Overall: A cohesive theme, a good looking main area, and solid fundamentals throughout, but missing the tension and game juice that would make you want to keep playing.
What Worked Well:
- Title Screen: Good hover states and cute music.
- Main Game Area: Looks great. The theme is well thought out and cohesive across store names, art, copy, and UI elements.
- Characters: The little characters moving through the stage and up and down the ladders work well. Their wobbly movement is a nice touch.
- UI and Menus: Everything works correctly without issue.
- Audio and Animation: The crowd sounds are nice and the closing shop animation is clear and satisfying.
Areas for Improvement:
- Distorted Slot Graphics: The graphics placed in empty slots are getting squished and distorted. Needs fixing.
- Upgrade Mechanic Not Communicated: I accidentally discovered that clicking a shop and then clicking build lets you upgrade it. I assumed building was only for empty slots. That distinction needs to be articulated clearly.
- UI Polish: The spacing, padding, and layout across menus and UI elements could use a polish pass.
- Static Crowd Count: It always seems to be the same number of customers walking around. Having that number grow would add a sense of progression and life.
- No Tension or Win Condition: There's no win or lose state, which makes it feel like a functional cookie clicker without the hook that keeps you clicking. Some game juice, the kind slot machines and freemium mobile games use, would go a long way.
- Shop Payout Stopping: After about 20 months the old shops stopped giving payouts and it wasn't clear why. Keeping slots fresh seems to be the mechanic at play, but the implementation isn't communicated clearly enough.