Thoughts after 13 hours.

[Pumpkin_]

Finished the demo twice, the second time mining and processing everything on the map and overall i'm impressed. The had that Factorio feel where in a flash multiple hours were gone. So 13 ish hours later here are my thoughts.

-Pumps seem a bit buggy and there is lots of tiny patches of water and steam that eluded harvesting. Some way to recover trapped steam or water that isn't fiddly or alternatively a way to get more water is certainly needed for map longevity. Alternatively if you are planning on moving the player onto a new map when the artefacts are recovered it should be far less of an issue.

-By the end I had over $30900 and no water or red sand anywhere on the map to process more resources. What i had left was: some sand, moderate amount of dry spores and a ridiculous amount of petals.

-Was unable to find a good way to automate flower harvesting after several attempts but probably an imagination issue on my part and I got them all done in the end.

-The tech tree feels bare bones which while expected for a demo left an incomplete feeling particularly with the $30K spare by the end. In contrast I was about 10k short on upgrade materials for the drone upgrades

-Not being able to seal blocks against the walls without fiddling and having no tool to turn steam back into water (or pump it) were QOL issues. Ive read you can use the vacuum on steam but I had no luck with it. Potentially a way to break rock late game may also be nice.

-The sound design and general feel of processing is wonderful, Often toward the end i had nothing left to harvest and just sat and watched the processing happening.

-Ran into many times where the sound bugged out then cut off altogether when to much was happening on screen, mostly during base renovations. This always resolved itself within 10 seconds however.

Overall great game with amazing potential. I have an endgame screenshot of remaining resources but have no way to share it.

[lantto]

Hey! Thank you for the kind words and the great feedback!

1. Pumps indeed need a lot of work. I think simply moving the pump area one cell down will fix the "eluding" issue. Trapped steam can now be grabbed since latest hotfix. :) In the future cryoblaster will also condense it. There's also now an official way to create infinite water, but also a few "bugged" ways through duping, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H68Wvc6oUvw

2. Yeah, the demo is not balanced at all but the latest hotfix added a lot more redsand for new saves.

3. Yup, the community has tried but so far no-one has figured out an automatic way. The full game will of course have many ways to automate them but should probably add something for the demo as well to wrap things up.

4. The tech tree in the demo is still early game so hopefully it won't feel as disappointing in the full game. I agree that the surplus of gold is an issue in the demo though.

5. Partially built blocks are coming! Drills and laser will also be introduced to break bedrock (and a lot of other things).

6. Thank you! <3 I think some sounds need a bit of tuning (e.g. the default shovel sound) but getting there.

7. Hopefully this was resolved in last hotfix with the sound engine fixes but let me know if it still happens.

Thanks again! On Discord there's a #share-your-builds channel: https://discord.gg/HJNk5eMnmt

I also think you can share it here on Steam in the Community? Not sure how that works. Would love to see it anyway. :)