Is the demo broken?

[Doctor Cucumber]

There's nothing to do in it, no way to interact with the card or even learn how to actually play beside the most basic of general explanations.

[bruticus0]

Hmm....it's fine. If you're doing the tutorial, you can't click stuff until the messages are out of the way. Just clicking anywhere should make them cycle. Maybe you're misunderstanding the instruction it's asking you to do? Maybe repeat the last instruction you read was and we can prolly figure it out.

[Doctor Cucumber]

I already uninstalled the thing, tbh.
But there's no real tutorial to speak of. It's just some general explanations that "you need to solve cards with resources" not actually explaining any of the mechanisms, and after I drew the first cart nothing got any response from the game beside the "end day" button, which I clicked, and the game told me I need to solve the card first. Nothing during this entire process seemed interactable (pressing on everything didn't work, dragging the card onto stuff didn't do anything, etc).
Great stuff.

[Horatio Hornbag]

Originally posted by Doctor Cucumber:

I already uninstalled the thing, tbh.
But there's no real tutorial to speak of. It's just some general explanations that "you need to solve cards with resources" not actually explaining any of the mechanisms, and after I drew the first cart nothing got any response from the game beside the "end day" button, which I clicked, and the game told me I need to solve the card first. Nothing during this entire process seemed interactable (pressing on everything didn't work, dragging the card onto stuff didn't do anything, etc).
Great stuff.

Ive been playing it just fine for 3 entire days, seems like a skill issue on your end

[tarafderjoy92]

30 hours for demo.

[Doctor Cucumber]

Originally posted by Horatio Hornbag:

Ive been playing it just fine for 3 entire days, seems like a skill issue on your end

lel a person with a manga profile picture criticizing anyone for anything

[Lactose Intolerant Volcano God]

I'd suggest it's familiarisation, not skill.

Doctor Cucumber, have you played Cultist Simulator? I think the Sultan's Game demo assumes that players are familiar with some of the game concepts/mechanics from other games in the genre. If you haven't played any games with a similar UI, I imagine you could feel lost.

(It seems to be a common problem with pre-release demos, as often tutorials are not added to games until they are almost finished.)

[Doctor Cucumber]

I have tried Cultist Simulator for a short while, but the game felt like a chore and lacked almost any explanation as to what we need to do and how, so I got bored and left,
That’s an issue with more than a few developers, actually. Games used to get a free pass for not properly teaching us how to play because things were exciting and it was interesting to learn games by yourself. Developers assuming you have early niche knowledge, or find their chores interesting, do not deserve out money, imo.

[Lactose Intolerant Volcano God]

Originally posted by Doctor Cucumber:

I have tried Cultist Simulator for a short while, but the game felt like a chore and lacked almost any explanation as to what we need to do and how, so I got bored and left,

Cultist Simulator (CS) is definitely not to everyone's taste. The gameplay is significantly about working out what to do. A central theme is the mysteries of the 'secret histories'. (It wouldn't be very mysterious or secretive if it was all laid out!) That game intentionally does not give you instructions up front. Once you've unravelled the game mechanics, it's a bit of a grindfest. That's when it gets boring, for me at least.

I don't think Sultan's Game is as estoeric or opaque as CS. Apart from some of the UI elements, I don't think the gameplay has all that much in common with CS. (I only mentioned it because I thought if you hadn't played games where you make decisions by positioning cards in slots on a tabletop, then that concept might be confusing.) If you like party-based time and resource management games, you might like to give Sultan's Game another chance after it's released.

In general, I wouldn't expect indie games to have a tutorial pre-release. Tutorials usually get added last, because it's difficult to design a good tutorial when some of the game mechanics are not yet finalised. (If you make a tutorial too early, there's a fair chance you'll need to re-do it!)

[Doctor Cucumber]

The game is still on my wishlist, but it did leave a very negative first impression.

And you don't need a full release to put text prompts in your game, saying "do this".

[Pi]

Originally posted by Doctor Cucumber:

I have tried Cultist Simulator for a short while, but the game felt like a chore and lacked almost any explanation as to what we need to do and how, so I got bored and left,
That’s an issue with more than a few developers, actually. Games used to get a free pass for not properly teaching us how to play because things were exciting and it was interesting to learn games by yourself. Developers assuming you have early niche knowledge, or find their chores interesting, do not deserve out money, imo.

I did struggle a little at the beginning to figure out what to do, how to play. But I prefer it that way. I like the aha moment in every new game