Loved my initial play session with this, but the save bug took the wind out of my sails. I wasnt that keen to give the game another go for a few more days, and single session it. However, I do have some feedback.
The fact that vast majoritay of feedback is Technical and Quality of Life stuff is a good sign, that the underlying gameplay is pretty cool and enjoyable.
I didnt reach the "end game" as it were. I was post -revival, pre-warp drive, so some of my feedback may have been addressed later in the game
Technical Issues:
Any thing under this heading feels like something that is broken.
- I have encountered the same save bug others here have, so won't repeat it here.
- If I have the ship menu open, when approaching the first planet in the tutorial level, the game will not fully close the menu, and control will not return to me. Basically, a lock and I cannot return to the game. Had to restart.
- Issues with the Mouse cursor and fullscreen mode. Mouse cursor is offset from its actual position, and I was often pointing to the far right bottom corner, in order to interac with the menu. This was not a problem im window mode, so played the game there.
- Issue with the mouse and menus when stacked on top of each other. It was possible to interact with both the top menu, and the menu underneathat the same time. The best place to see it when selecting a save, and the confirmation menu appears. Both menus can be interacted with simultaneously, and it is confusing.
- Issue with the mouse overriding keyboard commands. If the mouse was on a menu, and I was trying to drive commands via the keyboard, the KB command appears to execute and then the mouse. This gave me the impression my inputs were not being received. Was particularly noticable on the Starmap menu, with all its little boxes. When I rememebred to move the mouse far off to the side, I was fine. When I went to do something as I played, and used the mouse, it could recreate the issue for me. Maybe a test that mouse position command is only accepted if the mouse moves between frames / steps?
- Visual issue with platform control console sometimes hiding behind planet elements. I could still use the platform, it is just more of a wierd visual thing.
Game Feedback
Actual feedback on the gameplay itself (not much here).
- The portion of the game where I am tasked with getting the 6000 and the ship upgrade felt a little grindy, though I am also thinking that may have been the point (its a job, and it can get a bit like that). I actually had the ship upgrade part before Dripbert told me about it, so I pre-emptively skipped a stepping stone that would have occured before this point, and I had a stretch where all I had to do was work to earn the credits in an undirected fashion. It didnt help that while hunting for work to do, the Job Board seemed to not have jobs that were useful to me. A lot of them were "Collect a thing, retun it to X person" but some part of the job required access out of system. I got frustrated, and ended up just collecting warp fuel from one planet, and shipping it across to another. It would have worked (baring the save crash), but it felt a bit like I had fallen away from what was intended.
- Dripberg dialog regarding his "Clue" for the upgrade units. If I already have it, is the clue necessary? Could the dialog of the clue be modified, to acknowledge that you have it already? Still have him call in, do his spiel (which does give information in story as to what it is), but also give some context dialog like "Ohhh, you already have it? Great!". I always like it in games when you get the jump on things, and the dialog acknowledges it. (though in saying that, how would Dripberg have access to this information that you already obtained the item?)
- Text in the Communications (not the character dialog) when it approaches the end of line. The last word in the line that will exceed the line lenght will start to print on the current line, then jump the last word of the line to the start of a new line. It fine, its not broken, but it made reading these as they came in a bit jarring / jumpy.
- On a planet, I sometimes got a little lost from the platform. The worlds are not that large, and without the pressure of a death state from lack of oxygen, the stress of getting back quick isnt there, so I can take time to find the platform . However, knowing the general direction to the platform would help when you add the O2 limits and other such aspect in.
- And for my stupidest feedback - Dumping toxic waste on a uninhabited planet feels like it should have a reaction of some kind. I know there is no life there, and its a "victimless crime", but it also feels like something a Captain Planet villain would do. Not sure if I am asking for consequences (a cargo being hazardous and affecting the player), but maybe acknowledgement of it being a less-than-great thing? This might be something you will come back to on the story side.
General, Misc and Stickler Feedback
These things dont feel broken, but just need some polish. "Quality of Life" feedback.
- Backing out of the menus feels inconsistent. In the PDA menu that accompanies the player at all times, the Escape key can be used to step back up one level in the menu. In the ship menu, particularly the diagnostics for the ship, I had to select a distinct "back" button.
- When does the game save its progress? If its communitcated to the player, I dont know and may of missed it. It feels like it saves each time you return to your ship, or tied to the end game event, but that is just at a guess based on my one good save and reload (before the bug). Not advocating for a particular solution (a big intusive "GAME SAVED" propmt, the ability to save anywhere, in-story acknowledgement of a save mechanic) rather just a little clarity here would have made me comfortable in my first playthrough before I went to bed.
- A way to skip the opening text crawl (if only for dev builds like this, where story is not a big factor). We had the option to speed up most other dialog (and was appreciated)
- Starting at the title screen, and going to settings menu, using only KB input (no mouse). The settings menu is a stripped down version of the PDA with only one node (settings). I still needed to select the Settings node, before getting access to selecting the options within. It feels like in this case, the node should be pre-selected, saving a button press. My narration is shit-house.
- Key displays that show a "mini-version" for the Ship (the navigation minigame, the starmap) have a ship sillouette that always has the ships nacelles in. Visually, this is great (as it gives the ship a rough triangular V shape to it, so direction of motion is clear) but when I was tramping around without the warp drive, I saw it and then couldnt un-see it. Other places (particularly the ship diagnostic views) d adjust based on whether the ship has nacelles or not. It just feels inconsistant.
- The ability to remove missions from list (particularly missions aquired from the Jobs board ). I accepted a few I didnt mean to (for items I did not know, or planets I could not get-to pre-warp), and they hung around in my list. This was towards the end of my playthrough, so the feature may already be there and I missed it. Apologies if this is not an issue.