itch.io

I had an AMAZING time with this game and want to keep playing VERY BADLY. I would happily pay $10-15 for this as a full game.

Some feedback:
- The conversation that's happening while I'm building my character is distracting, and I can't tell whether it's important or just optional chatter. If it's important, make it more central on the screen and cut it down so I don't have to get through a wall of text before I've even started playing.
- I found the way that text appears at the top of the screen completely infuriating. The lack of a "click to show all text" feature was really felt, and the fact it auto-advanced when it was done made me feel like I was not at all in control of the way the text advanced. It just sort of marches on, and I have to work to its rhythm, not the other way round.
- The light green text is impossible to see on the default UI theme; I had to switch to a darker one just to be able to read it.

The good:
- The Projects system is pretty intuitive, and works well with the Deadlines system. Although it wasn't always clear what I *could* be doing at any moment, these two systems made it quite clear what I was *expected* to be doing, which meant I often felt out of my depth but never lost, if that makes sense.

- The "expand your HQ by buying office space" system is satisfying. I particularly like how it's complicated by your CEO having to fly out to different branches later in the game to manage those spaces.

- I like how the board members are both the people you have to please by doing their missions, but also your agents who can secure a last-minute deal or improve skills.

- The emotional management feels a bit barebones at the moment, but I really like the fact that it lets you feel like a CEO *person*, not just a CEO *avatar*. "Damn, I've lost focus and can't finish this negotiation - well, I guess I'll just pump an experimental wonderdrug directly into my veins so I can get my head in the game!"

- The mix of realtime and kind-of-turn-based gameplay I found really seductive. Reminds me a bit of Cultist Simulator or the realtime map part of Phantom Doctrine (ie. the one part of that game that was really good). The conversations/negotiations remind me or Suzerain, a conversation-based political sim that everyone should check out if they like this.

I have some questions: what are you using to build this? At a guess I'd say Unity with Ink?

Finally, were you at all inspired by my game Spinnortality? I was struck by how both our games cover VERY similar ground (running gigantic evil corporations, a Board overseeing your actions, experimental tech) but this game takes it in a totally different direction that I was completely bowled over by.

Hey, I thought this was a fun little thing! I think the pixelly art style and very dark/grey palette work well to sell the atmosphere. If this game branched out into more complex recipes with more ingredients I would definitely buy it.

You can upgrade your office cubicles to a lawyer's office and then hire lawyers that way.

Ah, that makes sense. To be fair, I think you did a really decent job given you only had access to free assets. And it makes sense that the track generation system would limit the angle of those turns.

Hi, I played this and really enjoyed it! I think you capture the whole "driving through a lazy city as the sun goes down mood" really well.

Some feedback:

- The car felt a little light when making a turn. What I really want is to feel the pull of the road as I lean into each turn, so that I can feel connected to the road. The physics seems just a little bit off for that: the car is a bit too light, and is liable to bounce around a bit too much.

- I'd also love to see the ability to change gears. There's nothing quite like seeing a straight section of road ahead (in real life) and flooring the gas - changing up a gear - flooring it again - going up a gear - and hearing that satisfying "thunk" each time, as the engine goes deeper. I think it'd make the whole thing feel a bit more "crunchy".

- Could you generate turns which are not 90 degrees? Might make each turn feel a bit different.

Anyway, like I said, great game!

Sorry for the delay - thought I'd subscribed to this topic, hrm...

Sure! Can you send it to jamesdavidpatton [at] gmail [dot] com?

Aw thank you! :D

Go into the dark.

Thank you, I hope you enjoy! :D

AAAAAAARGH

(Excellent game btw, but my GOD these people are frustrating)

If I make scenes in FlowScape and photograph them, do I have exclusive intellectual rights to that image? Could I, for example, make a scene in FlowScape, photograph it, and use that image in a commercial project such as a videogame which I would then sell?

This is a wonderful game. I'm going through a bit of a rough spot right now, partly due to despair over the future of society and how unfair and brutal it is. Although this game can't portray a  way forward in all of its confusing complexity, it at least gave me a few nudges as to a future I can imagine that doesn't just lead to something awful.

NO WAY! I'm so glad you got it fixed! Thanks for following up here, by the way: it's good to know what caused this so that if it happens again I can tell that person "um hey look it's almost definitely the read privileges".

Hope you like the game now you've finally got it working! :)

Can you access the ~Library folder at all? (Be aware: ~Library is a hidden folder, and there is apparently a duplicate Library folder that is not hidden by default.)

This post does a pretty good job explaining it: https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/show-hidden-files-mac-3520878/

That is so frustrating, I'm so sorry! Could you guys send me your log files? They should be in "~/Library/Logs/Unity/Player.log".

You can send me an email with the log at jamesdavidpatton [at] gmail [dot] com.

I just replied on that thread:

This issue has been fixed, BUT it relies on the game being placed in a folder where the game has read privileges. For one user, this just meant taking the game out of the Downloads folder - try moving it somewhere else and trying again?

If that still doesn't fix it then of course you can have a refund, let me know :)

This issue has been fixed, BUT it relies on the game being placed in a folder where the game has read privileges. For one user, this just meant taking the game out of the Downloads folder - try moving it somewhere else and trying again?

Hi there! Yeah, I'm really not sure how to give players stuff to spend their money on in the mid game. By that point you've basically bought everything. 
My advice is to just focus on doing whatever the board wants next. If you focus on each mission you should be able to rack up agenda points and start buying up agendas before too long. You do have a long road ahead, though!

Have subsequent versions worked for you?

That is super weird. I'm a bit concerned now.

Yeah, the sliders are really annoying right now. I want to make them more intuitive and less... horrible... but it's a matter of "if I have time before release". 

Glad you like it! This has been fixed, the board will now only ask you to research projects that are not the AI virus.

Oooooh, don't go down that road, they won't like it ;)

Hi, this has been fixed so it won't happen in the next build. Thanks!

And can you explain exactly what you click? It's possible you're doing something I didn't anticipate.

Could you send me a save file of this? My email is spinnortalitysignup at gma il do t c om (spaced out so spambots don't find it).

I took it out because people kept accidentally clicking the End turn button instead. Just press escape :)

That is incredibly weird. Does it still happen if you save, quit, then load the game?

If it does persist after you save and reload, can you send me your save file?

Right, it's 3 months late but this issue is now fixed.

Andy, you are totally right about the redundant "Stocks" problem. You're right, I should just hide that number and show you the percentage. Even if the stocks are not bought from another company, it still "feels" fine, except for the fact that you get this extra pointless number. It's also causing some confusion with players who somehow have more stocks but less shares than the controlling shareholder. (I assume this is a rounding error.)

And you should be able to see your own share % in the latest build, I tihnk that was a scrolling issue.

Beautiful. I think I'll consider why and how I'm constructing the world while doing my shopping, the world will be complete at checkout, and then the burden begins.

This is brilliant. I'm already kind of doing this: I stim with rings, I wear pendants to remind myself of who I am, and I've bleached pentagrams and sigils onto T-shirts to enchant them.

That's really weird: I'm using the same system to display their vulnerability as I do to display their power, so if one worked then the other should as well. I'll take a look for the next build and see what's going on.

Thanks! I might even move the menu button somewhere else completely: even after I fix the collision box for the end turn button, people might accidentally click it just because they're so close.

This is now fixed! An odd bug broke the loading system. I've uploaded a fixed version, so you should be able to continue playing now.

Yup, that seems to work!

Currently testing a simple fix for this where the window is scaled down a bit but remains in the same place. (I tried moving it to other areas of the screen but everywhere else felt even weirder.)

So the idea with these newspaper articles is that they launch when the public first encounters this tech. Just because you, an all-powerful company, have secretly done some research doesn't mean it would get into the papers.

I will tweak it so that these will definitely fire even if your launch is a disaster (currently they only fire if your launch is semi-successful): naturally the newspapers would report on this stuff even if it was a failure. And I'll quickly have a once-over to see if some of these might be more applicable as "this has been researched" rather than "this has been launched".

I couldn't reproduce this problem, so I'm not sure if I've fixed it - but I was able to find one possible cause for this, which has now been fixed. So this might be gone now?

Fixed this: the mouseover/mousepress highlight for the button is now much clearer, and the globe won't turn if you click the mouse on the button itself.