Hi, sharing my long informal reactions in order as I played:
First Impressions:
- "Tony Sparks" HAHA I LOVE THE NAME!!!
- Game window height exceeds my screen. And browser's top and bottom UI makes it shorter, so it crops the game. Thus, I played with F11, if not I cannot see everything. Not sure if it's itch.io being weird, but for others with this issue, you can use Ctrl+Zoom out to decrease webpage size without F11.
- guy with a cursor hanging down-so as the cursor is cute haha, even has nice detail where it changes based on mouse movement. SICK!
- i also love that he kicks the buttons when u click them.
- catchy dance-worthy beat
- love the robots, love the rats, charismatic game with consistent visuals
- needs a way to see the tutorial again. I forgot that I needed to fill the green battery tank so I was stuck at 100% parts wondering why nothing happened for awhile.
- Also possibly flash the battery tank and batteries when parts is 100%, to tell the player "hey u have parts, but u also need green energy", and perhaps vice versa in case someone else remembered inversely.
- i like the random poses by the bad robots. love the humor. but moreover it makes you have to pay attention to both the rats and robots, very cool!
- I love this genre - upgrades create a very compelling gameplay loop!
After playing for awhile:
- wish there was like a "crosshair" for the aiming of the character's kick
- The rats spawn very close to the conveyor belt and a few times I had difficulty aiming for rat, and instead it kicked both the rat and my good robot, affecting profit :(
- when infestation first happened: this was very cool! added a frantic moment just as the game was getting stale and warnings appeared everywhere - loved this genius idea! however I wished the warnings were different sounds so I could differentiate quickly and react to meet that need without looking which one it is.
- the good thing is there are sound feedback for everything else so sound design is great - when a robot finishes, when you fill energy/crates, when a rat spawns, etc. So it's clear what is going on.
- new upgrade idea: Decrease chance of bad robot. So I can tailor my playstyle. My goal will be to get this stat to 0% so I have one less thing to micromanage late game. These give the player longer-term goals to reach "fully automated" status, like 100% poison chance + 0% bad robot chance and make it so each crate lasts super long and battery has like 2 minutes worth of charge at max.
- once saw an upside down rat moving (object pooling bug), and a poisoned rat with its yellow thought bubble but not filling up ((object pooling bug too?). minor bugs but maybe it's intended for humor so it's more cool than annoying.
- what happens when a bad robot goes through? I know it flashes red but what happens? if it reduces cash, should have an indicator like -$200 so I know.
- there's a stats screen? Cool!
Hygiene/UI improvements:
- would be nice to have a short delay before u can click on upgrades - accidentally selected an upgrade I didn't want just as I was gonna click a rat and it appeared.
- hygiene could have an indicator to how much it affects profits (also solves those who skip the tutorial wondering what it does)? Knowing if 'F' gives me -25% vs -90% affects my decision to clean the factory or not. Late game though, it doesn't matter since it caps at 50%(?) and my hygiene is always either 'A' or 'F', seldom in between due to infestations instantly dropping you to from 'A' to 'F' easily.
- Also, 'clean factory' is a scam! I selected it after an infestation and it didn't clear all the rats, causing me to rise to 'A', and instantly drop to 'F' in 5 seconds, meaning I spent for nothing. imagine my shocked pikachu face!
Final thoughts:
- Wish there was a way to trigger the upgrade screen prematurely (even at the cost of cash), cuz i'm swimming in money, and the costs of upgrades is irrelevant - it's the frequency that is the bottleneck, not the cash - either this or add an upgrade that GREATLY increases the frequency (like 2x) at the cost of cash, so rich people have the option to sacrifice cash to technically get nothing but more opportunity to spend - this way, over time cash and upgrade frequency balance out and u never run into the scenario of "too much cash, just waiting"
- if it's meant to not drag out to be a longer game, this will make the gameplay loop so much tighter and more engaging.
- On for the opposite end, considering the game fails you very quickly after going into debt, and costs seem to scale by % of cash, there should be an option to not select an upgrade that would put you in debt. I wanted to keep playing but the game 'forced' me to lose by selecting an upgrade I could not afford.
Despite minor balance issues, I still gave it full stars for enjoyment because it managed to hook me in with its core gameplay and occasional infestation and hacker scenarios :)