itch.io

1. That's a tricky question (but a good one). The problem you are stating here is more of a design question. My recommendation is to make small changes, test it, then either scrap it or rebalance, repeat. If it's a game changer, like new mechanics, try it on paper first. With this I mean, try it with different play styles. Often than not, they don't fit with the theme of the game, or change it's core principles. For every mayor change, always ask yourself: with this, is it still your game or a completely different one?

2. About the RTS vs Incremental question, we have to first review what those 2 terms mean (my own based opinion).

RTS stands for Real Time Strategy. Note the key word is strategy, not tactics, so you are compelled to have some form of resource management and giving orders to your troops (either by setting objectives or giving direct orders).

On the the other hand, incremental is a more lenient theme, but it's fundamentally based around resource management, with a focus on progression and the limitless accumulation (game saving is a must in this case). Almost all games with some form of sustainable resource management can be played incrementally. Examples of this are:

The Settlers II. In there, except for minerals, stone and fish, and their derivatives, everything else can be accumulated in your headquarters and storage houses ad infinitum.

Age of Empires, where you can get infinite ore with relics and trading, and buy any other resource with it.

Empire Earth, with the market trait. Set up multiple farms and sell the food. Then you can buy everything else.

Command & Conquer. The tiberium regenerates around those "hollow trunks". It's predecessor, Dune is the same with the spice.

Tzar. This classic has a trade form that allows passive accumulation of any resource with the trade technology. Fields, once setup and manned, never run out. You can also trade resources in the tavern (at a 10 to 1 ratio).

Note all the above are RTS games. The list is endless, buy I thing you got the idea.

Love the game!

I would like to ask for the following (Yes, it's a long list, but don't feel pressured):

The ability to deconstruct/destroy buildings (due to misplacement, for my ocd). I also noted that construction tends to be obstructed by units, but the units don't do collision with buildings. Choose one.

Add hotkeys. For example, assigning numbers for buildings, etc. And make clear the current selection. For example, make a ghost of the building follow the cursor, or make a frame around the selected option (any noticeable effect will do). Keep the selection ongoing till the user deselects. It's cumbersome on the mid game and late game, where the only thing left to do is spam buildings.

Make the pyramid 6x6 instead of the current 5x5. All the other buildings are 2x2, the oddness here doesn't make sense (And I hate that storage bin misaligned).

Make a limit to the amount of units, based on buildings. For example, each gatherer can employ up to 3 workers (arbitrary), and something similar with the military. You could even have the houses work for a population limit (you need the manna anyways to build the other buildings). In that case, how about adding temples to gather the manna/favor instead? Yes, manna is written with double 'n'. Funny, isn't it? Also, add statistics on population.

Make workers and towers be targets too (you can make so with everything, but let's start simple). Currently, you can spam towers and be done for it, since they can't be destroyed.

Try optimizing the game. The assumed workflow per tick should be: Iterate and update logic, iterate and update graphics, skipping drawing over whatever not on the screen (you can add a margin for a smoother camera movement).

As I don't know how you update the map, I can't make better suggestions on how to improve upon it. How about making resources semi permanent, and you have to destroy them manually, using manna/favor? Or use the next day screen to update the map (pausing the logic update loop).

Found it: It was by doing prestige when a bonus popup appears. Seems like it gets triggered and boosts the next run by 20 or something.

At first I tried spacing the max buy all, and going to the nelson scene before prestiging. But then I noticed the bonus on one prestige and then got confirmation. I then prestiged with no bonus on sight, back to normal. Another prestige with the bonus on sight and the boost happened again.

On another note, glad to hear the max issue was fixed!

After posting my comment, I came up with a little suggestion for the clothes and accessories menu: to change it to a drop down list (or a list box or similar). The issue happens after unlocking a lot of girls, since their clothes and accessories get added, making navigation with the left/right buttons a hassle.

Hello, there are some things that are "bugging" me:

1. Could there be an error on the buy max formula? If you click fast enough, you increment your mps (money per second) faster and beyond than by clicking sparsely. I noticed this on earlier versions too, comparing the max to multipliers and in between. Always buying with the x1 turn out to be cheaper (ie: buying 10 times x1 is cheaper in total cost than buying 1 of x10 and so on for the same interval of levels).

2. Switching to another girl resets the settings of futanari, pubic hair, clothes and accesories (wich could be understandable). But switching back does not recover the settings for that girl. If I'm going to pay with prestige currency, I would like the customization on each girl to be persistent. And instead of paying each time, could you, perhaps, make it more like unlockables? (ie: after buying the futa "package" for some girl, I can change between the modes for free).

3. Apparently the names of short slave dress and long slave dress are switched.

Nice game! Finished in 16mins 5 secs (biggest size), but with almost no clicking. I started clicking the left side of the pile of bricks, to bring them closer, but then realized there are more bricks than neccessary. I would like to request an even bigger size!

As suggestion, since it's linear, the ramp could elevate the moment all workers required to finish the current floor have already went up the ramp. This would shorten the waiting time.

Fun fact: Pyramid construction and public works where used as a mean to keep the populace (mostly farmers) occupied from the idle months of the Nile River flood. They had almost no slaves.

Very simple, but loved it! As I always advice: if you add sounds and/or music, always give at least a mute button.

I noticed some sounds are from AoE. How about implementing the basics of that game? Houses for population cap, and farms as passive generators (either implicit or explicit by generating a coin). Then you could move the cost increment from the units onto the buildings. Additionally, since there's terrain acquisition, apply some of The Settlers' mechanics, where expansion is due to military buildings and/or pioneers. There's so much things you can do to the game...

That's pretty nice! I was gonna answer you soon, but got struck with a bad case of flu. When you asked my opinion on popups, did you mean like the toast ones (reference minecraft)?

Nice game! If something, using alert dialogs for the achievements is a horrible idea.

Hmmm, nice game. Progression is too linear, when there's too many factories, the game starts lagging. At about a quarter or less of all the building area filled with factories, the game becomes unplayable. You might wanna check on that (there are optimizations to this very problem on most engines)

Suggestions:

As many stated, the progression it's too linear. Try decreasing the profit per cost on each tier. That way, you can create an efficiency vs space constraint problem.

As for information, building count and slime rate is appreciated. Also, mentioning you get refunded 50% of building on demolition button is nice. Btw, the button is missing the last letter. If it's due to clipping you can either add more space or decrease the font.

Since there's no use for the slime rather than selling them, you can either make the factory produce the coins directly, and leave the slime to the lore; or you can effectively make the factories more functional, ie: the slime generator producing slime balls, which then gets compacted/refined/processed into more profitable tiers/items.

Nice game!

Found a bug:

With at least 2 type of seeds, while holding one of them, if you click on quick plant, the seeds you are holding will disappear, and plant the other one. I found it, thinking I could select the seed to plant, like the produce selling in the market.

As a suggestion, how about adding fertilizer and irrigation? They could help reduce the growing time of crops.

An autoplanter and autoharvest (and even an autoseller) would be good. Could be a repetitive update, each one reducing the interval.

Since there's no actual use for the produce except selling it, how about adding a factory component for turning them into others, more profitable items, like potato into flour, or turnips and carrots into livestock feed?

You can do with even less: 5 batteries, 4 engines, the 3 crewmen, full decked drone bay, and around 15 solar panels, ensuring 4 times the consumption (since it gets reduced to 25% on destination). The consumption of matter is 3x10 + 5 + 4 + 10 = 49. For 240 days of travel, it amounts to 12 tons. Assume 20 tons above the required for travel, which is around 30 tons, so a total of ~50 tons of matter.

Ok... On my second attempt, I almost reached the belt. Nailed on the third. Looked at the code a bit for clues and it's noted:

The matter required is only the one consumed by the thrusters, it doesn't take into account the normal consumption (and remember your drones aren't working during the travel).

Your energy signature will change from the sinusoidal form to peak flat. It also decreases to 25%, which, according to the traveled distance, of 1.2 AU, obeys the inverted square law.

Some suggestions:

A plan flight to the asteroid belt will usually involve an orbit transfer to lunar orbit and then using the gravitational assistance from Earth. This reduces the required costs (and time). Transfer orbit is very cost efficient.

You can then break the travel into 2:

1. Travel to the moon. The drones efficiency will drop (or be disabled). You can counter it with the drones mining the lunar surface or reducing matter launching costs (since Moon's gravity is lesser). Assume a polar orbit, and we'll have sun 100% of the time. It's still possible to save the crew, in case of a mishap.

2. Travel to the asteroid belt. The usual, but the cost is greatly reduced. This allows for a bigger station.

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I would like a display of the drone matter harvesting and power consumption on the build info. This information IS necessary. Same with the power and matter consumption of the crew, including the credits they generate. Would also love to see the credit generation rate. There is space above the credit display.

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I don't have a direct account of my matter consumption. Try to mimic the power UI box. Something like first row for production, consumption on the second and the third row for available. This also has the advantage for when implementing a cargo bay in the future (if the game moves into that direction).

If the concern is the screen space, you can try reducing the font on the boxes one or two sizes. This kind of games are played on computers, and assuming a 1024 x 768 monitor display is perfectly acceptable, so you have more space to play with. Since itch.io right side buttons are invasive, we usually play on full screen anyways.

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What killed my third round was that module building does not take into account the available matter. +93 net positive matter production, still reached bellow zero while constructing a solar panel. Try to implement a fail safe, like pausing construction when matter is extremely low (.1 tons or something), or dynamically adjust the consumption.

So far, that's it.

Loved the game. I would like to make the travel requirements to the asteroid belt adjustable. I mean, when I noticed the travel button, I was over 7000 tons in mass, making the 20 days travel virtually impossible.

How about making the travel time dynamic. In real world, you accelerate for up to half the distance, then turn the ship 180 degrees and decelerate for the same period to a stop.

For that, you use the quadratic equation:

X = accel*(time**2)/2

where X is half the distance from Earth to the asteroid belt

extracting time (replacing X for D/2):

time = sqrt(D / accel)

where D is distance to asteroid belt.

The accel will be in function of the amount of ionic engines by the thrust they give:

accel = amountThrusters * thrustPerEngine

then your requirement for the travel is the amount of energy and mass per second for the thrust.

EnergyRequiredPerSecond = amountThrusters * energyPerEnginePerSecond

MassRequiredPerSecond = amountThrusters * massPerEnginePerSecond

Then, we won't require to have ALL the energy and mass at the beginning of the travel. If I have to travel for 10 years in-game, so be it.

You can suggest the total amount required for the travel, however. Hope this helps.

On another note, I can't progress if i don't travel to the belt (stopped playing here). How about using the data center to do some research, like improving the efficiency of the components, or providing better tech (like nuclear and antimatter). They could provide with bits per second, as a currency. Make the cost non-linear. Additionally, since we can now improve the components, add a way to recycle them.

Oh, and add a way to create a building queue or something similar (allowing, for example, to build 1000 battery stacks). Clicking in the thousands is hella exhausting. Since humans assemble the components, make the time to build dependant on their numbers (within reason, maybe add a cap). A 3 man station would build slower than a crew of 50. And it would be reasonable for a large station to build in batches (using the queue, for example).

Love the game! I noted it's more cumbersome to plant than to harvest. Maybe add a way to plant max selected crop per layer, perhaps, like a button.

When buying 10 of  Gas pump, it sends the amount to Gas Tele, or something. And Heater 2 buys by 10 on click.

Nice game! So far the only bugs I found where 2:

1- It's possible to pick up a little more than the maximum by using scoop 3x3 over more than 1 trash in it's action radius, near the storage limit. This is due to gathering everything without checking space (it's ok, not an exploitable bug, therefore not game-breaking)

2- Clicking very fast near end-game. Since each collecting trash action triggers a noise event, clicking very fast overloads the max amount of simultaneous sounds, and makes the music disappear for a short moment. Try using a separate channel and/or impose a limit to the sounds effects.

Some recommendations: The garbage depot (or bin, however you call it), that shows the score, looks like a button in itself; transfer the shop button functionality to it. This is more of a personal taste though.