interesting concept, but not really "playable". needing to wait for 5 fills and empties to get just 1 more claw machine is brutal. as a concept there just isnt enough here yet to give a thumbs up or down.
Viewing post in Idle Claw Arcade Manager comments
Thank you for that feedback and for playing :) I will decrease the price of the claw machine and reupload today or tomorrow. Is there anything else you think could be rebalanced or improved too?
I wasn't sure how fast to pace the game since I've seen some reviews of other bottom of the screen idle games saying the content unlocks too quickly, but then again this is just the core loop, so maybe it's okay for buying the machines to progress quicker, then as the game progresses focus on adding different facilities and upgrading them all at a slower pace. I posted to hear people's thoughts on this, and I'd love to hear yours!
When it comes to incrementals, idle or otherwise, I strongly believe the first 5 minutes need to give you a general idea of the entire first layer of gameplay loop. better to do than to show, so letting them build the first claw machine quickly gives them a sense of progress. as you have it now you have to wait 10 minutes in the game occasionally manually refilling the single claw machine before you can actually do anything. After they understand the loop you can slow it down as much as you like for those lazy lazy idlers. Ill come back after its more fleshed out to try it again.
Thank you so much for the advice, that really helps me a lot! I will keep in mind that the first five minutes is the time players spend getting a sense of the whole game instead of 10 minutes; that is super helpful. Reflecting on what you said, I think I may change not only the progression in those five minutes the way you suggested, but also introduce some decision making with marketing and managing customers as a resource too instead of just the one upgrade for making them show up faster. I'll be spending more time testing these ideas out before updating since it would affect the core loop a lot more than my last update of just changing the prices. This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for, so thank you so much! :)