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Thank you for the review, Kingpark. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I realize the concept turned out to be a bit too complex to simply “pick up and play” without some extra explanation. I’m sorry it left you feeling overwhelmed at first. If you have ideas on how the mechanics could be presented more clearly in game, I’d love to hear them, since that’s definitely something I want to improve.

The story is: 

You're Timmy. You have your exam questions to answer which are written on the blackboard, but you forgot to bring empty paper to write them on. You find one on the floor. Sadly, Paul also saw that paper. Even though, you grabbed it, he's attempting to write on it (the balls = his pencil's points). Now, does Paul have many pencils? Absolutely. Can he hold em in each separate finger? Also absolutely. Paul's quite possibly the most talented right and left hand writer you can imagine! You solve the issue by trying to cut off as much of the paper as possible, without getting hit by Paul's pencil pointers while cutting. 

At level 1 the narrator says: "Grab your scissors and try to cut off as much of the paper as possible. Careful! Don't touch his pencil points, yeah.". This is the one single tutorial sentence. Hehe. 😅

• The1-ups are your lives. You can grab some extras during the game if you're lucky.
• Adderall helps you focus and cut faster (ADHD medication) - keyboard button A
•  Xanax slows down Paul's pointers (calming medication) - keyboard button X 

I have both ADHD and an anxiety disorder myself, so I know all about how frustrating exam periods can be. How you wouldn't dare to ask the teacher for some item you've forgotten to bring (mainly my calculator or ruler), how incredibly easy it is to lose focus on the questions, and how chaotic the others in the classroom can be, disrupting your work. I've also played Qix (1981), which inspired a lot of 'background-falls-away' games, including this one. 

You can play in 3 ways: 

• Go boost-free
• Get the highest score
• Speed run for best time

Of course with the main objective being: beat the game! This adds difficulty of your own choosing. 

Everything follows the rules:

• You quite literally limit Paul's space
• The UI - pentagon shaped overlay, lives and boosts shown as circles
• Menu - buttons in pentagon shape
• Game  - 2 backgrounds, both with pentagon shapes on them, Paul's pointers as circles, boosts as circles

Everything is entirely made with just pentagons, circles or text and the scissors slice the paper following the sides of the pentagon. The allowed exceptions were the mouse (scissors) + one floor (paper). Nothing messes with the rules. So, ratings are cast on personal preferences: you not liking the art / sound / chosen keyboard buttons (which does support all keyboards types).

I'm asking to ignore the existence of a cinematic. As in order to play the game you don't really need to know the backstory, it just makes it more wholesome that a game has a story. So, it's added as a bonus. I don't really want to lose points over something that wasn't necessary to play the game. I noticed most didn't add one. Some added it at the description on the bottom of their itch page, or just added it as text on a black background. Mine was mainly written to go with an animation. 

I'm Belgian and Iraddev is Italian, so we couldn't quite redo the narrator voice to fit a black background; as we both have strong, absolutely non-British accents and my microphone quality wasn't quite up to that challenge. 😅

The idea and sound files sat unused for most of the jam, since the original coder disappeared. Iraddev saved the project by agreeing to it with only 2 days of the jam time remaining. I did not manage to make an 'according to rules' cinematic within that time span, neither would I be able to  get the narrator, who I had already cancelled, to tape and send me more sound files.

Thanks again for your kind words on the visuals and your honest feedback, it really helps us polish things further!