Feedback on Kitty Kingdom
Wow - This is an extremely well-polished game! I could see the effort in it, so I wanted to give you detailed feedback that you could potentially just paste into Claude (I did have Claude organize my thoughts below). I'm maybe being more critical here but it's because this is a fantastic submission.
What worked really well
- Early progression. Once I got through the first couple of nights and found the flow, the small number of buildings made it easy to learn. Upgrading the castle and seeing new building slots open up was a delightful surprise.
- The AOE upgrade circles are intuitive and well done.
- The buildings’ flavor text was a great idea. It makes the kingdom feel lively and dynamic.
- Upgrade depth. Each building has multiple upgrades with different variations, and the choices were interesting enough that I took my time deciding based on the building slot locations & the enemies I saw coming from their nearby paths.
Biggest issue: too many nights
- I was fully upgraded around night 30–35, but the game runs to 100 waves. After night 35 I was just standing on the day/night flag, which makes the late game a real drag. I'm actually writing this review while on night 53 standing on the flag. I'm not sure if I'll finish because I've got to pick up my kids in an hour.
- There’s already a lot of content, so I’d suggest cutting the number of nights roughly in half or more.
- If you’d rather keep it long, it would need more upgrades, a deeper map, or unlockable map areas.
Bugs
- Wave indicator blocks upgrades.
- During the day, a UI element shows which units are coming and from which path. Walking up to it shows more detail.
- That indicator takes precedence over the upgrade interaction. If a wave is coming from the east, the nearby outskirt tower slot can’t be upgraded.
- I couldn’t upgrade a few spots when I wanted to because of this.
- Suggested fix: disable the indicator when the player is near a building that can be upgraded. Zoom might also help.
- Stuck night (Day 28).
- The ships destroyed my buildings in the lower-left corner and then stopped moving, so the night never ended.
- The workaround is to have the king kill them, but it took a while and probably isn’t intended because I saw the ships continue north on another wave.
Suggestions
- Upgrade indicator. In the late game (nights 20–30) I spent most of my day looking for buildings I hadn’t upgraded yet. Could the little colored circle next to each building become a star or another distinct shape? That would give an at-a-glance read on upgrade status. I’m also not sure what the different colors mean.
- Music. It sounds like one track on loop. Getting to night 30 took me an hour to an hour and a half. I can be a slow-ish decision-maker in these types of games, but in any case a 5-minute track repeated that long gets repetitive. I’d add two or three more tracks and rotate them.
- Zoom. As the map gained slots, the upgrade circles got very condensed. A zoom would make fine movement easier during the day.
- Movement speed building. The dash is nice, but walking around would be more fun if I could sink coins into permanent speed upgrades.
Ideas for expansion (only if you want them, since there’s plenty already)
- More upgrades
- Unlockable map areas
- Different levels with different paths and building spots
Amazing work for a jam. Great showing!