I did it! Pheeew, it was close... and I did NOT manage to get a lot of potentially interesting researches, due to lack of time and funds. (And I still don't know how to get the giant lizard! Which I suppose is named SCP-682)
The Blood God design is stunning, with all those you-know-what inside.
On the contrary, the end screen, "Blood God Defeated - the end", is anticlimatic after all this effort: so, as a revenge, I send the devs here to ruin their life :D
Jokes aside, if the devs are interested, I can send my quasi-final stats, if this can help balancing the game.
While most people complained about the Retreat cooldown (which is unfair, I must admit, but after some practice I found it manageable), I have other concerns:
- When units are in the same spot, their health bars overlap (for both me and the enemy), so it is hard to assess how the battle is going.
- To add insult to injury, dropped resources cover the health bars completely. A textbook case of Obstructive Foreground.
- When you send a unit, the counter of total units on the field (on the right) takes time to update. This can be annoying and hinder tactics.
- Where I work, the UX team is always on our throat if they see a horizontal scrollbar. In this game you already have one (to pan the scenery), but when you get a lot of unit types, another one appears! It makes selecting the units harder. I want to send the best units for the job, in the correct number, in the correct order: but this is not easy if I have to scroll left and right (and sometimes the bar autonomously moves left or right and makes me select the wrong unit type. Maybe this happens if I'm selecting units while other units are returning to the base). So please try to review the design of the unit selector. If, in the end, the unit scrollbar is unavoidable, at least find a way to compensate it. A worthy reward for a player that reaches this level would be the ability to pause the game even in the main screen... maybe even some kind of RTWP ? or am I asking too much? (I'm sufficiently old to remember the frustration of launching an attack with many units in Dune2, they never arrived in the order or formation I wanted!)
EDIT (30/10/2023): another game! I was looking for a challenge so I aimed for the Basic Weapons achievement, and I got it! I thought it would have been harder then the normal strategy, and in fact it is, but only at the beginning. About mid-game, I found it even easier... TOO easy probably... at a certain point, I realized that the waves were not challenging any longer, that I had a lot of money and nothing useful to research further, and enough firepower to kill the Blood God twice, but unfortunately I yet don't know how to summon it (her?) before the end. Maybe this is a sign that I'd better move on, to the the Medium/Euclid mode...
EDIT2 (01/11/2023): failed very soon in Euclid/Medium mode, maybe I'm not ready yet? :(
But since the monsters are clearly thougher, having less initial money and rep sounds unfair (I'd reserve this for Keter and above). And did I really say that the Retreat cooldown was manageable? I retract it, your honor! ;)
Meanwhile, some other findings:
- Even when I'm high level and I have a lot of money, Reputation is still a harsh bottleneck. And if it's a nuisance in Easy mode, it's deadly in Medium mode. I'd suggest to review this "double currency" mechanism to make sure it's really balanced.
- If I pump up my Sideguards with extra research, the bullet counter appears only when they have 14 bullets left, but not before: is this a bug or by design? (I did not try with other units).
- in the Genetics info for the Blood God, it says "it is unknown if this entity is capable of leaving the Red Pool", and it's ok at the beginning. At the end, it deserves something more creepy, since the Blood God is literally crawling to get you.
- Trying to delete a saved game does not work (of course I can overwrite them, but it's just a workaround).
- When I load a game, the Auto options that were checked when I saved are not enabled. It could be by design, and it could be a good idea, to avoid wasting resources, but it should be clearly documented, to avoid confusing the player. And after you reach Duplication Level 5, duplication should be always automatic: having the checkbox for duplication makes no sense whatsoever, because it does not waste anything, it's all gain for the player.
- Some days ago I pointed out that the Personnel menu shows the number of units in the base, but not outside. For Genetics monsters, it shows neither: again, having both would be very useful, to take informed decisions.
- The game lets you research higher levels of Genetics even if they don't unlock new monsters. It should put a cap on it, so the player does not waste money and rep dreaming of extra monsters, or extra abilities for existing monsters, or some other secret boon (Unless there is REALLY a secret boon at really higher levels!).
- The same is (probably) true also for Director Orientation.
- There is STILL the bug about Sirens transforming into Needles when they come back to my base! This is a real pain, since this does not happen for other monsters, and the Sirens have a valuable AoE attack that Needles lack.