Great idea but the beginning is incredibly annoying. The snow groing back resetting every progress in the area and freezing units is too much of a setback to actually enjoy the game.
I wish there was a better way to restrict the area, maybe with connection beacons instead of campfires, it does not fit the mecha-aesthetic visually nor does it make mechanical sense when evrything else is futuristic.
Too many things are happening at once and the floor is cluttered with items instantly. This game does not give the player the time to explore and make mistakes, it punishes and sets back the progress.
The UI is pretty and intuitive, especially the programming part. In the same vein there needs to be settings to change the sizes, at least for the font.
UI and graphic style are great, UX and mouse controls need to be tweaked. In my opinion the whole point of programing-style games is to make mistakes and find out new things with time. So far the gameplay loop seems made only for people already proficient with it, new players are going to pick games they don't feel frustrated because they forgot to supply one campfire.
Can't wait to see how this develops!
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Thanks for so comprehensive review.
Can you clarify, is bonfires feels frustrating to you only on the beginning?
Or the whole concept of melting snow with bonfires looks weird to you?
Or it starts from some moment.
Beause beacons looks close to idea with bonfires.
May be some item like "thermal bomb" witch will temporary will melt snow on tile it droped to will solwe this problem better.
I have not reached anything beyond the first couple quests but what annoyed me was that I lost space to work with every time a bonfire went off. The floor was littered with items (because I tried out new combinations) and the workspace was cluttered.
What I would suggest are ways to give players the chance to sort in a way before they reach dedicated storage units (to prevent cluttering) maybe via the ship so the player can hold a small amount of items they dont know what to do with.
Another way to prevent it feeling like a punishment for trying out new things is to slow down the rate snow grows back. As soon as I made a mistake the bonfires went out, leaving me with no way to reach the further still active fires.
To keep it short – losing workspace, progress and the connections is a bit too punishing for new players as far as I have experienced it.
You are not at sll annoying, its hard to explain via text. Ill try to take a couple screenshots and post them in the discord!
But to give a better picture, the floor was partially filled with items I collected when exploring the surrounding with the bonfires. Once I lost one bonfite I automatically lost valuable space to organize my items and had to move them closer to the rocket, cluttering the space even more.
Like I said, this is only a critique at the start of the game when the player is making mistakes with the bonfires.
Giving the players a bit more space to create chaos at first could make it more smooth when learning the ropes. Boomers like me can easly get overwhelmed if I have to do more than focus on bringing back my old ActionScript knowledge :D
Hi Atih, I did see a youtuber grab one of the extra flames in the first bonfire and drag it to other bonfires. Temp solution of cause before we automate more and more, as in Autonauts, have a look if you want. Great game, I just started today, great time to be a gamer right?
C u in the Discord!
(could not find your name there, I'm called the same as here, find me if you want to chat ok?)
Jake.