Demo Feedback

[FL]

I beat the demo I think, I got to the merchant platform and setup the sprinklers / solar panels / drill. Here is some feedback.

Overall I liked the game and wished I could have seen the more advanced machines.

• My brain is trained to use 'Q' to close menus, but in this game by default 'Q' drops whatever is equipped. This is concerning when on an island, I never dropped my tools off the island but I came close a few times.
  
• House building controls are a little awkward, specifically holding down a button while using the mouse to rotate. I'm not sure what other games do in this situation.
  
• House foundations seem really restrictive because they have to touch the ground but a lot of ground is sloped. Can I build off the edge? I didn't try but it would be fun if you could.
  
• I could be wrong but I think destroying a house piece gives back half the resources? Is this fun?
  
• The task to build a bed was deceiving, because I had to build a roof to put the bed under. Which meant I had to chop a lot of trees.
  
• Trees fall in random directions, sometimes off the edge. Is it possible to have trees fall in the opposite direction when we chop them?
  
• The first few rocks I broke with the pickaxe gave me sand but no stone. This was frustrating because I had trouble finding stone on the ground originally and I didn't want sand. My only suggestion here is moving sand rocks further away from the starting areas, so you're more likely to find rocks initially.
  
• Is there a story or larger objective? I think building the objects is fun but why am I doing it?
  
• Plants take a while to grow, near the end I needed a lot of cotton and I had nothing else to do but wait for them to grow, that was boring.
  
• It feels redundant to research something for a price, then pay another price to build it 5 seconds later. Maybe researching something the first time gives you one for free? Then each additional time you pay again?
  
• I wanted to speed up time by sleeping (to make my plants grow faster) but I couldn't because you can only sleep at night. So in that instance I just alt-tabbed for 5 minutes and did something else.
  
• The ground is slippery at times, it is easy to slide off edges. This made climbing the island on foot scary at times when I was trying to get up high by following paths.
  
• Sometimes on the airship I couldn't tell if I was moving, maybe a more noticeable wind/speed effect could help visualize the speed the airship is moving.

[Salticid]

I really like the suggestion to get 1 freebie when researching a new item, but maybe make the research cost more expensive for bigger/more important items, like the airship dock.

I also agree the bed task was misleading. I'm not sure if I want them to have a quest for building a building first, since they might then ask for some specifics that wouldn't align with what I want out of my first house, thus wasting resources, but if they just added a parenthetical to the task that says "(must be built under a roof)" then at least I'd know that before I built the bed.

[Noob Golberg Machine]

Originally posted by FL:

• House building controls are a little awkward, specifically holding down a button while using the mouse to rotate. I'm not sure what other games do in this situation.

In other games I've played, you just use the scroll wheel to rotate (scrolling up rotates one way, scrolling down rotates the other). On the controller, one stick will rotate, while the other moves the object position.

[Siliconhobbit]

I'd like to add to this list:

• There are far to few stick "drops" when starting out. Seeing as sticks are used a lot, this seems to be counterproductive. I've managed to chop A LOT of trees down on the starter island, and in the process I created a forest right near where I built my house. There should be sticks dropping from these trees all the time. Also, when you chop down a tree, it should provide sticks.
  
• The pond on the starting island - We should be able to drink manually out of it
  
• This should be the same from the watering can.

[Wiggles]

100% agree on the Q to close menus thing. I played the demo for maybe an hour and dropped things like 20 times.

[Emeryael]

All of you people are talking about building stuff and what not. Meanwhile I still can't even figure out how to move, period. I can look around, but I can't move. I think if you press the shift key, you can sprint (took me a while to figure out because they kept using the image of an arrow key), but I keep getting the message that I'm too hungry to sprint.

So long story short, I can't move or do anything, and I'm more than just a little bit annoyed right now. I thought there'd be something resembling a tutorial in this game.

Because I do believe in trying to be tactful when it comes to indie games no matter how irritated I may be , I will say that the visuals, the sounds, and the music is very nice, just when I think about when I think about the concept of solarpunk.

Let me know to move, then maybe I can give more constructive criticism.

[FL]

Originally posted by Emeryael:

All of you people are talking about building stuff and what not. Meanwhile I still can't even figure out how to move, period. I can look around, but I can't move. I think if you press the shift key, you can sprint (took me a while to figure out because they kept using the image of an arrow key), but I keep getting the message that I'm too hungry to sprint.

So long story short, I can't move or do anything, and I'm more than just a little bit annoyed right now. I thought there'd be something resembling a tutorial in this game.

Because I do believe in trying to be tactful when it comes to indie games no matter how irritated I may be , I will say that the visuals, the sounds, and the music is very nice, just when I think about when I think about the concept of solarpunk.

Let me know to move, then maybe I can give more constructive criticism.

Hopefully this helps:

• Just in case you didn't know - You should be able to move by using the WASD keys. That was how I moved.
  
• But you can't sprint until you eat some fruit. Look around for small bushes with red things on them, those are the fruit. Press E to harvest. The fruit bushes may not be nearby, you may have to walk around a lot to find them.
  
• Since you are just starting, the fruit should appear onto your action bar after picking it up. If it doesn't, press TAB and that will show your inventory I think. Then you can drag the fruit to your action bar using your mouse.
  
• Use the fruit to eat it by pressing the corresponding number key then left-clicking, that should unlock Sprinting. Hold down SHIFT to sprint. You move really fast when sprinting.

Also this might help

• You can't drink out of the pond, you have to build water catchers and wait for rain. One is probably enough but I built two.
  
• The small plants with white things are cotton. You can pick those.
  
• Picking Cotton and Fruit also gives you seeds.
  
• You can use the Hoe to create soil to plant the seeds on. It seems like seeds are infinite. Meaning you plant a seed, you lose the seed, but when you harvest the plant, you get the seed back. I read in the gameplay guide that storms can destroy plants but it didn't happen to me.
  
• The watering can will water the soil for a while, seems like more than a day?
  
• You need a LOT of cotton to beat the demo, more than you can find on the island, so you have to plant it a few times. Start early if you can, it takes 1-2 in game days to grow.
  
• You can turn wood into sticks in the F menu.
  
• After a while you can find new sticks / rocks on the ground. Also after a storm maybe?
  
• DON'T USE PICK AXES ON THE BIG IRON GROUND PATCH UNLESS YOU ARE ALL OUT OF IRON NODES. You will break your pickaxe in 2 hits and MAYBE get 1-2 Iron. Use it as a last resort. Mine the Iron looking rock things before you start hitting the ground patch.

[Brother_Man]

Q to drop items... has anyone played Minecraft!!

[Hexfellow]

I am STOKED about this game - or maybe I'm just a sucker for dirigibles. Everyone has given the technical feedback I would give, so here's my opinion:
The gameplay itself as it stands - excluding the airship, which is a CRAZY novel mechanic - feels quite similar to most survival games. I feel like there is fantastic potential to use this game for educational purposes; like teaching some players how simple mechanics or electrical theory can be put to use in a sustainable environment. Something along the lines of using cogs, springs, and pulleys in tandem with a strong physics engine; as well as some science-fictional use of Ohm's Law and the difference between parallel and series circuits. Having a game like this, with such an immaculate aesthetic and comfortable vibe, would be great for making the kind of knowledge necessary for sustainable and independent living something that a lot of people can be more comfortable with. Anyone unfamiliar with the subjects would be able to learn by playing the game, while those who ARE familiar would be able to come up with some wacky solarpunk designs.
Asides all that rambling, I hope the game will be easily moddable when released because a modding community for this game would be fantastic.

Also, massive airships... That's my feedback.