Did a full play through and managed to win, and came up with a few thoughts on how I felt the game was. I had fun, and making everyone else pop was fun, though I do feel there are some rough points that can be polished up either as QoL or additions. I'll start with the positives first, then share the few sour points I had.
The good:
- The idea and principle of training your inflation over time was a fun mechanic to keep you and the others blowing up. The fact that everyone was training was entertaining, and it encouraged you to blow yourself up to stretch quite a lot, pushing yourself close to popping especially in the early parts
- Everyone having the same general rules as you felt quite fair. I don't recall ever feeling like an opponent just pulled some bs out to get one over me, and it made each pop feel more rewarding
- The locations generally felt purposeful, each one telling you generally what each other player was doing and giving you hints as to what you can prioritize. It also let me interact with the inflatable cast, and that was nice
- The social ground work is nice. Each character does have their own personality that influences things, and it never felt like anyone was acting out of character or oddly even when they're getting chummy with you. Beryl and I ended up rivals, and when I managed to make her blow it was satisfying
- The pump off itself is nicely structured. Instead of making it go until someone pops, it feels more like pushing your luck just enough to see if you can win against others. Like a game of chicken. With angel necklaces on the line for winning, it felt beneficial to become the biggest blimp on can be. It also extended the time you spend with other players, making social choices more influential and rewarding
- The clock structure itself felt important, encouraging you to pay attention to how close you are to the next boom room. This was especially helpful when it came to influencing other players, and seeing them be influenced by other players. Seeing one get deflation blocked right before a match, and almost exploding as a consequence was fun, and I could see that acting as a game changer in a close session
- I liked that players actually did pop. It is way to goddamn rare for an inflation game to explicitly allow popping, especially one that has actual game play to boot. Plus each of their reaction to going boom was nice, really felt like a nice cap off to the character's participation
The bad:
- Item usage feels incredibly messy. It's very difficult to tell what gear you even have at times, and even then many of them feel poor to use. Stuff like the sabotage gear seldom get any value, as most players won't inflate above 20 - 30 after a few weeks even if they can get much bigger, and even if they do use it there's zero feedback if someone sprung your trap or not. Pins similarly were hard to justify trying on opponents, with the added consequence of pissing off who you're using it on. This is not to say every item was bad, stuff like the inflation darts and deflation blockers can mess with players well, but I think a balance pass could be done on several of them, and how you keep track of them
- Item obtainment felt very arbitrary too, and there were times I felt my opponents got way more valuable items over what I did even if I fully won the challenge. I think adjusting / overhauling how they are distributed would make the strategy portion feel more controllable, compared to the whims of fate method we have now
- Other players giving you a box of chocolate feels weirdly pointless. At best, it's just them wasting their chance to improve their relations with other players, but even then by the time you're at that point it doesn't mean much. Maybe giving someone chocolates could also improve their capacity by a little so receiving it does something for you?
- Time was very weird to track. while it was possible to get into a rhythm, it was very easy to be side winded by the boom room while you were still training, and at a high level of inflation. This led to a few problems during some of my failed runs and was generally frustrating when it occurred. Some form of feedback for passing time would help mitigate this a ton
- The actual training itself felt very repetitive. It was the same regiment every week, unless you were sabotaged in some way and had to deal with it somehow. Training with other players was a nice way to break it up, but it felt like it came with the added cost of making those other players even more stretchy, which made the end game take a fair bit longer
- The visual stuff is a little weak at times. While the character art itself are nice, seeing everyone blow up is good, the inability to see everyone else blowing up during the boom room sections feel like a missed opportunity. The size changes option was a step in the right direction, but it felt very weak. Maybe you could utilize hover buttons to watch how each player is doing, so you can compare just how big they're growing in comparison to you, if they're about to tap out or pop, etc. Similarly, everywhere else requiring you to click on their button first felt a little too weak at times. Finally, your own inflation not being visual, while somewhat understandable, did feel a little sad towards the end when I could get huge. Maybe as you get bigger you could see your body slowly rising up from the bottom of the screen, and let the player just input / select a hex code color to paint it via the code?
Hope this feedback proves helpful, I really did enjoy playing through and watching everyone push their limits until they inevitably went boom, and I'm really hopeful to see where this game goes :3
(Edit: Adjusted some words to better match my thoughts. Writing this while sleepy was not a good idea)