Maybe make the circles colored? I'm just throwing ideas but maybe small red/green circle for a small positive or negative change, and big red/green circles for more impactful changes. Other colors would work as well, just the all-black makes you wonder.
Thank you so much for sharing your ideas!
Yes, colors could certainly improve clarity (although I know for accessibility, we shouldn't rely solely on colors). I am also afraid people could confuse big/small impacts versus positive/negative impacts (for example, does red means negative value or less impact?).
I was also thinking about animations/positioning, perhaps the bar design needs a complete overhaul…
In Reigns (or Lapse, or other similar games), they simply use black circles, but the interface is much clearer than mine, and the user interaction makes the whole thing very intuitive. I believe the fact that you know how big the impact will be, but don't know if the impact will be positive or negative, is one of the features that makes these games replayable, and imply a progression in the challenge, as you learn which action does what when you encounter it again. But maybe in my version it does not work that well and I need to understand why xP
This is a great game design challenge :D Please feel free to share any other ideas if you have feedbacks! I will read and consider them all ;)