What did this game do well?
I really enjoyed this game. It kind reminded me of bitlife with the simple UI. I enjoyed the storyline of surviving. This was a simple, yet fun choose your own adventure game. It was a great use of PCG generation to create game storyline outcomes instead of affecting an actual map, making it different each time in a unique way. The descriptions on the cards were funny and hard to choose between which was a good sign of engagement. The narrative is good, it took me some time to figure out the A/B choice control but once I got the idea, I love it. The idea of giving two options to the player so as to ‘branch’ the story on will was a great element of the game. I generally don’t dig story-likes, but I enjoyed this one. I love that it feels like an actual tabletop game with the physicality of cards. I love the sci-fi vibe it had, and the foundation is solid. I know what this game is based of off and I love how they have implemented it. It is a very unique way of using PCG. The different options are unique and interesting. The game mechanics is intriguing, it brings an experience of text avg. A pretty fun, Kyle Is Famous type of game. The decision tree has quite some depth to it and I appreciate all the different stats the player have are affected by every decision they make.
What could this game have done better?
I wish there was some more art or that the text could be displayed a bit better. I wish there more images I was really confused on how to play the game in the beginning. I was clicking everywhere since the instructions said to use my mouse not realizing I had to click and drag the card so I think this can be easily fixed by explaining that better in the intro description. Some of the card descriptions were really funny, but I was confused on which choice would be confused because they were so vague about the action I was about to take. Because of this, the stats of the player almost felt out of your control. Some of the dialogues seems very repetitive(I got ‘I’m a drift king’ at least 5 times in a single run). If the A/B choices properly let the player know what resources it needs to let the player success, it would be better. Also make the resources increase/ decrease effect more clear to the player will make this game better. The options this game provides, though well done, are pretty limited and don’t offer much to the player in terms of suspense and emotions. Since this is a story game, it ideally requires a lot more engagement to grab the attention of the player. Some of the responses were just ‘Let’s go’ and it didn’t add much as a player wanting to know what’s next. However since this is a prototype, that game did well in showing branching storylines. Overall well done. I think that having a map to tell where you are or a log of your encounters/decisions would be great for QoL. The gameplay isn’t super varied but that’s more of a nitpick because story based prototype like these are always on the simpler side because well, it’s a prototype. So all I recommend is just adding QoL stuff and story expansions. Having more options in the cards can be nice as it gets repetitive after a while. More game feel can be added to show the increase and decrease in the stats more clearly like arrows showing what happened after choosing a card. Some of the prompts are unclear, and it can easily get repeated choices. It can have a better visualization of how the stats have gone up or down since the previous day.