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A topic by Tortue created Dec 15, 2016 Views: 888 Replies: 12
Viewing posts 1 to 7
Developer (1 edit) (+1)

The place for your feedback, bug reports, suggestions and feature requests.

Good job on the tutorial that you added after the responses from reddit. While it's not 100% perfect, it does convey most of the mechanics.

4 suggestions from my time playing it.

  1. The colors either need to be more distinct or there needs to be an identifier attached to them. Like a letter or number. So you can say the "O" resource or something like that. A lot of the time I built or traded the wrong item because I couldn't tell the difference between the light orange resource and the dark orange resource and other similar mistakes.
  2. Progression should be based on the max population market or something instead of just days. That way you don't have people just wait for everything to spawn before building out. Every time I've started a game, I built a simple trade route for the initial basics and then waited until 1500 days or so as that's around the time when the next tier of starred resources appears. This is kind of weird and makes the initial stages feel pointless.
  3. Add a way to delete a building. Many times I would place down a market with a workshop I didn't want but there's no way to delete that workshop or market so it would be nice to fix my mistakes.
  4. As for the tutorial, not sure if it was mentioned, but there should be some focus on how workshop production works with demand. Understanding how demand impacts production was a bit of an issue.

That's about it from my time playing.

Developer

Thanks a lot for your feedback!

  1. There is definitely something to add to the identification of resources, color is not enough (and not colorblind friendly...). I was thinking about adding a symbol because it's prettier than letter, but letter is easier to communicate.
  2. Progression based on days was to simulate resource discovery over time and so different eras (like stone Age, Iron Age, ...). There is no logic to discover new resources when the population grows. But as you say this is a problem for initial stages and the course of the game. So we have to add some behaviors to make it more interesting, I think of different possibilities:
    • demand (needed quantity) for existing resources changes depending on population
    • invest in exploration to find new resources faster
    • other kinds of advances based on population (new market upgrade, exploitation upgrade, traders upgrade, means of transport)
  3. You're right, I have to add a way to delete building. But it's not so easy because there are impacts on routes using a deleted market or traders waiting to buy or sell resources in a deleted market.
  4. I'll add a little explanation about the functioning of workshop and profitability computation.

Back to work now but i think you have to wait until the beginning of the next year :)

Thanks again.

The issue with having progression based on days is that you have my issue where I would rather wait for all the resources to be discovered before even setting up any trade routes. This means that there is at least a minute of downtime before a player really wants to start the game.

As for resource discovery being dependent on population, the logic is that as your main market grows, the civilization grows along with it. More population = more advanced eras. You don't just wait for time to pass before you get to the iron age. You have the population grow and advance. It's not just time that causes advancement. It's people and time.

As for the other possibilities, they don't fix the core issue of not feeling like playing the game until all resources are shown. Because what's the point? A bad solution would have money decrease over time so that the player can't sit on their ass for the first 1500 turns, but that's just annoying imo.

You already have a good system for determining whether a player understands how the resources work through the population demand window. So once they get the resources demanded, then the next resource appears. This would be good design and would ease the players into learning about each resource.

That's another issue with having advancement based on time. The player doesn't get enough time to fiddle around with each resource before another one is suddenly thrust onto the field.

Developer (1 edit)

Ok you convinced me :)

I have to work on it now. One decision point is about general principle : consider the market with the most population (main market) then update population demand for all markets, or consider the population in the region (i.e. sum of all markets population), or each market has its own demand according to the population (small markets have less needs than big markets).

I was thinking about an other way to interest player to start playing early rather than wait until all resources are shown: buildings and traders leveling. The more an element do its job the more experience he gains. With experience he level up and improves its characteristics (auto or selected by player). For example, the more a trader travels the faster he goes, the more a workshop produces the less time it takes to produce...

I like the concept, and found the first hour fun to play. After that, a number of things combined to make progress less fun:


1. Some way to delete buildings would be great. My screen was getting cluttered with mistakes I made before I better understood the game.

2. Progression based on # of days played was annoying. I was just starting to get the hang of things, and then more colors and nodes pops up. I agree with max pop idea mentioned below. For example, I never had a natural chance to explore the demand buildings (what do they do? no idea - need to get new goods to feed the population!).

3. Toggling workshops became annoying by the end - it became an action game instead of a strategy game, because I need to move the mouse to the left without touching any other nodes.

4. I was unable to get an owned dual producing workshop to continue working until I set both goods to on and supplied the needed goods, which didn't make sense to me (and thus took me a bit to think of).

5. A way to see all of my trade routes at once would be cool.

6. Agree that the different nodes need to be more distinct - the colors really start to blend once there's so many.

7. A way to force a buy on a market or let a workshop stockpile would be great. (I want to be able to have a trader moving back and forth all the time, regardless of demand - as it is now, the trader needs to wait until a workshop is ready to buy, but that's silly - the workshop should be able to stockpile).

8. A progress mechanic based on total global pop would be nice - as it is, I really only had 1 'city'.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback!

  1. I'm working on the delete buildings feature. It's easier for workshops and demand buildings but a bit tricky for markets.
  2. Yes, progression based on max population is the big next feature, it will allow me to work on balancing the game and make it more interesting in the long run i hope. FYI demand buildings is just a way to have demand for resources not needed by population (like luxury resources) and so it's a way to make money by providing these resources.
  3. Ah ah :) An emergent mini-game inside the game! Nice! ... Ok I have to change that, I think nothing will happen when mouse hover a building and you have to click on it to display the details window.
  4. I think this is due to the inability to cancel a workshop production line when it's selected and waiting for resources (you have a symbol in front of the selected line). I fixed this and now the production line is chosen whenever the mode of one of the lines is changed. Feature available is the next release (v0.1.2, next week if all goes well).
  5. Simple version of trade routes display is done. A link is displayed between markets if one of the routes passes through them. I will add an option to enable/disable display because it can be a mess... Feature available in the next release (v0.1.2)
  6. Working on better resources distinction. Resources now have a letter in addition to the color. This letter is also displayed on exploitation and workshop nodes. Available in v0.1.2.
  7. I disagree, it is not consistent to force a buy, and let a workshop stockpile would change the game logic. Everything is about supply and demand, and while a workshop produces it doesn't know what will be it's next production and has no demand. Think of it like a physical craftsman who can not be at the same time in his workshop and at the market. And why buy now if the price will go down later? And what will happen if several workshops are connected to the same market? Which one stockpile? Do they put buy orders (demand) on the market for their stock, which will drive up price? This is my on-the-spot reactions but actually i like the idea of stockpile, storage node or warehouse. It requires reflection...
  8. I think the "can only have one city" problem is mainly due to a problem of balancing. I have to work on.

re: #7 Yeah, I half agree. Forcing a buy is a bit much, but I have a really hard time imagining that a physical craftsman would have a just in time supply system, which is what you're describing. Having a large stockpile is also unrealistic, but JIT is too. Although the unit of time is in years, so I suppose it's not exactly JIT. Anyhow, having a storage node sounds nice, and could be used as a means of speculative (YoY) trading as well. Although resource production in this game is fixed (unlike e.g. 15-40% variance in medieval crop yields), so actually YoY trading wouldn't make sense, so nevermind.

I played for a bit less than an hour and really enjoyed it. I am not sure if this forum message is only for feedback and/or for bug reports, so I will just bullet points both of them here.

Nice work on the interface. I think it's simple therefore easy to understand. That being said, I would suggest some improvements:

  • I would like to be able to easily consult the list of my trade routes as I can consult the list of my traders. The drop-down to select the route can be just removed and replaced by an items list. This way you spear two unnecessary clicks from the player (click on drop-down + selection of route).
  • I suppose that the walkthrough/tutorial at the beginning is supposed to guide me in the game interface. But I am sorry to say that around the 10th message, the interface just blocked and nothing was displayed. I had to refresh the page (e.g. start from scratch) to be able to get it back.
  • The top left of the interface flickers (in both windowed and full-screen mode) when displaying the needs of a market. The flicking seems to be linked to the needs of the market growing (i.e. If the game is in pause, the flicking stops).

The game mechanic is great. Very addictive. We want to see our little market growing up and are waiting for the next evolution. Really liked that. It reminds me a lot of 90's games that I enjoyed. Here are my suggestions/bugs reports on the game mechanics:

  • I am not sure exactly how it happened but the production of a workshop with two production lines just stopped when it was in auto mode.
    • The input resources were in a market connected to it.
    • The workshop itself has a positive balance.
    • In order to fix it, I had to manually move to ON mode. But even with that, the production stopped just after the first new resource has been produced.


I would have lots of other suggestions / bugs to report. I will keep them for further posts.

Also, I would have a lot of suggestions for social medias links (incorporate social media in the game mechanics).

As a treat, here is the result of my session:


Image and video hosting by TinyPic

Developer

Thanks a lot for your feedback! And bug reports is fine too :)

  • Yes, the list of trade routes like the list of traders is something I think of, but i have to find the best way to display the list (which can be long) and the details of a route and steps configuration in the same window without too much scrolling. A bonus will be to highlight the route on the map when you mouse over the route in the list.
  • The tutorial has a big problem: if you don't do the actions asked by the tutorial (like clic on the traders menu or create a route) and go to the next step then it can't find the element to attach the box and display it outside the screen. I'll try to fix that soon. By the way, during the tutorial, the left key does the same that the prev button so if it's blocked you can go back to the prev step and do the required action.
  • Argh, don't like these window bugs, i'll try to reproduce and fix it. What browser do you use?
  • About workshop, in auto mode it will produce only if the production line is profitable, i.e. price of needed resources (at the market) + production cost (a constant not displayed) must be inferior to the price of produced resource (at the market). I don't understand why the production stopped when it was in ON mode, maybe the necessary resources wasn't available at the market.

"The game mechanic is great. Very addictive. We want to see our little market growing up and are waiting for the next evolution. Really liked that. It reminds me a lot of 90's games that I enjoyed.

You made my day! :) 90's games inspire me a lot and I'm really glad I made you feel that way! I think I'll we display this quote on the main page of the game :)

Nice session, I think you made the most of what was possible and I need now to work on balancing the game to go further (several markets with more than 10 population for example is not possible now because there are not enough resources on the map).

I updated my tasks list with your feedback and I'll be very happy to hear your other suggestions. I'm really interested in you social media incorporation in game mechanics (I need more players! :)

Thanks again and enjoy :)

Too fast! :)   I'm being rushed to where n! is greater than what i can internalize and watch at any one time.  Perhaps a button to let me say, 'ok, i want to advance now' could find its way into the game as a kind of dummy mode? (Maybe on a 4th panel where one can tweak some of the day/population params discussed above.)

Its Landscape only? The rendering seems to require full-screen, or at least a min-width. It also does not flow into portrait mode; maybe the css could be loosened up a touch.  Meanwhile, thank you for a touch of DF without the fps-death!

Great Game! Here are some problems I have:

1. auto mode is based on value in own market, stopping production of extremely valuable goods elsewhere

2. Many Factories and resources causes complicated trade routes, ending in undersupply and low cost effectiveness, you either need to hire 20 traders or have each one handle an entire production line, from resource to population

(+1)

Bug: In the tutorial, at the “Select the Traders menu.” step, I accidentally clicked “Next” before selecting the traders menu. This soft-locked the game.