I gave it a shot but the work vs. reward level is not paying off. I spent weeks in my free time overhauling a number of systems including the pathfinding and I added a sandbox mode. The game runs more efficiently and the villagers were able to navigate complex mazes (including multiple levels) confidently but they are still doing weird unpredictable behaviours like walking into trees and I haven't been able to figure out why so the current build would be no fun to try. I am finding it frustrating to work with the old version of Godot and I tried porting to the new version but it is a monster task for uncertain gain. I appreciate your interest but for the sake of my own sanity right now I need to move on. If more people were interested it could be worth the effort but as someone wise once said "I do this for fun, and it's not fun any more". I'm still happy to hear ideas if you have them, especially if you are able to highlight what you like about it that makes the game fun, maybe there is a simpler games I could make instead. It's possible one day I may revisit this (especially if I start from the beginning and design it properly, since this was only intended to be a quick prototype) but for now I wanted to let you know my situation rather than keep you waiting indefinitely. Thanks again!
bobthefish
Creator of
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Thank you again for the feedback. I am assuming that you would like to see this game updated (rather than just providing the feedback for the sake of my own learning) and so my responses below are focused on next steps of development of Mustelia rather than games of this type in general.
"the bad pathfinder can invalidate the run for cover"
How bad is the pathfinding overall? The reason I ask is because it is a big job to fix properly or I could work on your other suggestions first and fix pathfinding later.
"it simply feels like owls are too weak in their current form"
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I thought the problem was owls are too dangerous? I would also interested to hear if you have any specific ideas for different owl counters and/or dangers.
"Corn would work well as a third food source"
Ok, that should be easy enough to do.
"you are not supposed to gather resources and build things at night"
This is correct. The valley is supposed to feel like a dangerous place at night.
"Danger should be telegraphed simply as a notice of who, how, why, and sometimes where."
This is good. I will consider those references and add a feature for this in the next release.
"upgrades lose resources"
I will investigate this and your suggested reference games.
"balancing linear aspects"
Thanks, I'll read up on this.
"two things with construction"
These should be relatively easy to implement but I am concerned about how to make the mustelids prioritise their projects and resources. I will think about this a bit more.
Not too thorough, it's wonderful to have feedback!
The owls are easily countered by shelter. Owls will not enter houses and mustelids will seek beds to sleep in at night time. The player can pass the night quickly by sleeping on a bed. I am, however, open to suggestions about counters, other night-time threats, and ways to telegraph danger.
Corn was an experimental feature. I'm not sure what to do with it.
The pathfinding engine needs something of a rewrite which wasn't worth it just for the prototype. It's quite fixable though.
I have created a Discord server in case anyone would rather converse in a space other than these comments: