If you want to leave a review, this topic is for you.
its very easy to loose track of time while focusing on building up your perfect little world and cursing all the firewatch towers you get stuck with. I recorded this just before the biomes update came out, and of course had to spend another full day playing after the update.
I've lost two days to this game already......help........
Hey! I played your game as research and found it very fun. I made some feedback notes for myself and thought you might find them useful. Keep in mind these are just my personal thoughts.
1. Pleasant cause:
• Cute.
• Simple, the enoguh amount of challenge, requires little thought but still some.
• Constant mini-reward cycle/influx.
• Constantly evolving emergent story.
2. Engaging(might be a little bit too engaging) cause:
• Unlimited amount of elements - constant question "what will you do with this one?" is being asked.
• Even though the Macro loop is super basic it's enough because the Micro loop is very satisfying.
• No end points (kind of result of no macro) - no satisfying moments of overcoming a big challenge and no moments where you feel satisfied enough to put it down, which results in putting it down either because you got tired or because you are a resposibile adult and you just can't let yourself play anymore xd.
• Random tiles and elements, sparks very basic-level curiosity.
• Constant mini-reward cycle/influx.
• Constantly evolving emergent story.
• Very little new elements, after a while there is no new gameplay (2nd point where the macro gameplay is lacking).
3. Why would I play this again:
• To have a pleasant relaxing time.
• Because I want too see what kind of world will evolve, what kind of little story I can imagine in it.
4. What more would I want from it:
• More opportunities for emergent storytelling, more diverse elements, maybe also something living, like animals and people, some unique elements that are very rare.
• I saw this awesome modular game(Tinytopia), also a city builder, where when you put few building next to each other they combined, I feel like with the tile based system you have it would work very nicely and would add some more character to the landscape of the whole map.
• Some macro loop moments where I could feel bigger achievement, like completing a city, finishing a level, reaching a goal. These would also make me feel less of a prisoner of the mini-reward dopamine loop and more in control. I would prefer to be fully conscious that I decided to play more rather than realize at some point that I am just getting sucked in by the perfect micro-loop and getting a bit addicted.
• The challenge of finding the right place for an element could be harder, felt like it involved only basic addition and didn't use stuff like the order of placement very much.
• The interface could be clearer in conveying information. The +X signage on the element when placing was very clear but the numbers around it were not. Sometimes there were situations where there was green 1 and 4 and I only got +3. This system was hard to understand and I just used the middle number with the "+" to guide my decisions along with the colors of the numbers.
Overall I loved it, I wanted to do a little research play for 10-15 minutes but I think I played for a bit over an hour. I loved the approach of unlimited elements and the macro progress being allowed through enlarging the map. With a little love I could see this have much success like Islanders or Dorfromantik, thanks to the system I mentioned a moment ago I feel like the game is unique enough to be it's own thing. I wonder what more gameplay specific ideas can grow out of just that border enlarging system. Good luck!