I wrote this as I played, so it is mostly in the order I came across things, with a bit of editing after I finished.
Here are some things that I think would be nice to see added:
- An option to rest until energy is full.
- It would be nice to know what type of zone was going to be established before choosing to do so. My second zone was also residential, but I would have preferred to do one of the others next. I see that the zones you can unlock are limited, and more are added as you establish others, but when there are multiple options available, I'd like to know what each is and decide.
- I'd like it if the rest of the game paused while choosing a building. As a new player I like to take time to learn what each can do, and why I might not be able to place them. With time passing I felt rushed to try to make a decision.
It would be nice if there was a bit more feedback on why you can't place certain buildings. Highlighting unmet requirements in red, or an effect like you have for money where the missing requirement flashes red, being applied to other requirements could help. I saw Required, but was not initially sure what what things like "EC" meant. I looked around and saw the Rating area had the same letters, so figured out this was likely what was needed. With the buttons being disabled/greyed out when you haven't built the prerequisite buildings, when they activated I was ready to place them, and it took a bit to see that I still had things left before I could do so. Even when knowing what the requirements were, it would be nice to draw the eye to the one(s) you are missing.
I used escape to pause while on the Choose Building screen, and when I unpaused it was not working properly. Hover and clicking reacted, but the info panel did not change when clicking a new option. The red X button also would not close it. The panel was showing something I could place, but clicking Apply resulted in setting a path to move to the road beneath it. It was as if everything had been set to ignore the mouse. Clicking on the tile, and choosing Establish again, fixed things.
Some of the music has an overly rather relaxed feel to it that doesn't quite fit with the feel of the game for me. I can see a bit of inspiration from Sim City, but at least one of the tracks just miss that bit more upbeat tone that would make them fit better. One of the tracks has that peppy feel that makes me think Sim City, but it was another that had me notice the music and think on it. Having multiple tracks is a good way to keep the music from feeling repetitive, it is just that the one really stood out to me as out of place. This is of course personal preference, so go with what works for you.
At the end of my first playthrough I felt like there was still a lot I did not know. I hadn't even been paying attention to the vote deadline as I was still trying to figure things out and was surprised when it popped up. That is likely in part to it being an early and short demo version. Part of it comes from that bit of feeling rushed to choose buildings due to the timer continuing. I restarted and played with a focus on clicking around to see what else I could interact with and taking more time to read things. Of course, with many things needing to be unlocked as you progress, this only offers a chance to learn the early stuff.
I think that the buttons for moving through the Goals could use with a bit more contrast. I was mainly focused on the game board and seeing what all I could do, and I totally missed that there was a second page of Goals. This was likely because it started with only a small number on one page and no buttons. I had not acknowledged when more were added later that pushed it beyond 1 page and added those buttons. I had only glanced at the goals to see which I still needed to do, and did not really look at it to see the extra arrows at the bottom.
I like that you have a tutorial. It offers a decent start, but there are certainly some areas that could use being mentioned. I'd add a line about the ratings at the top right and telling the player click on them to see more details. Perhaps a mention about the Stats and what they do, or telling the player to look at them and adding the same kind of click to learn more for them.
Your instructions mention double-clicking to move, but it seems like it is clicking once to select a spot to move to, and again to move there. Typically double-click means you have to click twice quickly, rather than the click to select and then click again after any delay to do something else. It would also be nice if a mention was made of Right-Click to cancel movement. I stumbled onto it when I was testing things, but there was a point where it would have been nice to know.
Overall, this is a pretty good start. The current version gives a good feel for the intent of game. The core systems work well for the early state. You have a good start for the tutorial and popups with extra details. I enjoyed playing and look forward to trying future versions.
We use Linux, so I appreciate that you offer a Linux build.
I played through to the end twice, winning both times. Here is a screenshot of my first playthrough game over screen. The second time was more about exploring things and I was more even on score when the last day started, but I had ~250 Rally Points, so at 08:00 I went to a block of houses that favored the opponent and rallied as many as I could to quickly gain the points to win.
