo]physics engines tends to be a weak point in physics-based platformers. Not so here: the results are perfectly reproducible and provided the basis for developing tricks and maneuvers that came in handy throughout the game. Case in point: one of the top rooms with the switch, lots of magnets and a cylinder. It works perfectly, like Swiss clockwork, as if it was scripted - but no, that's just the physics engine being wonderfully stable.

I suck at platformers, so I had to develop and learn the routines for the most difficult challenges. And it was fun. The hero dies in one hit, but reloads are automatic and don't take any time whatsoever, the music doesn't stutter, and [invisible] checkpoints are present between rooms and between separate challenges in bigger rooms so as to facilitate learning. The hitbox is generously small, smaller than the hero's sprite, and the miraculous escapes it allows for add to the fun. Yes, I died a lot - but I had fun while at it. That long maglev shaft? I think it took me about fifty tries to get good at it and then about half that amount to collect the scroll, and I had fun all the way as I got better and died to higher and progressively more difficult obstacles. When I got good enough, I just breezed through the shaft at top speed, rhythmically pressing buttons. And it was glorious.

In fact, the only room I did actually found annoying was the tree, where dying is impossible. I only performed the trick jump to get the lowest scroll once and then fell off that hard-to-reach branch while trying to cross over to the scroll. Fortunately, there's a way to get there without the trick jump (as seen in this vid, but I discovered it independently): just fall from the top branch and angle toward the trunk to the left; you'll land where the trick jump would've otherwise got you and have to hop to the scroll normally. But these final jumps were dfficult for me anyway, and because I couldn't save near the top and die when I fell off, I had to climb through the adjoining rooms (with changing music, which added to the annoyance) all the way back to the top.

One other room I didn't like much was the one with moving fields and two buttons. I died there a bunch of times without any perceivable progress, then accidentally succeeded and died from excitement at the next obstacle in the same room. Fortunately, there is an invisible checkpoint right after the jump, so I didn't have to do it again.

And then there was the ladder of magnets in one of the final rooms. I did it with good old brute force, trying over and over to guess the exact button-mashing frequency that'll get me to the top, no actual planning, no thinking, no feedback. After I (correctly) gave up on trying to act on feedback mid-try, it didn't take me longer than two minutes.

I think the non-scrollable map is the biggest offender, especially considering that there are mapped unexplored passages and unmapped unexplored passages leading to secret rooms - and once the player is aware of the existence of the latter and of the cutoff point for collecting all the scrolls, much backtracking is in order and a scrollable map would've come in real handy. Still, I'm only pissed so much because it's just so obvious and now I can't declare Teslagrad to be perfect.

Purple star of excellence, and GOTY 2013-2014.

takezodunmer2005: You're not lying about the frustrating difficulty spikes; the first boss is nearly impossible as you cannot dodge his fuckin' one-hit-kill fire-blast! Luckily I got this game cheap as I probably won't play it again due to the first boss having an idiotic design, hardcore gamers should stick to modding and not developing games until they understand proper gameplay testing.

joppo: You must not have realized that the first boss's fire attack doesn't cover the extremes of the conveyor belt. The left side, close to the electricity field is the perfect place to stay during pretty much the whole fight. Once you factor that into your strategy you'll have no trouble defeating the boss.

I'm only past the second boss but it isn't hard either. Took me probably six to eight tries. So far this game has a bit tougher platforming than usual, but Cuphead it is not.

takezodunmer2005: Yeah, it IS doable, just frustratingly difficult, I was a bit irritated when I posted last...

joppo: Well I hope you find yourself in the mood to give this game another chance someday and beat it. The physics puzzles are decent enough.

Regarding this particular boss I kept to the left side, eventually punching some falling magnets into a blue state. Nothing would hit me close to the electric barrier and most magnets fell to my right so I just needed to jump over a few of the magnets. In fact my greatest threat was rushing into the barrier by myself.

Maybe you played an earlier version and the boss was nerfed since then? That would explain you finding it so hard when I thought it was pretty easy. (I know I'm not uber-skilled and I have no reason to believe you to be a noob. I know you play other games perfectly fine.)

takezodunmer2005: It's very kind and generous for you to say so, I'll give it another go as I also have world of the west, so I'll have to dig more in the lore!

joppo: Good luck then. There's definitely a decent game there, although with admittedly some peaks of difficulty.

With that said, I gotta warn you that the last two bosses (the "eye" and the king) will be more annoying. The eye because after you hurt it enough it'll move to a completely different pattern and the king because he will add a few obstacles to the attack pattern you have to avoid during times he's invulnerable. Since in this this game you're a One Hit-Point Wonder you're sure to die a few times and restart the boss battle from scratch. I must have needed some 30 or 40 tries against each one.

Oh and I really recommend a controller against them. You'll need to be more precise than in the rest of the game. Still doable, but annoying of course.

takezodunmer2005: Thanks again for the tips, pretty invaluable!

joppo: You're welcome.
If you play the game again and start having trouble with the "eye" boss I discovered a glitch that can help you defeat it faster, but I won't post here because spoilers. PM me if you'd like to know it.