Hey there! My name is Ichit. I've done some QA for games like The Sims and Gears of War!
I played the game for an hour and wrote up a small report with some feedback.
Feel free to reach out to me if you want further testing on this product or any other products!
Feedback:
- I think the art is quite solid and works really well for this game!
- At the beginning of the game. I feel like you either will lose or win. I lost like 5 times, then won big haha.
- I like the casualness of the game where you just need to buy the tiles and let the game work for you.
- I like the effect of the tiles updating and popping up, then getting the money!
- I am a bit confused if there is strategy involved. I feel like I am able to just continue as long as I buy tiles -- so far.
- I don't know why I need to be wary of certain tiles or things each turn after playing. (i.e. Pests, UFO's etc.)
- Didn't realize there was a reroll button till a bit later in the game.
- When you lose, it happens a bit too quickly to know what happened.
- When I first played the round. I thought I was going to be able to select where the tiles would be so I could strategize the placements to min / max the values.
- After I bought a bunch of tiles in the shop. I thought my game froze for 5 seconds, then it all popped up suddenly. Perhaps adding a slow loading of the tiles, or letting player know that the farm is generating with some UI might be good while it's generating
- At year 12. It took about a minute before the phases could run through. It seems like the longer you go, the longer it takes for a turn to resolve. I feel like the time to resolve things should be relatively about the same time. or upto a max amount of time.
- I had to end up restarting on year 14. it was taking too long to resolve my turn and also looks like I probably would have lasted forever.
My tax was at 193, and my income was 418. But I could stock up on money so earlier I had a couple of thousand in my pocket
Suggestions:
- I feel like adding a little mascot could be cute. Like a guy taking your money each turn and talking to you -- similar to mr monopoly haha.
- Could be neat if you could upgrade the shop. Being able to add more slots.
- Tile idea - fruit trees. After a year or so, it will bear fruit, and each season, the fruit's value increases by 1. -- The idea here is the player could make investments that might work in the future.
- Buy button also is still showing after purchasing the item and it got sold. Perhaps it can be disabled, or hidden if you bought something
- I feel like the OK button should be renamed to "continue" to give more context
- Initially I didn't know how much money I have. Till I found out it was income on the bottom.
--> I feel like "income" on the bottom right could probably just say "cash". I feel like players might inherently understand that a bit easier. Cash is something to be spent
- I feel like the tax value on the bottom right should be colored red, like you did in the setup / shop phase to emphasize the gate they need to pass
- In the ledger, could use the coin icons when mentioning money, and tax paid could be styled red, to indicate the money you lost.
- The zoom in / out could go a bit faster. It takes a while to zoom out.
- could be neat if player is able to sell existing tiles to avoid certain things or try to consolidate on a particular kind of tile or strategy
- I think it could be neat at the end of you show the ledger and say this is how much money and tax you paid year over year. To show more of a sense of growth.
- At a certain point after the years. I got a lot of money to spend, so I find myself buying all the possible tiles and rerolling. Hard to say how this should be handled, but just wanted to let you know I encountered it.
- Maybe player can invest in a tech tree, that will allow them to buy more types of tiles, albeit possibly more expensive ones.
Bugs:
- Go button cannot be clicked in the middle.
- On Web build:
--> Game broke on year 5 -- possibly after I hovered on dorm.
--> Game broke on year 5 -- after attempting to buy lumberyard.
- Note after I switched to PC build, the game was alot more stable. No freezes whatsoever. Although note the game takes a while to resolve as mentioned earlier.
- After you buy a tile, the money icon is still showing on the tile purchase button
- Maybe you can upgrade existing properties to spend extra cash.
--> i.e. Baby goes through an education. Makes farms more efficient and gives more value.
- I feel like when you breeze through the seasons, could be neat to have some effects with it.
Fall - shows a little wind.
Spring - petals flying
Summer - birds chirping
Winter - snowing
Perhaps they can be randomized as well, so it's not always showing.
Could also do effects, like cloudy, overcast, raining. And perhaps these effects might also effect your tiles. (could do a forecast section in the shop phase)
i.e. When it rains, each tile of wheat gives 1 gold.
- Some possible bugs. It says "The tax you owe is" "25" "in 0 turn." "Be aware of Pine, Pine"
--> Usually we would use this grammar. "Be aware of: <x> and <y."
--> 0 turn mention. Could probably just say "next turn"
--> The other is Pine is mentioned twice.
- When I died and was hovering over one of the tiles I bought, the popup got stuck to my cursor
- Not sure if intended, but after my fantastic baby grew up into a teenager on the board, the tile still shows as fantastic baby.
- Net income => Net Income (in the ledger)
- Some tiles have periods at the end of description. some don't.
i.e. look at fertilizer versus farmer.
- Pond has a grammar mistake, "One of Pests"
- When your farm gets big enough, you are unable to see description of tiles to purchase in the shop / planning phase when hovering over the options. it just shows me the description of my wheat tiles
- After getting enough tiles, if I hover on the top where my bought tiles were, the descriptions are incorrect. For example. sometimes when I hover on wheat, it shows title / description about milk.
- After reroll price gets past 100, the text gets close to the coin icon
- The positioning of the coin icon is inconsistent. (the messages, reroll, the tax and income mentions)