Post by Muriago in Ravenhaul comments

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Great game! Simple, yet engaging. And has enough plannning/difficulty to pose some challenge. And I love the ambience. One of my favourites I found so far.

Just a few comments of things that you could want to look into. Hoping to be constructive here. Im ranking them in a (subjective) loose order of relevance:

- Regarding bugs I only found one. Playing mainly in the Windows version, sometimes when starting a new game time won't advance. The first raven will fly out but nothing will progress. Not too bad as you restart without having lost but a minute.

- A save functionality missing its clearly felt. The game is long enough to be difficult to complete in one sitting as it is (in fact I havent done it yet). And it would be very much needed for any potential further expansion.

- When you are selling birds it would be a great QoL improvement if the details of the bird you are selling would pop up. Both to allow to compare with birds in the store more directly, and also to make sure you sell the right one and that you will get enough money to get what you want. Mistakes during that phase have ruined some saves in my case (ooops).

- Knowing more details of what contracts will future patrons offer to you would improve the ability of been able to plan what birds you want or how do you want to improve them. In my very first few playthroughs I often found myself unable to deliver any contract of a new patron for days, and it alsocan be a bit frustrating if you see that some investments aren't going to amount to anything. Knowing the contracts from previous plays gives a huge advantage.

- Bird balance feels a bit off, although maybe its intentional. I do feel it detracts depth from the planning and limits viable strategies a bit. Pigeons are simply OP, due to been by far the fastest while having great range and also having low maintenance (space and kernel wise) with their only weakness been they can't deliver parcels. But for anything else it simply doesnt make sense to use other birds. Ravens, even if they use that extra improvement pigeons need to deliver letters in speed or range are still going to be far behind in both categories even compared to a "low quality" pigeon. And Herons only seling point its their massive range, but it pairs terribly with them been the slowest, as range and speed work best together. So they are nearly useless. I feel like any strategy pales in comparison to having a few ravens specialized in parcel delivery and using pigeons for everything else. Herons as they are now would require having the longer deliveries have bigger time windows to complete them, though even then it would arguably not be a great option as the process would take so long given their speed that you would need several birds just to complete one contract every day, and they have the highest maintenance to boot. Versatility is just not that valuable besides the very early game, when you have few birds, due to pigeons been that much superior.

- Last, I feel like streamlining the ranges the birds can fly would make the game a bit better. I feel like the granularity is a bit too much as it adds "false" sense of choice/strategy which can be a bit frustrating for newer players, feeling like a bit of a trap. It kind of combines with the previous points a bit to exarcebate the issue. When you know what contracts you are looking ahead to, you are able to recognise the "better ranges" some birds have are meaningless. There are a few cutoff points that define all. To put a few examples for context drawing from prior points, if you know that ravens are meant for parcel delivery after you get yourself a few pigeons, anything above 600 becomes pointless. And most ravens will have that. Also, for pigeons, you know you are going to need to cover a 2200 km, a 1800km and a 1400 km contract. Anything else can be done with 1000km that every pigeon has. I think gameplay wise it would be better if any jump in range (either that the brid has naturally or that you can get through imrpovement) always means its going to be able to deliver something it coudn't before. That may be a stretch with combined with the different bird types and all, but at least I feel like the aim should be to minimize options that are not worth it at all. The granularity in rnage makes it so there are many right now and arent that easy to recognize.

bippinbits14 days ago(+2)

Excellent feedback, thank you so much!
I fully agree on all points, and we'll tackle that if we can get around to working on this again.
The only point i'm still thinking about is the last one. There is only one thing that i do kind of like about how it is now, which is that you really need to check if an upgrade is useful or not. You can train a raven a lot, but if it has bad stats from the start, you might be better off to consider other options. In other words, it leaves more room to make mistakes, which is not by default a bad thing.
Streamlining this could still be better in the end.

Muriago11 days ago(+2)

Thanks for reading. Hope is helpful!

About that last point, I see how that's a design decision that could be taken. Leaving more room for "mistakes", and not every raven been worth to improve as you mention. I guess the main problem I see is the combination with point 4. Given your lack of info by default on what contracts lay ahead, those mistakes are more a cause of that than actual mistakes. Having unlocked all patrons once gives a very big advantage in a following playthrough. And while is normal that experience in a game helps you, it feels a bit "unfair" that is something you can't really tackle in that first playthrough at all.

That been said, it ocurred to me that maybe a way the granularity could stay and be maningful is if you include some variability in the deliveries (weather conditions affecting the birds, or maybe the contracts themselves would not neccesarilly exactly always have the same distance and time range for delievry as happens with paymens now). It would mean that every little extra in any category could be useful and one would have to decide what to prioritize.

bippinbits11 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

There is also one thing in there that i like. Basically you encounter new contracts from patrons, but no bird you have is ready to deliver them. This does not hurt you. It does however challenge you to think of a "bird setup" that could handle these contracts. So then you start to plan and think, play around with different upgrades in you head. You "build" a bird to fit the new requirement.

I think i find this more interesting that being able to prepare the right bird ahead of time. You can still do this on a second play though, as you say.

I also do not want you to stock up on birds early and then finish the game with your once established team. I'd like for people to buy a few birds over time, with each patron maybe. Potentially also retiring some birds. But that's more of a feature for a full game :D

Muriago10 days ago(+1)

I can agree with the idea of "You "build" a bird to fit the new requirement." rather than preparing ahead of time. Thats the way you actually play the 1st playthrough now, as you don't really have a choice. And given your budget is very limited early on, it makes sense that this is how you would evolve. And to be honest given the limited and randomised access to birds its difficult to fully do it.

The problem is that the difference in practice (given the current status of contracts/birds available etc) isnt that big. Like preparing ahead of time just requires you knowing that certain cutoffs are very important and stats between them don't add much value. To put an specific example, something I did in following playthroughs once I knew the contracts was not buying ravens with much more than 600 km range. That alone meant that even with my limited budget I could get some that lasted me until the end game. With pigeons it was similar, knowing 1000km is enough for most things, I focused just on other stats and only went for the longer range ones when I had a bigger budget to buy the good ones that can do those hard contracts.

But thats more a balance problem than a design one most likely. In a "full game" (not like this isnt really even if limited in scope hehe) I guess you could have a more clear progression easily, that could even affect the birds offered. to aid that progression better. You would start with varied but overall easier contracts to complete (good ratio of time/range) but that still require birds with varied skills, and where versatility maybe is more important, and as you progress the ratios tighten and you really need to either build more specialized ones, or pay a premium to get some that can do the hard contracts and yet be versatile.

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