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znart2 years ago

Interesting mash up between a strategy game and a guessing game. 

I didn't really see the correlation between the number on a node when "attacking" another node. As long as the code was guessed, you win, it seems. And there is no penalty for retrying. So if I didn't guess in the 5 or 6 tries, I could just keep going back repeatedly. I don't know if I was actually playing against other players, or the computer, I just didn't get a sense of that.

There were a few nodes that I could not actively collect or conquer or whatever. 

The graphics and audio were ok. Some audio feedback when doing things would have been nice, but the graphical display of a little pop was good. The collision boxes for the nodes could be a little better. I felt like my character was on top of a node, only to go into the code selection box a little bit, causing a bit of confusion.

Thanks for the submission!

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Deeperbeige2 years ago(+1)

Thanks for the in-depth review.

You're definitely playing against other humans. But you might not have had anyone else playing when you played! All the codes and owned nodes are set by real people. And you can see them moving around in the world if they're online at the same time as you.

The numbers on the nodes indicate the score your team gets for owning it. I think that's in the instructions somewhere, but it's easily missed. It's meant to add an incentive for players to fight over the higher value nodes in the middle, just so you get to see other players when there aren't many people online and playing.

The only penalty for retrying a node is that you can't see any of your history. There's nothing stopping you from retrying straight away. I was thinking of adding a cooldown, or force you to try a different node first or something, but it's already a complicated enough game and I didn't have time to add audio, so definitely didn't have time to add refinements. So while I take the criticism on board, I can hide behind the usual jam excuse of not enough time!

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znart2 years ago

I know the title says MMOG, but I must have been some of the few playing. It's good to know about the numbers. I can see some balance issues where a player can just run to a high number and take it over.

What happens if a player modifies their code as another is trying to capture their node? Or what happens when two opposing players try to capture the same node?

The more I've thought and played it (it's still on my system), the more I wonder what happens in the long term. I think it's a great concept and I can easily see this being a viable game that can make money one day, for sure! But I can also see that if a new player joins after all the nodes are captured, they'd give up trying to even get a single node. The Mastermind game take a while, and I can see people trying to get a node the first time before giving up and uninstalling it. I am not saying it's a problem, but something I can see happening with the degraded attention span.

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Deeperbeige2 years ago(+1)

If the code you're working on is changed by another player, it kicks you out of the code-breaking minigame. You can try again straight away, but the code will be different.

It's an interesting experiment I think. One player took loads of the central nodes for team red. I spent a couple of minutes cracking the first one, then tried that code on other nodes. It worked, he hadn't bothered to change it between nodes. There's a lesson about using the same password for everything in there somewhere!

It really hasn't had many players. I tend to leave myself logged on if my computer is on, but I haven't seen anyone join at least at the times I've been checking. You can see how many people are playing in the score panel - it shows the number of people in each team, and the total online.

You're right, the Mastermind/Wordle game is too hard, but you can use psychology too. In times where there aren't many players, you can try the same codes on all the same coloured nodes like I did. With more players, you can see the code someone is using while they're attacking a node, so if they move away you can remember it and take it back when they aren't looking. There's all sorts of subtlties, and there's almost certainly aspects I haven't considered too - this is the first realtime multiplayer game I've built!

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