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(+1)

Team management sims aren't my jam, though incrementals often are, but I really clicked into the page out of curiosity for what FRC is, only to find out the initialism is not actually defined anywhere in the description. Unless you only intend this to be seen/played by those familiar with the (sport?), you should probably change that. This page is an opportunity to introduce new people to this thing you like!

Second, opening the game up and looking around, it's a bit of everything everywhere all at once, and rather intimidating. I assume the design document has a section for an onboarding and tutorial process trickling the game systems out to the player, easing them into the difficulty, but for an initial release, it seems functional enough.

Those are fantastic notes. I will work on implementing these among other suggestions I've received as well. 

I did include a link to a page about FRC in the description, but not anywhere inside of the game or even some pictures of what a robot even looks like. The goal is to introduce the FRC League and idea of Competitive robotics to more people so more explainers would be better.

A tutorial and onboarding is the best way. I did include info dialogs under the 'i' buttons, but it's not forced to click there for any reason except curiosity.


Would it help to break up the gui into seperate tabs or leave it all in one place, just organized better?

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Separate tabs would likely be best, but some reorganization will also be necessary.

I see now that the team members have generated names, but I had no idea until I clicked the "Promote to subteam leader" button, and I haven't found anywhere else they're listed. The names also aren't real names, but they should be. You can find lists of names on the web in plain text you can use for generating random names, or build your own list using FantasyNameGenerators.

In the spirit of educational video games that teach players about a real world concept or historical event (like Oregon Trail did many years ago - there's a documentary about that, and at least one talk from one of the devs) I think you could lean more into the humanity of the team by, first, using a list of real, pronounceable names, and second, flipping the task assignment around - instead of seeing tasks and assigning nameless team members, list the team and assign each member to tasks for a portion of the time they're available that week. Players might assign a single member who has lots of time to multiple short, simple, low-skill tasks, or multiple members who have very little time to a single complex task.

You could also have team members volunteer for tasks that need done, according to their preferences. Maybe a little of both. Put in some kind of UI equivalent of "Alright, who wants to do inventory?" crickets "...Bill, you're on inventory."

You could show a report after each week that summarizes task assignments and gains, and maybe pre-written comments from team members about the work. Managing a team is managing people, so a good team management game should reflect that in some way. This is also where the player could be informed of any curveballs, like "Jimmy flunked a test so he only has 30 minutes with us this week instead of his usual 2 hours" or "Rachel got bored of inventory and stopped halfway through to watch FRC videos with Derek instead". These random curveballs could add replayability to the game and personality to the team members.

But, take what I say about the gameplay with a grain of salt. I don't have your design documents, I don't know your vision for what the game should look like in the end (whether realistic simulator or incremental hyper-expansion), and as I said before, I don't usually play team management sims like fantasy football or whatever. I'm just a simple guy who enjoys a good story.

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This is a wealth of good ideas! I changed around the current UI somewhat and added a forced tutorial for new users or when people reset the game. This includes more info about what FRC is inside the game.

Currently team members are basically a task resource that has a gibberish name, but originally was not going to be named at all. Was kind of an after thought until I realized you needed a way to see when a team member/subteam leader will graduate. The team roster has existed since 1.0.0, but the button to view it was not very obvious. I like the idea of team members having preferences and applying a team point bonus if they are a match up. Too big of a change for a short update like I did tonight.

I also really like the weekly reports idea. There is an overall base score that the season prestige bonus is based on (minimum effort will earn 2150 base team points at the moment). Possibly some kind of chart of their points, members, materials and money as a line chart changing over the course of a full season. The additional "random events" is something I had planned as an overall season effect, but I like having weekly modifiers as well. Example: "Vendors have a sale and materials are 30% off" or "A current team member guilted their younger sibling into joining the team", etc.

Alot of good improvements I can add to the roadmap. There is not a formal planning document, just text notes I took as I was planning out the core mechanics of the game. It has undergone scope creep even under development. The end goal will still be a web based, text based incremental management game. I don't intend to make it hyper realistic, but I do plan to add more tasks and "paths" over time just to keep the game fresh and interesting and eventually add some randomization to the tasks each week so its not a flood of the same stuff over and over.