Demo Impressions & Questions

[Butterlord]

Okay first of all, really enjoy the demo despite the criticisms I have with it. The concept of constantly developing colonists into unique individuals is really unique and can offer a ton of emergent story telling. Love the art style and the emphasis on colony building combined with adventure and strategy.

I have a few complaints, first, the game really has a lack of input from the player especially early on. I felt too often like I was just repetitiously clicking the green menu to manage new traits every several seconds and like there was no actual satisfying gameplay loop; I felt much too uninvolved with what was going on. I think I get that you're trying to keep the focus on the character development, but I still think you should let players influence some things, perhaps let them add designated work zones or prioritize their colonists priority level Rimworld style.

Speaking of Rimworld, I also don't really see anything resembling a personality on any of the colonists despite all the traits they get that should/could alter it. There's a beautiful moment in the beginning of the campaign where two randomly selected colonists will have a scripted banter about the days ahead; I would love more of this. I was expecting there to be more of it given the personality driven gameplay. Otherwise it feels like there's very little to watch other then villagers doing mundane tasks. Also some of the traits you get seem to do very little, like I kept giving one guy adventurer traits in hopes he would begin exploring more, or begin fighting enemies or animals on his own; but nothing seemed to change.

your colonists gather resources and there are several storage buildings, but no indication of how many you have or what costs what or even if anything has a cost. Honestly I don't even know what they are for, your peasants seem to survive just fine without any shelter or food. There are huts, and villagers sleep in them, but do they actually need sleep? It doesn't say anywhere, nor is there any stat. Same issues with food gathering/eating, training, etc. Pretty much everything regarding resources and gathering them is a mystery to me even after 3.5 hours of play.

This desperately needs an extended tutorial, the quick one on offer taught me almost nothing. I had to watch the dev playtrough on Youtube before I began to get an idea of how the game operated. Despite what the game says it does NOT play in any way like your typical strategy game.

And there were a few game breaking bugs, like all of my builder characters getting stuck around my home base and not resuming tasks even when drafted, and the fact I can't attack yellow entities that should be neutral like the tutorial explains.

Overall there were moments I was really enjoying it and I like what the team is going for, I can see a great game here. It just needs more explanation, more player involvement and more personality. I plan on giving the demo an even more extended run to see what I missed and I'll likely support the product when you guys end up releasing it as I can see the potential here.

[Ali]

Can't thank you enough for the time you spent writing this, glad you enjoyed and have been able to see through what the game promised in the long run, along with the demo experience you spent time with this week.

I totally get your first frustration; and we've heard this quite a lot actually this week. We did some very drastic changes to your actions as a player; mainly we separated personal development and crafts to different panels. We still kept the idea that characters develop themsevles to unlock unique (to their passions) stuff to craft, but moved all of the constructions, doodads and items to another panel called "Crafts" where you'll be able to freely open and craft anything that your characters unlocked as long as you can pay for it. Paths panel will only be used to unlock new traits and develop the character. We have a couple more changes regarding being able to force undrafted characters to attack, haul, loot etc with a simple right click in the homeland, but I won't get into too much detail.

I'm really glad that you enjoyed the idea of speech bubbles and characters having a conversation. I was personally pretty hesitant about that thinking people would not like it too much and wanted to check with a small interaction when the game started, but seems like people actually liked them. I do agree that personalities are a great way to influence and force behaviours like this. There's a trait called "Violent" in the game right now that makes characters fight nearby critters at random times just because they got this personality. I think all of them should at least be on this level where they literally change how the character reacts to his surroundings permanently. I'll definitely focus on that going forward because it creates stories like nothing else, especially more than just stat modifiers and trigger effects.

Information is another problem yes. Since we don't automate very little tooltip in the game right now (like prerequisites, skill effects etc.), it's really hard to keep detailed information intact at this stage of the game because things are constantly changing in terms of balancing or even content itself. So I'm doing the best I can to give you a brief idea on every description by hand, but as things settle down towards the end of the development I think they'll get another attention and an overhaul.

We're currently planning on designing a map called Tutoria where you'll learn everything about the game in a semi-scripted manner if you'd like.

We're also aware of the gamae-breaking bugs that you mentioned are trying to fix em as soon as possible.

Thanks again for your time and if you're still not there, we would like to have you at our Discord (http://www.discord.gg/TFM) for a more agile feedback and suggestion cycle.

Take care Butterlord. :) Glad you liked the game.

[Butterlord]

Originally posted by Ali:

Can't thank you enough for the time you spent writing this, glad you enjoyed and have been able to see through what the game promised in the long run, along with the demo experience you spent time with this week.

I totally get your first frustration; and we've heard this quite a lot actually this week. We did some very drastic changes to your actions as a player; mainly we separated personal development and crafts to different panels. We still kept the idea that characters develop themsevles to unlock unique (to their passions) stuff to craft, but moved all of the constructions, doodads and items to another panel called "Crafts" where you'll be able to freely open and craft anything that your characters unlocked as long as you can pay for it. Paths panel will only be used to unlock new traits and develop the character. We have a couple more changes regarding being able to force undrafted characters to attack, haul, loot etc with a simple right click in the homeland, but I won't get into too much detail.

I'm really glad that you enjoyed the idea of speech bubbles and characters having a conversation. I was personally pretty hesitant about that thinking people would not like it too much and wanted to check with a small interaction when the game started, but seems like people actually liked them. I do agree that personalities are a great way to influence and force behaviours like this. There's a trait called "Violent" in the game right now that makes characters fight nearby critters at random times just because they got this personality. I think all of them should at least be on this level where they literally change how the character reacts to his surroundings permanently. I'll definitely focus on that going forward because it creates stories like nothing else, especially more than just stat modifiers and trigger effects.

Information is another problem yes. Since we don't automate very little tooltip in the game right now (like prerequisites, skill effects etc.), it's really hard to keep detailed information intact at this stage of the game because things are constantly changing in terms of balancing or even content itself. So I'm doing the best I can to give you a brief idea on every description by hand, but as things settle down towards the end of the development I think they'll get another attention and an overhaul.

We're currently planning on designing a map called Tutoria where you'll learn everything about the game in a semi-scripted manner if you'd like.

We're also aware of the gamae-breaking bugs that you mentioned are trying to fix em as soon as possible.

Thanks again for your time and if you're still not there, we would like to have you at our Discord (http://www.discord.gg/TFM) for a more agile feedback and suggestion cycle.

Take care Butterlord. :) Glad you liked the game.

What a fantastic response! You answered literally all my questions, the new update you have planned and all the other features you want to focus on sound great! Already excited with the direction this is going in. I actually joined the Discord last night. going to play more right now! Can't wait for the early access. :)

[Ichzilla]

the demo is ok. im personally not a huge fan of the "level up" to unlock buildings. its kinda weird you can plant potatos and trees without unlocking farming.

iv tried to play the game several times but as soon as i hit day 20+ i get steam rolled by something. last time playing 2 centars wiped out my entire tribe, the combat is very hard to grasp in this game. and im finding the demo to be very one sided. if you dont give tribute to kor they invade you and kill you with their 100+ hp high dps units. and if you do, they hangout and then demand it again without allowing you to donate. there by causing them to invade again.

im quite happy with the rimworldesk style indirect leading, but at the same time it is a bit of a confusing mess and a pain at times. since they dont reset traps alot. and at times earning "xp" is VERY slow my last failed tribe was up to i think needing 900 XP to unlock tech. and no one wanted to reset any traps for the "food" xp all they did was drop Stool, get dysentery from the river while loving it from the water and then scouting.. could not unlock crafting table since some reason it was perma greyed out on all 9 tribals plus children

so the demo does make it very hard to enjoy the game from those minor annoyances.
ultimately the game does seem interesting and fairly new take on the survival base building stuff. like Dawn of Man went kinda

[xPox]

Just tried the demo. The game seems like it could be interesting, but it was difficult to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I think it needs a more in-depth tutorial, letting the player know the overall purpose of the game and what they should do to get started. Seems like I was just clicking on things to get information about them, but I couldn't actually do anything with them. With so many games out there to choose from and try out, I think a lot of people, such as myself, don't have the patience to spend hours trying to figure things out for ourselves. Makes me not want to spend money on the game.

[Tartyron]

How to build anything.

[SBA77]

Originally posted by Butterlord:

Love the art style

Personally I don't like the detached, Rayman style floating hands that much, but other than that I like it. To be honest though, I think I might prefer the main menu's art style more though.

[orangepoindexter]

You guys are playing a demo of an alpha (basically) ... and whining that it isn't finished...? Alrighty then, checks out.

Remember this isn't even in Early Access yet, and it's got a ton of intricate systems by a small dev team. I'd say cut them a little slack.

[Butterlord]

Originally posted by orangepoindexter:

You guys are playing a demo of an alpha (basically) ... and whining that it isn't finished...? Alrighty then, checks out.

Remember this isn't even in Early Access yet, and it's got a ton of intricate systems by a small dev team. I'd say cut them a little slack.

Nobody's whining it isn't finished, we're providing our thoughts and feedback which is exactly what the purpose of an open alpha/early access is.