I love where this game is going! Thought I'd leave a comment just to describe how things went for me and make some suggestions.
Beginning: After getting used to most of the controls, I started by printing the first task chip and decrypting it as normal. However I never noticed you could print different kinds of chips, leading me to just roam aimlessly into the various stations with no plan. Eventually leading me to believe I had done something wrong and restarting. After that I went through the motions as intended.
Confusion: When starting up the ship I'll admit I spend longer than I would have liked to searching for the O2 switch, map switch, and front display switch (one under the desk). I would try backing away so the little indicator arrow would fade in so I could try and go directly where it was but that didn't ever lead to the switch. Especially for the lifecare screen which has the indicator arrow tucked all the way up in the top corner of the wall.
Of course this was nowhere near that bad, but I think it'd be a nice quality of life to have smaller objectives like those to have a slight glow/outline.
A more important moment of confusion for me came when I began to run out of o2 & fuel. First I began to run out of o2 and the beeping was getting on my nerves to I straight up just went over and turned the o2 controller off, and this seemed to work? [read edit below] I was able to go about my business as normal with 5 / 1.5k o2 for as long as I wanted as long as I kept the o2 controller disabled. I had attempted to remedy this by going over to the 'O2' marker on the map (only just finished the first mission), of course I had no idea what I was doing and my blind ass didn't see the o2 cans just sitting next to the o2 generator (which wouldn't have helped lmao).
A similar case occurred with fuel only this time I was able to obtain fuel cans by driving over to the map indicator before I spent a good 15 minutes trying to shove the fuel can anywhere that looked remotely like a fueling station on my vessel. It took me opening one of your videos (and unfortunately getting spoiled a lil') to realize the fuel cans were entirely just an item to sell. (I'm not entirely dumb, I knew about the refuel system, the problem was that this was happening at the same time as when my o2 was critically low, so I was afraid to re-enable the o2 controller)
After playing through the game I'd suggest giving the player a grace period in which o2 & fuel drain significantly slower to ease them into the game.
Bugs: Just a list of things I experienced that I doubt are intentional.
- If you run into something like a box and crouch repeatedly, you can simulate a jump, allowing you to bug into some spots and get past barriers like the ones in the mining area before it gives you the interior mode tooltip. (know how I mentioned trying to fuel my ship before ever starting the second mission? I did this to get past the barrier and seriously just thought it was intentional for a good portion of the game)
- After pressing the elevator button on the outside of the elevator in the o2 station I was unable to recall the elevator forcing me to reload.
- The electrical puzzle where you have to switch the switches in a certain order (puzzle looked like this - S2>S1>S2), every switch would act as though it was the incorrect one. It had said S2 for the first one I believe and yet none of the switches dinged whether I was pulling them up or down. Had to reload to fix.
- The oxygen supply can be entirely disabled and you can never run out of o2. [read edit below]
- The temperature at one point started freezing me to death even when the temperature control panel read as 23c, I even raised it multiple times attempting to warm myself. Had to book it to the nearest station while using multiple herbal packs to keep myself from dying. (I've noticed the station being consistently cold - assuming the breathing effect is supposed to indicate cold temperature. So I'm not entirely sure if this is supposed to be an intentional event, if so kinda sucks that It can kill you if you don't have medical or can't make it to a station fast enough).
[EDIT : I was playing while finishing up this comment and I think that I was dying to o2 here but the indicator for death via oxygen-loss is the temperature indicator. Which would explain why I thought I was able to survive without o2!]
- special delivery mission. (can't take the container into the ship, and the X Y coordinates on the tablet don't line up)
- Whenever you buy an upgrade it adds more to the interior of the ship which looks great. However, if there were any items where those new bits of interior appears, those items become lodged and often stuck for good. (lost like 6 fuel tanks when I upgraded my fuel capacity T-T)
I love this game: You have no idea how excited I was when I saw that the game was inspired by both Iron Lung & Votv! And although certainly nowhere near fully finished I am still loving the game.
If I may offer my own suggestions:
- More ships & layouts. The starter ship certainly works as a starter ship but some progression and options for differing ships of various sizes, shapes, and speeds would be lovely!
- Portable planters. Ideally they'd be expensive as there should still be reason to travel to the o2 station.
- Vessel maintenance. Vision this - you're traveling at max speed with your afterburner and then you hear a loud bump on the left side of your ship. A second later the alarms began going off and the left airlock shuts tight and won't open. You hit some space debris and need to go out into open space to reconnect exposed wires/pipes, replace any shattered plates, and weld any damaged plates as well as glass. You go back into your ship and open the ship map to check all diagnostics before re-pressurizing the left side of your ship and finally re-opening the airlock.
Now of course this is ALOT, but something along these lines for ship maintenance both small and large would make the game much more immersive as well as add to the danger of space. This is what I, personally, have always looked for in a vessel maintenance game. Nothing's quite scratched that itch but this is as close as it's ever gotten for myself.
- Shifting Stations. The stations seem to have a static location in game. My idea would be that every time you dock to the central station, the other station's locations would be randomized or moved slightly for a more dynamic world.
- More switches & buttons. More of something to complement the feeling of piloting and maintaining a vessel in space. Of course It would be unfortunate if it became over-complicated, but just some more switches, levers, buttons, and dials for more aspects of the vessel could go a long way in reinforcing that solo space pilot feel.
A small example of my own - have door, light, and system switches for each individual room. You could end up with scenarios where you're critically low on Oxygen for example and start shutting off the supply to some rooms and locking the doors shut to minimize oxygen consumption. But careful, you might not know if something is in that room you're locking, and It might not be so kind if it was just locked shut in a room by you.
Thank you: In the end, this is your game, and goddamn am I excited to see where it goes. I love this game and I'll be sticking with its development to its end.