Design Feedback

[Qah]

Hi there fellas. I've been enjoying this game quite a lot and thought it may be useful to get my feedback out there, hopefully others will agree on some of these suggestions and/or observations. I'll mostly omit things which already appear on the roadmap on the pause screen, since obviously the devs are already aware of those.

First, some issues that I feel could do with some ironing out:

i. Due to the way the shop is laid out, it's common for customers to just walk behind the counter if their pathfinding things it's quicker to get to the tables / products that way, which shouldn't really happen IMO.

ii. It's far too easy to get value out of opening packs for yourself. I realise it's just a videogame but in real TCG collecting, you almost never break even when you open a pack -- let alone almost always *profiting* from opening a pack, which is very much the case here -- and this is what makes getting hits in the pack fun. Let's face it, opening boosters and packs is effectively gambling lol; it is what it is. There should be *some* risk to just outright opening the pack yourself rather than selling it, because with enough singles displays, you could literally never sell a single pack and open them all personally and still make money, which does not feel intended.

iii. Please make it so that you can just right click the currency itself on the table to remove unintended clicks rather than having to click the till slot again, or otherwise make it so that right-clicking anywhere removes the last currency added, and the one before that, etc, kinda like pressing backspace. It will feel a lot more streamlined and comfy than having to calculate what you added wrong and then looking for it on the till.

iv. I don't really see the point in the in-game clock if there's basically zero consequences at the beginning and start of the day. Perhaps that's something best left for harder difficulties (which is on the roadmap), but having infinite time in the morning and then infinite time after 21:00 to do as you please kinda runs counter to the concept of having a day-night cycle at all. Would make sense to borrow systems from games like Stardew Valley, wherein if you clock out too late, you'll also wake up proportionally late the next morning and thus lose out on workhours, which cuts into profit. I also don't think the morning timer should be frozen until you open up shop -- again; same issue. If you have infinite preptime, then you may as well not have prep at all.

And lastly, not "issues" but recommendations;

i. I think it would be a really good idea to allow players to substitute the card faces with whatever JPEGs they prefer, or even create new TCGs entirely. This would allow players to take their own TCG of preference and put it into the game (without any legal ramifications for the dev ;D). Sure, it would be a lot of work for the player to do that on their end, but it would be an option if they so choose and other players could always create TCGs for others to add. Obviously this would potentially be weird if and when we finally get a playable TCG, since the rules for that will probably be very different to whatever the player puts in, but that could be limited to Tetramon exclusively.

ii. Speaking of playable TCG, it's clearly not the goal of the game so it wouldn't matter too much, but it's probably not gonna be too fun to play a TCG where the only cards that exist are creature cards. Stuff like mana restrictions, or trainer cards from Pokémon, are there to help balance the game out so it isn't just a case of whoever has the bigger card. Currently I haven't seen any card that isn't a creature card so it's worth being careful about this when implementing the playable TCG.

iii. Lastly, I think this is kind of addressed in the roadmap under the concept of "Customer Trade Cards", but if not, I'll leave it here: A big part of owning a TCG shop is *buying cards from players*, not just selling. The vast, *vast* majority of singles sold in TCG shops aren't pulled by the owners, they're bought at 50-75% market value in cash or store credit and then resold either in the store or online. I think having customers walk in with some super rare full art card that he wants to sell and you have to settle for a price or a trade would be a really cool idea.

EDIT

iv. I think a simple little random weather system would also be pretty cool for the atmosphere! :)

Anyway, thanks if you read all the way through and hoping to see the game grow from here!