Hello,
Cairn4! I want to offer a couple of ideas to your game. You can add, for example:
gym, where you can upgrade your skills.
Force - gives more speed of extraction of resources. Endurance run faster. It would also be a good way to add a rig.
Sorry for the error (if any). I am just Russian
Cairn4, I gave you an idea. You have the right not to implement it.
And something else! I like this game very much. I think you are doing it perfectly! Please do not stop making this game!
Full controller support would be really nice, this is definitely a laid back game and even though there's a virtual joystick I don't understand why I can't use an actual one. Another thing might be ruins to discover, and reasons to venture far from your base. Also multiplayer would be great I really wish I could build bases with my friends.
It would be interesting to add other animals to the base, which automate basic tasks but have special needs(and cute expressions for meeting them).
Example: Mr. Fluffles is an orange cat who specializes in cooking! He'll periodically turn your food raw materials into processed stuff, in exchange for eating some of them and draining your oxygen. If you give him luxury goods like a happy ball of yarn, he'll work better.
Animals are "bought" from a crafting bench you make that allows you to hire(bribe) them with goods.
I'm hoping this could be a simple thing to implement, while adding a lot to replayability:
The ability to change environment parameters when starting new game in Normal mode, similar to how currently it's possible to choose night cycle:
This way I'd be able to start a game in a lush garden paradise full of raw materials (close to Creative Mode, but still keeping the game part with depleting resources), a hostile hellhole, or something in between.
My guess is that this might be just adding a few values to probabilities used internally and a few new dials in the New Game dialog - no complicated interactions, no new graphics, no stuff that requires a lot of work.
New game mode, Career: the same kitty goes on (for example) 3 missions on different moons, keeping the tech tree progress between them:
Could be that leaving the moon is mandatory (needs to be done before the end of the day) in missions 1 & 2, or not - there will be no tech progress anyway.
Researching different artifacts could bring small permanent bonuses: food bowl gives an increase to food nutritional value, laser pointer makes suit hold more charge, fish bowl more air (;)), toy mouse or cat tree increase movement speed. Possibly only when researched for the first time - duplicates do nothing. Might need to rebalance and lower base kitty stats a bit to avoid making cats TOO AWESOME.
More vehicle types:
Glider: no HP value, flies over obstacles. Might have a solar recharging station?
Mining: drills, wells (VERY slowly filled with water, shows [!] to pull out a bucket + an upgrade which automatically puts water into base supply), geothermal heat pumps, cave systems...
A crazy sci-fi branch of tech tree:
In short: cool stuff, not always practical.
Trains! As in, an entire rail yard. Narrow gauge for mid-game, with locomotive built on bio-fuel generator (eats greens to run). Say, a sheet of metal and a piece of wood could make 3 pieces of straight tracks, 2 curved ones, or one specialty (switch). Maybe also mine carts and handcars (require pushing keys to run)?
With more advanced tech: monorail or mag-lev. Tracks made with metal bars and stone (hopefully not electronics, as these are very expensive). Locomotive requires 2-4 RTGs to be built, but no fuel afterwards. Building rails would be a nice late game money sink :)
Some use for tree seeds ;)
Challenges: every 3-5 days the Kitty High Command of the Feline Expeditionary Force would send you a challenge du jour, like:
All numeric values would slowly increase over the course of the game, building up difficulty. If the challenge is met on that day (limited time only!), there is a reward - player can choose one of, say, 3, randomized possibilities:
What I would like most is having an easier time getting all the possible artifacts. As far as I can tell, when you research artifacts, the result you get from your research is entirely random. This means that as you collect more artifacts, the likelihood of getting something you haven't already discovered becomes smaller and smaller as you get more of them; when you're trying to collect all 18, progress becomes maddeningly slow, and I get the feeling that I could keep finding and researching artifacts forever without getting them all. Is there a way to make it easier to collect all possible artifacts?
I think that some story of sorts would be a good idea, as there is a lot of potential to put one in the game, it probably should not be very heavy, but some story element would be nice.
Also some aggressive mobs and some way of having them so that they do not destroy your first base or are a problem in the early game, like having cave systems which are needed for game advancement, but have some sort of hostile enemy that the player can fight or avoid.
Addition to the Helper Animals post: They should arrive in packages suitable to who they are. Cats arrive in cardboard boxes, for example. Some cats will remain in the box even after you give them their preferred luxury item, because it's cozy!
There should be "pointless" items that are amusing to interact with. A scratching post. A work of "fine art". A ball pit for your cat to romp around in while idle.
More varied, less uniform map - distinct terrain features. Currently there is very little difference if I build my base on brown soil, or on rocks, or anywhere. Mostly it's about root veggies spawning nearby (and I quickly start growing food indoors, so it loses significance). It would be more interesting if I had a choice: be close to rock quarry, or space orange tree grove, or grassland, or magical fairy blueshroom forest...
And that's just with the resources & tile types (=> art assets etc.) already in the game. Eventually, it would be cool to have:
Ideally, the choice between uniform environment and large, pronounced biomes should be an option when starting the game (like day-night cycle). And it would be cool if I could get a quick preview of the map (partial, fuzzy and incomplete - not to spoil the fun of exploration) to decide where to plop down the lander for the first time.
an idea for a biome would be one filled to the brim with ice, the texture would be different to look like an ocean, this ocean with replenish its ice if you took some with a drop rate of 1-2
another idea, a plant that looks like the orange plant but its light blue and twice as rare. the affects are that if you eat it, +10 hunger, +50 oxygen. this would replace ice for the air tank recipe and make a lot more sense doing so. they would have a 1/10 chance to drop a seed if you mined them (idk why you would). this would make it easier to go farther out of your base.
last of all, iron is way too GRINDY to get in large quantities (100-200) and 50 iron just disappears late game, because everything is way too iron intensive and I have to go out again looking for iron immediately after I get back due to how much you need. the solution to this problem is either, make things use less iron in more recipes and/or make the drop rate 2-4 and larger groups where they already are.
Unpopular Opinion: multiplayer should not be added. the reason i say this is that their is not enough content in the game and some games need to be left alone.
EDIT: please add the oxygen fruit idea!
I would like to see maybe some sort of battery for the suit for the light. If you are playing Night only mode, the light doesn't last long enough at all so you are very, very limited and makes the game kinda long. The batteries could be like a food item, but for the suit and should be unlocked in the chemicals research. Maybe even using the batteries that you make already for the small and large capacitors batteries
If you could make more vehicles (ONE WITH AN OXYGEN STORAGE), and pendants, one with a batterie for example or with oxygene
And also please do a interior version for every crafting machine because it's such annoying to go out every time you want to craft anything.
And why can't you do a sas between two habitat rooms, to separate a place where you store things and one where you plant things, so if there is a leak in one all air is not going out, and do a pressure stat, because it's not very restrictive to have a leak.
And an automation reaserch, but this was already said previously.
And just a bit more optimization because i tried to play with my work computer in the train (it have integrated graphics) and it was unplayable, really. A "low detail mode" could be welcome. It's a very good game you made.
Being able to send message to other players, like bottles thrown in the sea, which would be found at random on the planet, . (See https://awkwardsilencegames.itch.io/thethingswelostintheflood )
I have many new ideas for your game development.Some are them are below
1. There should be cave like structure where we find coal and diamonds. Coal can be used for generators and diamonds for drilling purposes.
2. There be a water pond where we can use the water by filtration unit. The can water can also be pumped to the base using a pump unit via pipes.
3. There should be a new unit so it can be attached to the hover to dig or to created an artificial pond.
4. New material should be added like copper, quartz, titanium, etc. Quartz for making solar panels.
I feel happy if you like my ideas
Regards
My Channel: Youtube.com/ghostygamer
((Please excuse my essay; I got really excited thinking about this.))
First off, this is really cute and a robust start to a game. I really enjoyed it for the first two in-game months and was deeply engaged, but after that, the game doesn’t yet have much replay potential. The first round (the tutorial) was engaging because I was learning how the game worked and trying to stay alive. The second was fun because I had learned the system and could strategize how to best play. However, with my strategy set, the game was reduced to resource trawls and picking a new direction to look for artifact boxes. So then I went to work building my ideal moon base, and that was fun for a while. But at that point, the game no longer motivated me because there wasn’t much new to try.
That’s why I’m so glad that this game is still in development! I really want to love this game, and I hope the development team have some great things coming. (Props to you for building this, I’m sure I can’t fully appreciate the work you’ve already put into it.)
The easiest way I can think of to add cumulative progress to what you already have is to introduce a Settlement game mode. Instead of being a scientist on a research mission, you’re the first settler building a new space colony! You set up a self-sustaining base before building a signal tower and letting the orbiting space cruiser know that they can take a family out of cryostasis to come and live on the surface. Then, you move on to another patch of dirt a set distance from your last base and start building a new one. You can go back to old bases to refill your oxygen and see the families thriving (parents and their kittens in space suits!! So cute!). Eventually, when all the settlers are living on the planet’s surface, you can join up with other scientists to build the technology to terraform the planet.
This would provide motivation for longer gameplay without having to add many new features, but unfortunately, it would not improve the gameplay experience, which would still be focused largely around collecting resources. One of the upcoming features listed on Trello, cyclical weather, could potentially be expanded into different seasons; each season makes certain things more challenging, but may have a benefit to your settler as well. You could also introduce different biomes on the planet: large areas whose terrain and features were different, forcing you to change your gameplay strategy. For example, maybe there is a forest biome, where the trees grow so thickly that you have to constantly cut them down to clear a space for your base and paths to walk on to reach resources. Seasons and biomes together could create numerous combinations of challenges to keep gameplay more varied.
While it will be more labor-intensive, I hope that you will also work to improve the existing mission-oriented gameplay. Here are some things I think the game needs eventually: more robust incentives (for research, for mission deadlines, etc.), cumulative progress beyond one mission, and differences in the environment that will force us to change our gameplay strategy.
1. Urgency – several other players say they enjoy the really calm atmosphere of the game, and I’d love for there to be a play mode that preserves that experience for them (Settler Mode!). But to me, the general lack of stakes makes the late stages of the game feel tedious. The mission ends after a month, but there’s no rush to leave. In fact, leaving functionally means that you lose all your progress and have to start over. That disincentivizes me from blasting off!
Ideas: What if the end of the mission actually was a deadline? If you don’t blast off on day 30, you’ll miss your ride—the planets will move apart in their orbits, or the space hanger you were supposed to rendezvous with will chug along to the next planet, and you’ll be stuck there overwinter. The planet’s days will get shorter, and the weather will worsen. Maybe you’ll even be plunged into a month-long night when the plants can’t grow, and you’ll have 5 days to stockpile supplies to wait out the dark. You can choose to stay for scientific reasons, but the gameplay will be more challenging.
2. Progression of gameplay mechanics – currently, every mission is identical. You lift off from one planet, and are set down on another indistinguishable planet to start over. Collect the same resources, find the same artifacts, build the same tech. I’d love for the game to acknowledge your progress in some way. Naturally, as you spend research points to build better gear, the difficulty of the game is reduced as you automate the less interesting chores. So, add a new mechanic to challenge the player with each new mission. That way, your strategy will have to continuously evolve.
Ideas: The thing I want most from this game is more cats. I’d love to get a new crew member with every mission I completed, to be capped at 4 to 6 cats total. You couldn’t play as the additional cats, but you could direct them to do certain tasks, like collect grass, repair the base, or keep the garden, for the next 6 hours while you were out looking for artifacts-- or you could send them to search for the artifacts instead! Basically, they would allow you to delegate whatever you liked least so you could focus on the part of the game you found most engaging, and on the newest planet mechanic. The crew would return to the base when their oxygen reached its halfway point, but you would have to check back in on them to change their task or make them eat. Also, this would allow for death to become more permanent: if your cat were to die, you could move to playing as the next oldest cat.
Other players have suggested adding monsters to shoot. However, as a research team, I think you should be constrained to non-violent self-defense; you have no idea whether these alien life forms are sentient, and don’t want to ruin your first shot at diplomacy! So, you have to build technologies to protect yourself and your base, like walls to keep out critters, sound cannons to scare them away, food cannons to bait them away, stink bombs, etc. Different technologies would work on different aliens, so you would have to learn about what was on the planet and strategize. More advanced tech and more complicated creatures could be found as you progress to higher missions. There could be giant naked mole rats that will burrow under your base and break lots of modules if you don’t sink a sonic tool into the earth to deter them. Carnivorous plants could grab you and your crew mates it they stray too near and try to digest them, and you have to assign one cat to weed them up when they’re still small to keep them clear of the base. Eventually, you may come across aliens so intelligent that you can trade and make an alliance with them (dogs?).
Geography could also become more hostile. I love the ideas Steve already has listed for gradual damage to the base and more disasters like fires and meteor showers (and a water biome? Alien ruins? Yes please!). Here are a few more ideas. As you progress, you might get farther from your system’s sun and have less daylight each mission, until you have a mission in total darkness, where no plants can grow, and you have to harvest slime molds to eat or grow all your own food instead. Or, you could venture into a new system and get a planet that is baked in constant daylight, and you have to bury your base and build air-conditioned suits to keep your crew cool. You could land near the mouth of a lava tube on a desolate moon; your starter base is above ground, but the rest of the base is built into the tube. Some resources, like ice, scrap metal, grass, and wood, are only found above ground, and you have to fight through constant, howling winds to find them. The rest of the resources, the artifacts, and alien life forms are found below ground in the lava tubes. There could be a planet with active volcanoes and lava flows, forcing you to build buggies early and pack up your mobile moon base to keep moving to new areas.
3. Progression of archeology – I don’t think this game needs a “plot” per say, but I do want some motivation to find artifacts beyond research points. As the game is now, there’s no reason to keep finding artifacts once you’ve built all the technology you find useful. You can address this for a while by adding new tech to build, but you’ll just be pushing the problem back. The research isn’t really about scientific discovery; it’s a consumable resource. And after a while, going out to find another box gets boring. I want there to be some exigence. If I find a higher number of unique artifacts, will I get more grant money and therefore a bonus starter item for my next mission? That way, I have a reason to find more artifacts even if I don’t need any more research points.
Ideas: The artifacts you are finding in the game currently are items enjoyed by house cats. What if your civilization is one line of descent from these original spacefaring cats? You are following the trail of a different branch of your family tree, lost to time in the vast expanses of space. The artifacts you find aren’t just trinkets, but are a simple puzzle that points you in the direction the cats went next. You collect these clues, and when you complete your mission, you are given three planets to choose from for your next mission. If you interpret the clues correctly, you will progress towards the other cats, following the trail of artifacts as they become more foreign and complex. The puzzles will get harder as you go; maybe rather than just sticking the artifact in the research machine, you have to solve a puzzle to open the box first. If you aren’t fond of puzzles, you can assign one of your other crewmates to work on it for a while and solve it for you. If you follow the other civilization successfully for many missions, you will eventually find one of their colonies, establishing diplomatic contact for the first time in eons between your two civilizations.
These are of course just ideas and suggestions; you are free to use or ignore them. Thank you for this fun game, and I will definitely be checking in periodically to see how it grows! =^-^=
