Do you remember doing something specific to get this infinite crate going on? Next patch should fix it, but I'm still unsure how it was triggered, I can't reproduce it.
About the UI on the left, I'm not sure what to do when the list goes off screen. I could try to wrap it up into a second column, but then I feel it will eventually take several columns and a lot of space in the end game of the full version so that doesn't sound great either. Do you have any suggestions?
Sometimes I saw the red bubbles above the transport ships from another region. After I wanted to screenshot it it stopped happening and I couldn't replicate it.
Here's some feedback. Overall, once I got into it, I really enjoyed the game :)
Positive
I want to point out that the "positive" list will likely not be very long. This doesn't mean nothing was good, but rather the opposite. These are mainly points that really stood out to me. So far I am very impressed with the quality of the game.
Immediately impressed with UI/Menu, found myself moving the mouse over the buttons because it was satisfying.
I love the in-world explanation for island layouts.
I did not mind the fog, whilst playing, even though I was concerned about it in my first reddit comment.
Once through the tutorial, and grasping the game, I enjoyed the casual nature of the game. Unfortunately I can't go too indepth, as I had only about an hour to play.
Constructive Critisism
If at any point something comes across as mean or similar, please know I did not intend it that way. This part of the comment will probably be the longest, as it is easiest to notice things that do not work well (for me).
Points 1-4 are about the tutorial, so here's a TLDR: The tutorial box text I found to be not very readable due to horizontal spacing and/or font. Additionally, I think it can be implemented better with smaller bite-sized chunks, with perhaps some things locked at the start, that the user unlocks later to ease them into the game. Right now it gives ALL the information right at the start, which is overwhelming.
Tutorial boxes: text needs more vertical spacing, finding it hard to read like this, letters like 'g' overlap onto lower line when encountering tall letters.
Opening the map right after starting because the game tells you to, immediately launches you into a tutorial series about upgrading and travel permits. I think upgrading and permits should be locked at the start, opening up later in the tutorial/game, preventing the bombarding with information right at the start.
Similarly, when approaching the first island, another large tutorial series popped up. I had to stop myself from skipping through it. Also, reading it was "in one ear, out the other", as I have no idea what I'm doing yet, but im still getting a lot of information.
The tutorial seems to give a lot of information, but I found myself a bit lost on getting started with the game, as I was not sure what to build first. Perhaps it's because I went into the game basically blind from the reddit post (video showcase 4), but it took a bit to get into it. This may be due to me being an idiot and/or info bombing from the tutorial as mentioned before.
Personally, I'd prefer the camera stay at a set distance, or maybe it needs more smooth easing? I found myself liking the zooming out of the view when sailing, but perhaps it should wait longer before zooming back in, as changing direction zooms in real fast, causing a sort of jitter because it zooms out again. (This is something that I noticed less and less while playing, so maybe not that big if a thing)
I found myself with 'holes' in my discovered map area, because some islands were too big for me to discover the centre. Could be solved by a tiny bump in the map discover circle. Would be nice for the completionists among us :)
Bugs
Resume button when at an island does not work/is disabled. Escape/E still allowed leaving an island though.
The mouse is very small at large resolutions (3840x2160)
Feature suggestions
(An option for) muting sound when game loses focus would be nice :)
Perhaps a waypoint/marker system, where (right)clicking on the a city of the map places an arrow at the edge of the screen.
Maybe a wind system could be cool? Would perhaps add something cool with making decisions based on wind direciton, allowing a certain route to be faster than another. Would probably need to be toggleable though, as I imagine not everyone would like it.
Thanks a lot for your detailed feedback, this is very helpful!
I uploaded a patch to address some of your remarks, they are fixed right now. The text boxes in the tutorial now have more vertical space and should be easier to read. Also, I fixed the resume button not working, and the mouse cursor should now scale at large resolutions.
For 5 and 6, I decided to increase the reveal range on the minimap, and to make the camera a bit smoother, adding also a tiny delay before it starts zooming back. These changes will be live in the next patch.
Regarding 2, 3 and 4, this is all very interesting. I agree there is too much info given too quickly, and I really like your suggestion of breaking things down by locking some features. This goes on par with feeling a bit directionless in the beginning, not knowing exactly what to work toward. Taking inspiration from your suggestion, I'm thinking about implementing a quest system that could serve the game progression, giving hints to what to do and unlocking new features as a reward of completing them. First goal could be to reach a certain amount of population, and it could allow to settle new cities. And then reaching another goal gives access to ship upgrades. And then another to buy travel permits. And another to upgrade buildings, etc. And then the tutorial is split into many fragments that trigger only wen relevant, splitting the information across a significantly longer period of time. This is quite some work so it will take a bit of time but I think this would be very beneficial to the game. This is my next priority!
As for the waypoint system, this is possible but I would be interested in knowing more about the underlying motivation. What do you think it would be helpful for? Is it more of a nice option or does it feel very much needed from a quality of life standpoint?
A waypoint would be a small, I guess quality of life, feature. When I first got to learn my world, and wanted to travel to an island I saw had resources I needed, I tried clicking on it instinctively, to see if it would mark it, as that would prevent me from having to check the map if im on course. It's not huge, and with the world size only takes travelling there once or twice to get it, but if you're planning on making a quest system, might be worth looking into it for the quests. But if you're making it for quests, might as well expose it to the player as well :)
I agree it could be a nice addition. I already have a waypoint system partly working because this project was more of a trading / taxi game in an early prototype, so being able to pin cities on the map and move easily towards them was a core aspect. So I guess I can bring this feature back, I'll see what I can do once I'm done with the quest system!
Hello! The waypoint system is now there! When you hover a settled place on the map, you can press a button (R by default, same as pinning items) to open a pin menu:
You can pin the marker on the map to emphasize it with a target circle
You can activate an arrow that shows in real time the direction while you move the ship
(maybe those two should be a single option, but I wasn't sure so I kept them separated for now)
You can change the color of the marker pin and arrow
You can change the icon of the marker, either the default one that changes with the population count of the city, or any resource icon. I felt using a resource icon would be quite relevant as maybe you want to indicate what is the main production of a particular place
The arrows then look like that:
Let me know what you think about this waypoint system, I hope you will find it useful!
Hello! I really enjoyed the game. But i think having boxes were there are no buildings in a city is a bit ugly.
Also i think some production buildings that use material to make another one should only be making things once a time cycle. This would make it so the player would prioritise only making the raw good in a island and then they would have to ship it to another island that has a ton of production buildings to refine that raw good. But i think not all production buildings should have that time cycle thing to keep the game varied.
Also I think the press should also need wooden barrels because it would tie in nicely with the progression because just after getting planks you get the obelisk which makes it easy to get barrels. Also grape juicy should be like a wine barrel thing.
Also while I was trying to taking one of the pics i found a bug where looms would boost eachother. I think it is a bug because it doesn't say that it should do it in its description, but having a building that would get a boost when next to the same building would be cool
But even in it's current state i really enjoyed it, and you don't have to do anything i said here since this is your game, and you should prioritise your own vision for it.
Thanks for your feedback, this is very much appreciated!
Do you think it would look better without any box or with a different model like fences in square for instance? I'm afraid it could look very empty with nothing at all and make it more difficult to see instantly if there are empty tiles remaining without opening the city menu. Also, looking ahead, I'm considering adding a few 2x2 and 3x3 spots for the future prestige buildings and end-game wonders, and so I think having the tiles totally empty would not help to see the exact shape of the spots.
Having some production building craft only at the cycle ticks is an interesting idea, I like it! It would indeed add some variety in the way building works, I'm keeping this is mind for when I create more content!
I can add the wooden barrel in the press, this is a nice suggestion. I will tweak the grape juice icon to make it more consistent too.
There was indeed a weird interaction bug with the loom, thanks for noticing and reporting it. It is now fixed. And I'm taking note about a building boosting itself when adjacent to the same, that can be interesting for sure!
Maybe you could make it so some empty tiles have boxes, others have fences, etc... (just make it so not all empty tiles are covered in the same thing) that would i think fix how visually weird empty towns look. Also all of these things should be a lot smaller than the actual buildings the player already placed so you could easily see which is empty or not.
Can you get grapes to make the grape juice to upgrade the houses? I had a look around my world and couldn't see anywhere spawning grapes, is that something that will be added later? Cool game I like it smiles :)
Thanks for playing, I'm glad you're enjoying the game! Yes, the grape juice is available in this version, you should be able to find an island with grapes and place vines. It you can't find any, that probably means you got unlucky with the generation seed. In the next patch I'm going to add a check to make sure nothing is missing in the generation.
A really smooth sailing experience :) I mean it, it's so satisfying to stear your ship from one city to the other! The game is so pretty, it's a shame there's so much fog you can't really enjoy the scenery fully, it's the only downside I can think of ~ This alpha is solid, the game has a lot of potential!
Thanks for your comment, much appreciated! I will increase the view range to have a bit less fog, I hope this will make it better to enjoy the scenery!
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I really enjoyed the new update, and I may write another comment like my last later about it. Anyways there were some bugs.
I was able to reproduce this bug indeed, I will fix it!
I found an infinite crate
Also I don't think the ui on the left shows properly here
Do you remember doing something specific to get this infinite crate going on? Next patch should fix it, but I'm still unsure how it was triggered, I can't reproduce it.
About the UI on the left, I'm not sure what to do when the list goes off screen. I could try to wrap it up into a second column, but then I feel it will eventually take several columns and a lot of space in the end game of the full version so that doesn't sound great either. Do you have any suggestions?
Not a bug but the coconut and clay textures look a lot alike and I accidentally put a city on an place with clay because I thought it had coconuts.
They indeed look a bit too similar maybe, I will make a change so that it's easier to tell them apart!
Sometimes I saw the red bubbles above the transport ships from another region. After I wanted to screenshot it it stopped happening and I couldn't replicate it.
Yeah, there are still instances where that happens but they are rare, and I'm not sure what triggers it. I'll have to look more into it.
Also one time the game didn't generate hemp on the starter islands.
This creates a softlock I believe, I will all a check in the generation to make sure that doesn't happen.
It crashes on launch howw to fix
Which operating system are you using? Does it crash right away or do you have time to see anything like the intro logo, the title screen, ... ?
You will find logs at the path below, maybe they contain something to help me understand what is happening.
Ok, so... Steam page when?
The Steam page is already up ;)
The current build is also available there as a Playtest so you can play it through Steam if you prefer!
Here's some feedback. Overall, once I got into it, I really enjoyed the game :)
Positive
I want to point out that the "positive" list will likely not be very long. This doesn't mean nothing was good, but rather the opposite. These are mainly points that really stood out to me. So far I am very impressed with the quality of the game.
Constructive Critisism
If at any point something comes across as mean or similar, please know I did not intend it that way. This part of the comment will probably be the longest, as it is easiest to notice things that do not work well (for me).
Points 1-4 are about the tutorial, so here's a TLDR: The tutorial box text I found to be not very readable due to horizontal spacing and/or font. Additionally, I think it can be implemented better with smaller bite-sized chunks, with perhaps some things locked at the start, that the user unlocks later to ease them into the game. Right now it gives ALL the information right at the start, which is overwhelming.
Personally, I'd prefer the camera stay at a set distance, or maybe it needs more smooth easing?I found myself liking the zooming out of the view when sailing, but perhaps it should wait longer before zooming back in, as changing direction zooms in real fast, causing a sort of jitter because it zooms out again. (This is something that I noticed less and less while playing, so maybe not that big if a thing)Bugs
Feature suggestions
Thanks a lot for your detailed feedback, this is very helpful!
I uploaded a patch to address some of your remarks, they are fixed right now. The text boxes in the tutorial now have more vertical space and should be easier to read. Also, I fixed the resume button not working, and the mouse cursor should now scale at large resolutions.
For 5 and 6, I decided to increase the reveal range on the minimap, and to make the camera a bit smoother, adding also a tiny delay before it starts zooming back. These changes will be live in the next patch.
Regarding 2, 3 and 4, this is all very interesting. I agree there is too much info given too quickly, and I really like your suggestion of breaking things down by locking some features. This goes on par with feeling a bit directionless in the beginning, not knowing exactly what to work toward. Taking inspiration from your suggestion, I'm thinking about implementing a quest system that could serve the game progression, giving hints to what to do and unlocking new features as a reward of completing them. First goal could be to reach a certain amount of population, and it could allow to settle new cities. And then reaching another goal gives access to ship upgrades. And then another to buy travel permits. And another to upgrade buildings, etc. And then the tutorial is split into many fragments that trigger only wen relevant, splitting the information across a significantly longer period of time. This is quite some work so it will take a bit of time but I think this would be very beneficial to the game. This is my next priority!
As for the waypoint system, this is possible but I would be interested in knowing more about the underlying motivation. What do you think it would be helpful for? Is it more of a nice option or does it feel very much needed from a quality of life standpoint?
A waypoint would be a small, I guess quality of life, feature. When I first got to learn my world, and wanted to travel to an island I saw had resources I needed, I tried clicking on it instinctively, to see if it would mark it, as that would prevent me from having to check the map if im on course.
It's not huge, and with the world size only takes travelling there once or twice to get it, but if you're planning on making a quest system, might be worth looking into it for the quests. But if you're making it for quests, might as well expose it to the player as well :)
I look forward to the quest system!
I agree it could be a nice addition. I already have a waypoint system partly working because this project was more of a trading / taxi game in an early prototype, so being able to pin cities on the map and move easily towards them was a core aspect. So I guess I can bring this feature back, I'll see what I can do once I'm done with the quest system!
Hello! The waypoint system is now there! When you hover a settled place on the map, you can press a button (R by default, same as pinning items) to open a pin menu:
Let me know what you think about this waypoint system, I hope you will find it useful!
Also i think some production buildings that use material to make another one should only be making things once a time cycle. This would make it so the player would prioritise only making the raw good in a island and then they would have to ship it to another island that has a ton of production buildings to refine that raw good. But i think not all production buildings should have that time cycle thing to keep the game varied.
Also I think the press should also need wooden barrels because it would tie in nicely with the progression because just after getting planks you get the obelisk which makes it easy to get barrels. Also grape juicy should be like a wine barrel thing.
Also while I was trying to taking one of the pics i found a bug where looms would boost eachother. I think it is a bug because it doesn't say that it should do it in its description, but having a building that would get a boost when next to the same building would be cool
But even in it's current state i really enjoyed it, and you don't have to do anything i said here since this is your game, and you should prioritise your own vision for it.
Anyways im looking forward to updates.
Take care!
Thanks for your feedback, this is very much appreciated!
Do you think it would look better without any box or with a different model like fences in square for instance? I'm afraid it could look very empty with nothing at all and make it more difficult to see instantly if there are empty tiles remaining without opening the city menu. Also, looking ahead, I'm considering adding a few 2x2 and 3x3 spots for the future prestige buildings and end-game wonders, and so I think having the tiles totally empty would not help to see the exact shape of the spots.
Having some production building craft only at the cycle ticks is an interesting idea, I like it! It would indeed add some variety in the way building works, I'm keeping this is mind for when I create more content!
I can add the wooden barrel in the press, this is a nice suggestion. I will tweak the grape juice icon to make it more consistent too.
There was indeed a weird interaction bug with the loom, thanks for noticing and reporting it. It is now fixed. And I'm taking note about a building boosting itself when adjacent to the same, that can be interesting for sure!
Maybe you could make it so some empty tiles have boxes, others have fences, etc... (just make it so not all empty tiles are covered in the same thing) that would i think fix how visually weird empty towns look. Also all of these things should be a lot smaller than the actual buildings the player already placed so you could easily see which is empty or not.
The size and the lack of variety are a good point, I will try to improve these aspects!
Can you get grapes to make the grape juice to upgrade the houses? I had a look around my world and couldn't see anywhere spawning grapes, is that something that will be added later?
Cool game I like it smiles :)
Thanks for playing, I'm glad you're enjoying the game! Yes, the grape juice is available in this version, you should be able to find an island with grapes and place vines. It you can't find any, that probably means you got unlucky with the generation seed. In the next patch I'm going to add a check to make sure nothing is missing in the generation.
A really smooth sailing experience :) I mean it, it's so satisfying to stear your ship from one city to the other! The game is so pretty, it's a shame there's so much fog you can't really enjoy the scenery fully, it's the only downside I can think of ~ This alpha is solid, the game has a lot of potential!
Thanks for your comment, much appreciated! I will increase the view range to have a bit less fog, I hope this will make it better to enjoy the scenery!
Love it, will definitively play next iterations
Thanks a lot! I'm hoping to release a patch soon with some bug fixes and very-requested quality of life improvements :)