Demo and losing progress

[Manxome]

Essential:
(automatic non-purchase for me unless these are addressed)

1. If returning to the menu is going to immediately erase your game in progress, this requires a warning and a confirmation. Having a button right next to "Resume" that immediately destroys your game with no warning or confirmation is completely unacceptable.

2. If the demo is not going to let you save your progress at all, then either on the title screen or when starting a game, the player should be warned about this and given an estimate for how long it takes to finish the demo, so that they know how much time they need to have available before they start.


Strongly Recommended:

3. Allow saving the game; this is an extremely valuable feature, even in a demo (and reassures the player this feature will exist in the full version)

4. Returning to the title screen should either automatically save the game, or should remember the current state such that the game can be resumed if you haven't quit to desktop or started a new game (even if you don't do #3)


Recommended:

5. Change the button label "Return to menu" to something like "Main Menu" or "Title Screen" or "Quit". Do not use the word "Return" because it's easy to mistake for the unpause button when skimming. (The unpause button is often called something like "Return to Game", and "Return" also resembles "Resume" at a glance.)

6. "Return to menu" should not be located directly below the center of the pause menu contents; this is a common location for a button that exits a menu/popup.

[philippe]

Hi there Manxome!

1. This should not happen anymore in V1.03. It saves on the end of the night/beginning of the building phase. However I do agree we perhaps can make that more visual as to where its saving.

2. The demo is just 7 nights long and can be played in 15 minutes. It is also just a little tiny snapshot of the game, so that should be okay 😊

3. ^ 2

4. It does automatically save the game. It does not however save the game if you are in the middle of a night, in session. You have to win (or lose) the night. But again, we should make this more visible.

5. Good suggestion

6. Yeah we are still looking here and there to improve UI along the board.

Thanks for your feedback!

[Manxome]

I played for much longer than 15 minutes and was only on night 4 when I double-checked a rule in the pause menu, accidentally clicked the wrong button to unpause, and lost my game with no apparent way to get it back. If you're telling me that's not supposed to happen, then you have a very serious bug.

(The largest chunk of time was spent reasoning out how to abuse the day-phase building rules in order to get a long path to the heart at a low building cost, which I admit is complicated enough that I suspect most of your players didn't do it, but I am still skeptical that the average player with zero experience finishes your demo in 15 minutes.)

[philippe]

Originally posted by Manxome:

I played for much longer than 15 minutes and was only on night 4 when I double-checked a rule in the pause menu, accidentally clicked the wrong button to unpause, and lost my game with no apparent way to get it back. If you're telling me that's not supposed to happen, then you have a very serious bug.

(The largest chunk of time was spent reasoning out how to abuse the day-phase building rules in order to get a long path to the heart at a low building cost, which I admit is complicated enough that I suspect most of your players didn't do it, but I am still skeptical that the average player with zero experience finishes your demo in 15 minutes.)

I can imagine that is very annoying to hit the wrong button to unpause 😅 might need a second confirmation button then!
At the moment we are fully committed on the full game though, we do not have the time (right now) to make edits to the demo.
But, the full game does save every night!

[Manxome]

You know, I only discovered your game because of its demo. I was browsing the free demos page on Steam and saw it. I want to be clear that this demo didn't hurt your chances with me, because without the demo I wouldn't even know this game existed.

But by the same token, the demo is what I use to decide whether to buy the game. This demo makes me think you're careless about important-to-me details, and this thread has done little to change that impression. So, I guess I'm skipping this game.