itch.io

Hi,

Downloaded the latest version to give it a go. Nice cloud graphics.

I think the latest version is bugged (v0.38.03). Everytime I build fields, soon after the field tile is removed. A little tricky when the God of Little Worlds keeps confiscating my food producing real estate.

[edit] Nope, happens because I forgot about the windmills.  All good. Perhaps a notification of this deleteing in a future version could be useful as it's not obvious what's going on if you've omitted to read the info on fields, or, like me, have read it previously and just plain forgot.

Feedback on new version...

Some good improvements here.

Pirates were much more of a concern with multiple pirates turning up at once.

Resource depletion seemed to happen faster. The notification of these was excellent, especially the skull and cross bones symbol.

The help for the rain, eg. what it does, was good and I noticed an effect on the crops. Rain is now a game consideration whereas before I ignored it.

Approval rating tended to fluctate between 50 and 100% which is a big improvement on the previous version (sat pretty much at 100 most of the time). Nothing to worry about but nice to see it in a wider band. At least I was watching it, before I didn't.

On the downside all of the above slowed me a down a bit, but not a lot. Once I'd built a ring of towers and got the storehouse up and running there wasn't a whole lot to do except watch the resource numbers fluctuate and tweak accordingly along with a gradual expansion.

At no point did I build an archery barracks or wall and I'm pretty sure I didn't ever lose a tower. I saw both options as redundant.

I felt that the challenge hadn't increased, instead the game had become more drawn out which is probably not a plus. The current challenge is busy work at the start, rather than difficulty, until you've got the towers and storehouse and after that it's simply process (or 'grind'). I'd visualise it as a difficulty curve that went up a bit at the start and then went into a steady decline, till the tipping point (towers/ storehouse) whereafter it flatlined.

If you took away the time pressure there probably wouldn't be any difficulty there at all.

I wouldn't get perturbed by my comments above as they relate, more or less, to your core game design which is still evolving. Give yourselves a pat on the back for heading in the right direction.

Your basic game loop is pretty good but I'd be  thinking about  a way to give the player a few more balls to juggle and to keep the difficulty slowly ramping up rather than down.

Keep on keeping on.

Cheers,

Plugger

Hi,

Implementing any new feature and not making it tedious is an admirable, but tricky, goal.

Random events would spice things up a lot but if they were any more than minor impact ones it'd be shifting the game towards the RNG gods as, being random, it's hard for the player to develop a strategy to counter them. Maybe if you flagged the big ones ahead of time, eg. 'news of an apple blight on neighbouring islands', it'd give them a chance to prepare?

Another idea would be to play around with your 'new land' mechanic. At present new land tiles turn up for free at a regular interval. You could instead have a temple building, that once built, can be clicked on to trigger another set of 5 tiles, for example. This would be the only way that new land tiles arrive but everytime you pray to the Gods of the Little Lands the intensity of the pirate attack amps up a notch (frequency remains the same but pirate ships get more hit points).

This wouldn't affect your economic balance in any way but would give the player a trade-off decision of extra land vs. a gradually increasing pirate threat. It'd also tend to place a higher value on land and have players thinking more about what building to put where. If lands is scarce those become more interesting decisions and keeps the tension going as you are forced to expand while dealing with a Pirate threat that scales with your expansion.

But, hey, ideas are easy when it's not your game and it's somebody else who's going to have to implement it and make it work.

Best of luck.

Cheers,

Plugger.

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

I think that you're being too generous with the fast worker refund for the towers. Who is manning those cannons? I'd also be inclined to increase the workers required for towers and make them more of a strategic choice rather than 'quick, plonk down another tower', automatic decision.

A blood moon sounds interesting but if that was in the game I'd only be spamming out more towers to counter the possibility. It might work better if you created a second threat, one separate to the pirates. Give the player a reason to scratch his head and wonder if it's worth building another tower or, instead, putting the resources into countering the other threat. Maybe something internal to do with your approval rating?

At present the only impediment to your winning the game is a single threat (pirates) which can be easily dealt with (ring of towers). A second threat might open up a larger strategy space for the player and lead to more interesting decisions.

Cheers,

Plugger

Hi,

This is a fun game. Well done.

Here's some feedback that might prove useful.

1. A simple page of help would go along way as I also tripped up on the need to click on fields to harvest food. I also completely overlooked the dock system for adding resources.

2. A button (ESC perhaps) to free up your mouse pointer from the build menu. If I've selected to build a house and I then click on a bunch of fields and orchards to harvest food then I find myself occassionally inadvertently building more houses when I misclick on the wrong square. Being able to hit ESC, or something else, and quickly deselect to a straight mouse pointer would avoid this.

3. Couldn't figure out any game effect for happiness or rain. I ignored both as a result.

4. Towers appeared to be bugged. Build one and two workers are deducted but very soon after they return.

5. The strategy of systematically ringing your island with Towers as early on as possible kind of made the pirates a bit pointless and devolved the game into a straight build up the resource engine until you've got enough to win. Without a full set of towers the game was really good fun and forced some tough decisions on you. Not sure what the answer is here but an 'easy-to-implement' game tweak that kept the Player in the tense, decision heavy, pirate environment would go a long way.

6. The game options to vary the speeds are much appreciated.

I think you've got the elements of a winning game here. Find a way to generate some variety and maintain the tension and it could be something that can be developed into a commerical product.

Cheers,

Plugger