I made recording of my playtesting this:
Took another try now. Still have to say that this isnt my kind of game, but considering that, to say it slightly erroneously, I was still happily playing it, it has really been done very well.
For basically I feel this game is actually in many ways perhaps in reality even boring. As in, if you strip it out of all the candy it has, it might be bit boring for me myself, since I dont like this type of game much (or at least I assume so). Yet, all that movement, all those little things, water movement seeable, flags waving, clouds moving, the pleasant graphics etc. Make this game very playable. Also all those line drawing and so on, they just feel like you are actually doing something there, and feels really nice doing those things.
That I would almost like to describe that you are essentially making a bad game almost good with all that magic touch of yours. really good job there on making this. I am not sure if the core game is good or not, since it doesnt appeal to me, but I cant really say if that is simply because this kind of game doesnt appeal to me, or is there really something wrong there.
What I do know is, that all that stuff you put on top there of that game, really make this game very very much better.
As said, I dont know if this games core is bad or not, but I was starting to think that what would make this game good for me. Right now I feel this is too much in middle of idle and actual action game. If this would be much more idle kind game, I could see myself enjoy this a bit, although, I am not really much fan of idle games, but I could see this could hit some spot to some extent that way.
To really make me like this game, would be to make this more tight action game, with not too many moving parts.
Like when the pirate ship comes, what terrifies me most, is the thought if I really have to start moving all those ships out of its way, since that seems like a tedious task. As you can see from the video, I simply didnt do that at all, since I felt so disgusted just from the thought of having to do so.
Another things is, when there starts being so many ships, it starts feeling too micromanagement. Like the idea that sometimes those harbors can fill up with too much cargo waiting to be picked (eventually resulting in game over) is basically a good idea, but if the solution is to move several ships to that place, then that becomes annoying again.
I want it so that I can solve it with moving only one ship. Or clicking a button that prioritizese that harbor some way, as in, clicking that button makes boats go there automaticlly.
I dont want to keep repeatedly moving ships from one route to another, since that is annoying, and annoyance is added by the fact that these boats are moving fast, making it very annoying chasing them with my mouse pointer to drag them.
That Basically I like the ideas you have, but i dont like the current solution of having to mve several ships, because moving several ships is annoying. So either another way to solve the problem, or moving boats needs to become nicer.
Some questions that remained unaswered to me after this playtest:
1. Is there actually a point in making more than one line?
I didnt actually try making more than one lihe, since I couldnt quite see a point in doing so, but there was one open question regarding this.
2. Suppose I have line 1 from town A to B, then I have line 2 from B to C.
If there now comes package from town A that is to be delivered to Town C, will this package be ever delivered then?
My initial thought was that it isnt, and therefore I came to conclusion I need to simply make one line, which goes through every town, and then just keep adding boats there.
3. How do I get more boats? Do they just randomly pop up more, or did something affect them? Like I tried at one point to not put the boat to the sea very fast, in hopes it would be like bunnies, more bunnies you have, faster they increase.
4. When Pirate ships sunk your ship, did you lose the boat, or did it simply appear back to stock? For seemed to me that when that pirate ship was shooting the first time, those boats just appearedback to stock, unless I just happened to build them more at that moment.
This is also part of the reason I didnt start avoiding at later point, since I figured, even if ship is sunk, so what, even better, I got the cargo deliever faster then, since what ever way those cargo disappear, dont seem to matter, as long as they do disappear from the harbor.
5. What did that blue pirate boat lookalike do?
6. Some levels had for example diamonds, and some town demanded them. But didnt really notice any harm from not delivering them.
7. Tutorial mentiones those floating cargo stuff would be bonuses to your boats. Didnt notice anything happening to them when I delivered them.
Additional notice.
When new town pops up to the map, Make there some sort of sound or other highlight. You can see from the video, that my first game ends due to noticing there is new town too late.
My last game ended, because I didnt notice the route wasnt connected to one of the existing towns, until too late.
Game is slightly zoomed in, making you need to scroll a bit sometimes. Even my first thought is that I want to unzoom and see the whole screen at once, I think this little zoom in is a right choice, it makes it more fun having to scroll a bit, and makes it once again having bit more good moving in it. However, that scrolling is too slow. It is annoying to push the middle button, and then having to move the mouse and possibly more than once to see what I want. So make scrolling much faster, and I think it is good to keep it as it is.
And regarding levels. I am not sure was there any goal on them. I expected there to be some goal, like get certain amount of points to pass it, and then you would get to next one, but didnt seem like there were any currently.



