- Interesting premise, and it feels like there's the core of something compelling here :)
- I would try cut down on the initial text to make it easier to get into it
- It was a bit confusing that I couldn't embark on the missions until I had a non-specific amount of fuel and oxygen. I just had to buy more until I had enough
- I eventually found that I can see the costs in the encyclopedia
- After a few missions, the story is starting to unfold, but I didn't feel like there was much gameplay here, I'm not really making super interesting decisions. Either I have enough resources to go on a trip, or I'm repeating a mission to get enough
- I had to keep scrolling down to get to the options. Would have been nice if the UX was a bit better. There's a lot of clicking between different menus and it felt a bit clunky
- I was a bit disappointed to see that where wasn't more after I got some moonflowers. It felt like it was building to something but there wasn't a big payoff
- Oh I got more moonflowers and then retired. That was unexpected, but it didn't feel super satisfying? I was expecting there to be some unfolding story from that point
Viewing post in Flowering Plants Of The Outer Worlds jam comments
All fair points. I just didn't have time to add the rest of it, including more complicated and interesting endings (and story indications of what you could be aiming for). The tradeoff was to have at least something - in this case a good ending and a bad ending - so that there is a complete story loop for the player rather than a broken jam game with no ending. I had also planned a basic game of nine plants/planets (three easy, three medium, three hard) but only had enough time to add two easy and one hard. In a not-jam game I would add even more, of course.
I have a couple of random events in the game that can negatively or positively affect your resources but I had intended to add a lot more plus some probability things you would know about and could anticipate/try to plan for.
In reading about Midnight Staircase I came across Aaron A Reed's description of it for Fallen London, a game I play, and, honestly, the Midnight Staircase aspect of that game is the most boring, grindy part of it (it's also a significant part of the game) so I had that in my head as I was designing my game, unfortunately. I also, as I mentioned in another comment, lost a lot of time in the beginning because I had planned to make a game in Bitsy and then had to pivot when I realised I couldn't make this theme work in it.
I do feel that I've got the basics of a good game here but it needs time and work outside of the constraints and pressure of a jam so I've put it in the circle-back pile (although that pile is getting bigger every year). If/when I get back to it I'll definitely take everything you've said into account as it's very helpful. Thank you.