Escape is often used for accessing menus, pausing, and exiting/cancelling from a screen. It was unexpected when it closed the game completely.
It would be nice if the game had an in-game option to not be in fullscreen. I used my OS controls to exit fullscreen.
I started with the tutorial. I started the game from the terminal, and when the tutorial started there were a lot of errors about tiles.
There does not seem to be a way to return to the main menu from the tutorial select screen. Once in the tutorial there doesn't seem to be a menu or other way to do so either. Pressing Escape ends the game, so I can restart, but a way to return to the menu would be nice.
I'm just starting out, so my opinions may change on things later, but there are some things about the UI that stand out to me. The button text seems positioned oddly high. It looks to be touching the top of the button with a lot of space below it. I would recommend adding a top margin or centering the text vertically. Generally it is good not to have text touching an edge.
In the top section, it feels like there is a lot of empty space. This especially stands out with the small font size for the lower row of information. Maybe more will get added later, but if not, I'd like to see the text increase in size a bit. If you want to keep the top row larger than the lower, then it feels like there is plenty of space to increase both slightly. The lower text feels too small for the UI, at least to me.
I think the tutorial instructions could use with being positioned a bit higher/further from the character. It told me to move. When I did so, some text appeared about finding someone, but I couldn't read it clearly, as it was behind the tutorial text telling me to click next turn. When the turn ended additional text showed here as well and was heard to read.
It would be nice if the tutorial had some kind of indicators when it told you to look at or interact with a UI element. This could be a glow or pulsing effect around the area, or an arrow pointing towards it. When first getting started I don't know where everything is, so an arrow from the tutorial box pointing towards the bottom right for the next turn button would help to find things faster.
After clicking next turn it tells you to hover the population resource. This is not clear. I started by looking for resources on the map, before looking around and seeing the text for it in the top bar. The small font size stood out when looking for it. Hovering the did advance the tutorial. The tutorial text change was fast and quiet, and I did not initially acknowledge it had changed as I was looking at the Population info. It might help to add something to indicate a change. After finishing with the population it does make sense to go back to the tutorial text, so this may not be needed. The tutorial text also covers up part of the popups when hovering, so maybe instead of moving it up, it should go lower down to not interfere with this part of the tutorial.
I'm at the step where the tutorial says to open the Equipment tab by having a unit and pressing the equipment. I have a unit selected and when I click on the Equipment in the bottom center box I get messages to the terminal, but nothing seems to happen in game. I clicked on the Inventory button and that advanced the tutorial.
I decided to not go back and do the next tutorial, but see what the main game was like.
The "Choose a faction!" text feels like it should be larger, bolder, underlined, or otherwise look more like a title/header. That whole left side with the equal spacing and sizing feels off. Obviously it is in an early state, but this is my first time playing, and it stood out to me. Bikers seems to have the flavor text and their special feature reversed in positioning.
Starting the game I clicked around. The Victories screen was hard to understand at first. The UI could use with some better grouping of what goes together, such as a horizontal line between the different victory conditions, or having the condition name centered on a line on its own as the separator.
I've collected several items. I have what looks like 3 pieces of clothing and a bow. When I hover over them, one of the shirts says it is a bow, while the bow says it is a sniper rifle. Both have the same stats. Equipping the clothes that say they are a bow changes the unit's Weapon line from red to green, but the text says "None".
Each unit only has 2 red icon slots below the unit for equipment, and as you choose to give them new equipment the icons update to show the 2 latest ones, rather than having dedicated slots for specific types of equipment, which is odd.
With the unit limit of 5 before new survivors found create new units, you can quickly get a lot of units to control. It would be nice if there was a quick way to see them all, along with how much movement they had left, and cycle through them.
Sometimes pressing Next Turn does not seem to end my turn but moves me to another unit. There should be more feedback on this. I thought I had gone through and made sure everyone had used all their movement, which is what I thought might have caused it before. Maybe I missed something, and the unit did still have something they could do. If that is the case, then maybe add an indicator next to the Next Turn button to show when everyone has moved/the turn is ready to be ended.
I founded a settlement/camp. Several messages all came up together at turn start and faded before I could read them. It would be nice to have a log of messages so you can go back and read any you missed.
I took a look at the tech screen and did some research. I'm going to wrap up my playthrough here.
You have a decent start. I would recommend putting some time into UI, as that was an area that lessened my enjoyment of the game. There is a lot to manage, so you need a good UI to make it not be a hassle.
I only played on the default settings with 1 faction. I saw them once early on, and did not fight them. Then I just moved around collecting things and equipping them. Eventually I built a camp. The game looks like it has potential, but as it is, did not really draw me in. I do enjoy 4x games, so will keep an eye on it in future jams to see how it progresses.