There's an unfortunate occurrence online where people are more likely to give feedback or post a review if they've had negative experiences with whatever game or platform they're using. Very few people will go out of their way to post positive feedback or reviews, because if everything is working as intended and they enjoy it, there's no real reason to go to the forums and message boards unless you're a die-hard fan or enjoy the community.

I'll admit, I'm kinda one of those people — so, I figure for the 0.9.0 experimental branch, I'd actually go through the effort of posting some feedback despite not having any real grievances with the game.

This is going to be a long post, so... Sorry in advance.

> So, here's my thoughts on it:

I absolutely love it.

I absolutely love it.

I think the direction the game is being taken in is absolutely the right one as far as aesthetic, mechanics, and overall vibe.

There's a lot here that changed, and I'll admit, I've been a supporter for years at this point and even paid for the game more than once, so I was very attached to the old models and the old map / base, especially for the more recent builds. It felt like home. The old computer models were very simple and easy to read. The old base had a very simple and comprehensive layout. Even the old shoebox for the drives felt appropriately makeshift and cheap, just like the station you inherited.

When I first swapped to 0.9.0, I almost reflexively felt like I'd kinda not really like any of it — I was so attached to the old models, I didn't really want to even consider that I'd like the new ones. The sense of nostalgia with the old stuff was just too strong.

Then I actually gave 0.9.0 a fair attempt.

The result? I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to the earlier builds—at least, not very easily. I genuinely adore everything 0.9.0 has to offer, and every issue I have with it are things that can easily be tweaked and fixed without throwing anything away.

> The base / Root:

The new base is nothing short of amazing. It's insane how much more personality it has now, and it really does feel like an old, decrepit base with a long and not so great history. The added props and furniture is really nice, and really makes you feel like this place was actually bustling before you arrived. Just the fact that the main terminal has more than one chair literally made me realize — oh, right, Dr. Kel is technically being expected to do a job that previously needed a whole team, by himself. No wonder it's so hectic and feels weirdly isolated.

The outside is just absolutely fantastic, I think the logo near the garage is adorable and great world building, and the fenced in perimeter feels appropriate. The increase amount of trash and clutter is great, I love that cleaning the base takes longer now than it does before — and, I know, it might sound weird for me to praise that a literal chore takes longer now, but to me, it makes cleaning the base a lot more satisfying, and it also means I'm not just... Done with it before day 2. It makes the base feel like a real 'Fixer-upper' than just a place that someone threw a bit of trash into and then left—it feels run down, outdated, and totally trashed, now - which is a good thing... Because it means you actually feel like you're renovating the place when you're tearing down old cubicles, throwing out the old chairs, and stuff.

Like, no joke, when I first saw the new base, especially the new terminal room? I actually got legitimately excited. I even noticed my BPM spiking a bit because of how excited I got. I was giddy. That alone, I hope, should say just how good of a job you've done with the new base.

> The Mechanics:

The new way you triangulate signals is fantastic, and feels way more like you're actually calibrating satellite dishes than just pointing a single thing at the sky and pressing the big "download that" button. Sure, it really sucks when the signal you found disappears before you can get all 3 nodes around it, but that just incentivizes you into upgrading the speed and cooldown a lot more than before — I literally had entire playthroughs during old builds where I never touched ping upgrades because... I just didn't need to. Now, I feel like upgrading it is a good idea, especially because it can actually get in the way of productivity if you ignore it. That and actually knowing the distance of pinged signals? Ugh. So much less frustrating, and I love it.

When I first went through the tutorial for it, I'll admit, I didn't retain much of the information and had a bit of a hard time understanding what exactly it was trying to explain. But, once I actually started playing the game, I pretty much learned how to use it right away — it LOOKS daunting, but is actually pretty simple.

Same with the generators. The minigames involved are a bit daunting at first, and it really felt like it'd risk getting incredibly tedious, but the fact that you only need to do ONE of them—the easiest one, to me—during maintenance made it feel so much better, and made generators actually going out feel more like a bad thing. Overall, it makes maintaining the generators feel way more involved, and I really prefer it over just sprinting to the ass-end of nowhere just to slap a big red button and then run back. The old generators felt like you should be able to easily automate it with how dirt simple it was. This one, I feel like it makes more sense why YOU have to go out and maintain it, in person.

The new server minigames are a godsend as far as variety. I'm good at quickly solving easy arithmetic equations, so the old minigame was easy for me to do, but it got dull pretty quickly. I love most of the new ones, though I'll admit, some of them take so much longer without any chance at speeding up the process that I've actually gone and turned them off. I think that might be something worth looking into. I'll also say, not for myself, but for accessibility reasons, the Maze minigame should maybe be made to be a bit more lenient, both to let people blitz through it once they get used to it, but also to not be too punishing for anyone with issues like Parkinson's or anything like that.

I'll also admit, the pipe puzzle minigame's sound effects are a bit too sharp, if that makes sense. It's a bit grating, and I think lowering the volume or treble on it might help with that.

The floppy disk dailies are also something I really, really, really enjoy. I don't know how, but it feels easier but still way more involved and less tedious than before. While I didn't mind it, I did feel like the hash codes were... Tedious. Having to manually write 3 of them down felt like a chore, especially if you got one wrong and had to run all the way over to re-write it again, and I was okay with that. But this? This feels a lot better.

The only thing I'd complain about is the RNG aspect of the packet system. I've actually run into situations where the packet downloading process took literally minutes because it kept failing; I feel like maybe a global upgrade from the PC or a soft-cap limit to how long it can take would solve that and incentivize another way to improve things. That being said, I feel like the fact you now have more freedom while you wait for the packet download to finish should be capitalized on with more events, if possible. It's a perfect set up for more weirdness and creepy events, like maybe hearing footsteps on the concrete below or something like that.

Other than that, it feels appropriate for an old listening station, I love the aesthetic of having floppy disks and- ZIP DISKS?! I literally forgot those even existed. It's amazing to see them being used like this and feels perfect for an old, outdated station.

My only suggestion? Add more floppy disk colors - like the classic blue, and black, or even weird unique ones that you can't buy. That'd make collecting them more fun. I already arrange them in creative ways in the floppy disk case, whenever I have enough of them.

One small issue I have with the dailies, however: I'm not sure if this is scripted, but every playthrough I've had so far, my first ever tasks involved getting 5 level 0 signals—on day one.

Like, during one playthrough, it wanted 5 level 0 signals on the first day, 4 on the second day, and 5 again on the third day, and so on. I think that's... Way too demanding for the first few days, especially when your terminal is totally un-upgraded. I managed—by farming garbage you can make enough money to upgrade the download speed early, but I'm also very experienced with the game and have the knowledge to even do that to begin with, but I'll also admit, it sets even more experienced players up to focus on rushing a signal stockpile, which means a lot of early events end up being missed because of how much pressure the game puts on you. I know the dailies aren't REQUIRED, there's no real consequence to not doing them other than just not being paid as much but, especially for new players, I feel like the first few days should be much more lenient and more gently introduce players to the routine they're meant to adjust to—especially for the default Day Speed, which is what most new players will experience first.

The ability to stockpile more signals early on due to more lenient starting tasks also means there's less pressure to fulfill more demanding days ones later on, which allows players more freedom to screw around and notice things — like, listening to signals, exploring the base, or finding the Ariral picnic, for example. I've literally watched one new player entirely miss most of the week 1 and 2 events, including the "Peace" signal and picnic because they were so stressed about having to fulfill their daily tasks, which somehow rarely ever asked for less than 4 signals, every day. Yikes. I know a lot of people will say it's just a 'skill issue' but, it's important to remember, first impressions matter. This isn't designed to be a skill-based game. It's atmospheric horror. Therefore, I think ensuring the 'horror' has more room to breathe and better odds of taking center stage might be better.

The coordinate and comms towers, I'll admit, are one of the things I'm less satisfied with. Conceptually, I love them. It's another thing to keep the player busy, it's another set of POIs that keeps the map interesting and populated, and the aesthetic is absolutely perfect... But... I'll admit, the fuse system is a bit... Weird, to me.

It's not very clear whenever one dies, unless you hear a distant ka-boom and realize, uh oh, lightning must've struck one of the towers or something, which then cues you into checking the CR health. That, I'm fine with. It's the same thing as checking the transformers — they don't explicitly warn you about how they're doing, it's up to you to check on them. Even the light puzzle is fine to me, though I understand not many people are a fan of it.

My problem is mainly with the fuses... I think 100 credits per fuse is way, way too expensive, especially with how few each tower gets when the game starts out. Even if you can craft them yourself, I think buying fuses should be way cheaper—like, closer to 25 credits per fuse. If it's any more expensive than that, then I feel you should have a few free fuses lying around the base in storage or something to help mitigate costs and also more softly introduce the player to the task of having to replace them. It really doesn't feel great when one of the towers goes down without you realizing it, which then potentially causes you to screw up your early-game dailies, which means you not only miss out on the full week bonus but you also LOSE some of the credits you already have if you want the comms tower to stay up for more than a day or two by supplying it with fuses. It's a bit demoralizing, especially to less experienced players I've watched play the game—especially since not many of them realize the comms towers can work WITHOUT fuses, many thought they were REQUIRED.

Also — the 'mind your step' stairs? I see what you did there. That's evil, and I love it. And I'll also admit, I keep falling for it. Every. Single. Time.

The new ATV and it's systems are really interesting to me, and I really love the fact that you can do more with it and have more to keep track of with it. It makes upkeep feel way more involved and fun, especially when you actually need to use tools on it. I'll admit, it's a bit weird that it doesn't have an alternator, which means the battery is a finite resource, like gas, but I can forgive it. That being said, I feel like something should be done to differentiate it a bit from gas, as a resource.

I definitely feel like being able to recharge them would help make them feel less frustrating, and especially early game, having the ability to plug them to a charging station that the base has or that you can buy would be balanced out by adding more stress to the power grid, which means more interaction with the generators. It might not make a lot of sense, but you could also differentiate it from gas by making it so you can only recharge a battery that has some charge left in it—as in, if the player lets the charge get to zero, then the battery maybe burns itself out, leading to the player needing to replace it entirely. That way, the player needs to stay conscious of their power usage; forgetting to turn the headlights off after using it would cost the player more power grid stress if they realize their mistake it in time, and would cost them an entirely new battery if they don't and it runs out. That's just my idea, though.

On that note, upgrades are also a fun little change. One problem I've run into, however, is that... I've powered down specific terminals before, but even when they're off, they'll still explode if you try to install an upgrade onto them. The only way to avoid explosions is by turning EVERYTHING off, including utilities.

> The Controls:

I know a lot of people have voiced how dissatisfied they are with the new control scheme, but I personally kinda like it. Sure, it's harder to spam pat Kerfus, but the rest feels pretty intuitive and streamlined. I don't believe this is an example of enshittification, like some people have claimed.

It definitely takes some getting used to, and I still find myself making mistakes because of old habits and muscle memory, but I really feel like the biggest appeal to the old, more complicated control scheme is just the nostalgia of it — which is fine. That's why I think, like some have suggested, that giving players the option to revert to the old control scheme might be a good idea. I'm not sure how complicated that might be with this engine, in its current state, but it would definitely give older players the freedom to just enjoy what they've gotten used to. That being said, if that isn't possible, I don't see a reason to revert totally back to the old control scheme. The new one works, and offers much more streamlined and precise control over the game. Just the fact I can actually place props more precisely now is unbelievably satisfying.

> Other Things:

I love the new Drone. It looks a lot better, it sounds a lot beefier, and the bag it carries as well as the fact that it won't leave until YOU dismiss it feels so, so much better. However... Good god, is it LOUD. I mean, obviously, it should be, but there's a few times during gameplay where I needed to keep the drone around for a bit out of necessity, and the constant sound of it was threatening to give me a headache. It also completely drowns out certain events, like the vent crawler, even when the garage door is shut, which I feel is... Unfortunate. Personally, I feel like the muffling effect of being indoors, especially in the terminal room at least, should be increased a bit to help mitigate that.

More importantly though, I feel like having an additional slider in the Audio settings for "vehicles", like the Drone and ATV, would be super, super appreciated. Or, even just a Sound Sensitivity / Hyperacusis toggle that lessens the vehicle sounds by just a little bit (like 25% to 50%) would really help prevent them from overstaying their welcome.

One more thing about the Drone is that it might be a good idea to add a section in the tutorial that outright explains how to insert items into the bag. I know there's a note in the garage that explains it, but I'll say, it's not a very effective way to convey that information. It's a tiny note, on faded paper, on the wall of a dark garage, next to something experienced players likely don't pay much attention to anymore. It's VERY easy to miss, which can lead to frustration and misinterpretation. I personally think having a quick segment during the tutorial where you're tasked with shoving a driver box into a dummy Drone's bag would really help teach new players how to do it and remember it more effectively.

Additionally, this is a really small thing, but during the tutorial, maybe add some decals or a light source to highlight where the bottles are that you're meant to break with the rocks. Like the old saying goes: Players rarely look up. I think a visual cue of some kind for them to notice would really help with that, especially for newer players who might not be super aware of their surroundings yet.

> My Overall Review:

Like I said, I really adore everything that 0.9.0 brings to the table. I only have very few issues with it, and all of them are things that I believe just need to be tweaked or adjusted a tiny bit. Other than that, everything here is just so damn good. I really think the direction the game is being taken in is absolutely fantastic, it really helps to make VotV stand out, it gives it a unique style of its own, and it really helps the overall vibe.

Thanks for reading this horrendous wall of text, and I hope this provides a bit of encouragement!