I'll be continuing work on my GMTK 2024 Game, Burndown.
My primary goal is to respond to the GMTK Jam comments, which I've broken down into the following categories and deliverables.
Confusion Over Objectives
Many players didn't understand what to do at first.
- Introduce a tutorial.
- Introduce clear goals for each stage (e.g. Features Delivered: 2/5, Bugs Fixed: 1/7)
- Consider actually implementing a burndown chart? How does over-achieving work?
- Refine Headlines Hinting System, add tooltips?
Fix Boring Gameplay
Many players suggested that gameplay lacked depth, some liked the tradeoffs introduced by the Outage. Introduce more tradeoffs to consider when assigning tasks.
- Introduce Tech Debt system / Tech Debt Reduction Tasks.
- Introduce Research (TODO: Brainstorm what effects Research Has?)
- Experiment with Task Affinity system? Reasons to assign a particular task to a particular person.
UI and Text Issues
I missed some obvious UI problems.
- Fix hDPI settings, test on retina displays.
- Improve UI Contrast
Repetitive Ticker Content
The Ticker was overall well received as an idea, but was to repetitive to pay attention to.
- Improve graphical appearance to draw attention better.
- Rework headline generation system (headlines as resources)
- 3 or more headlines per scenario being hinted.
- Debounce each headline to avoid repetition.
Schedule Confusion
- Indicate schedule uncertainty in UI, rather than having blocks popping out randomly.
- Improve re-ordering experience.