Gameplay feedback

[thechin_o7ttv]

Hey HopFrog!

I just got done playing the game and I think this game has some very interesting and thought-provoking mechanics to it.

I really find it interesting how you managed to make this game grow into an idler. There was some really talented stuff that I ran into that I definitely didn't expect from this game.

The end-game weapons are really satisfying to use. I honestly thought the fire staff was OP from the time I received it. It's basically the best pickaxe in the game (although I assume it was not the original intent). It was the first staff that I picked up and I would often switch between the pickaxe and staff while collecting materials. Then I got the magic staff, which gave me infinite mana. Well. I'll tell you. If I could have unbinded the pickaxe, I would have. Then, late in the game, I realized the staff could be upgraded. Imagine my excitement when I finally unlocked it.

That being said, I think there are some things that could be tweaked, some things that could be better, and some things that seem game breaking.

I've read that this game was for a game jam, which is bananas. This game is stunning and I'm very impressed with your result.

+ The UI is beautiful, great job. I really liked your vault system when I thought that I wouldn't.

- Late game, I have things like quarries encompassed in lighthouses with power plants nearby and mining poles mining. While the first few hours of hearing that go was amusing (loud bangs and the screen shaking), soon I was not so amused by it and turned the sound off.
//I think this could be mitigated by allowing the player to turn screen shake off and in a sound settings menu allowing the player to tick a box that disables ambient noise.
//Please afford the option to turn the purple ring showing the radius of buildings off. It is really useful for a period of time. However with multiple radii, comes multiple overlays, turning the screen almost completely purple.

-The above mixed with all of the different stations making their items constantly flooded the right side of my screen. It might have just been the noise and screen shake, but this began to irritate me.
// I think allowing an option of the 'resource feed' (for lack of a better term) to be turned off or resized so that the bottom left side of the feed shrinks closer to the upper right hand corner would mitigate that.

+ Your character design was enjoyable. I liked the level of detail that you put into the design. There were some elements of the game that reminded me of Undertale (not just the costumes). I also noticed that you had many of the character archetypes, however where is the condescending professor with a deep, dark secret? (lol)
+ I really enjoyed the crazy character that gave the player questions with wrong answers. It was completely left field and made me chuckle.

-Once I obtained all of the weapons, I was pretty much left with one slot to hotkey an item. I had to go to a vault to deposit the first item in my inventory, put whatever item I wanted to be that slot, then withdraw the other item.
// 'Q' and 'E' could scroll through the weapon wheel. It would also be useful just to have direct access to the weapon wheel such as drag and drop. It would be useful to be able to treat the staves and tools as items themselves so I could bind other scrolls and pots to those 0-9 keys.

+The weapons/accessories are OP
-Definitely too OP. I realize the combat system is in your roadmap. So I looking forward to that update!
//I'll keep my filthy mouth shut on this. I love the meteor rod.

-Really not sure what to do with the death staff. By the time I get to end game, I've blown passed needing bones. The skulls the big ol' boys drop are useful for making scrolls. However, by the end of the game I all ready had a seemingly infinite supply of everything the scrolls seemed to buff. (For transparency, the magic skill tree wasn't unlocked until last for me. By the time I unlocked magic I had leveraged a slight game exploit that I'll go over later). Also not sure if this was intended, but once you get the ankh, these skeletons automatically die. I would have imagined that these would be friendlies and you could send your sicko mode skeles to wreak some havoc. But what do I know ;)

Things I'm not sure are intended, but I thought I would bring to light in case:

Lighthouses are by far the most OP thing in the game. I arranged lighthouses in a square around an island to see how you went about handling the math involved. With a basic shovel in this configuration I could get away with about 300 sand a click. With all of the upgrades (like the nomad's shovel and jewellery) I netted about 3m sand with a couple of clicks. With the perk that gives you xp for selling stuff, I was max level in about 4 hours. I haven't tried to see how fast I could do this when I know what is going on with the game and the best perks to unlock to exploit this faster. I imagine it could be done faster however.
Also this definitely goes for every resource that doesn't come from a building. So 100 animal feed on a cow resulted in about 1.3 million poop (nice touch btw lol. I felt ridiculous being frustrated by not knowing how to farm poop).
//Again not sure if you intended this. If not, simply placing a cap on the buff should make that super simple. If you did mean to do this then thank you for not making me farm poop for hours.

The rainbow chest I have not been able to unlock because two of the mushrooms won't spawn. When I mine them and then try to shovel them, four of the placeholders won't allow me to shovel them. The two that won't grow will allow me to shovel them. I placed banks on top of them once upon a time (mainly because I'm dumb and didn't realize that was a puzzle). So maybe the banks overwrote the placeholders?

The oil rigs will only allow you to place them on 4x5 grids of water. However, I can place the oil rig and it will allow me to place tiles behind it so that I can walk in between the oil rigs. So you need 4x5 grids but once they are placed they only occupy a 4x4 grid. I only assume this isn't intended because with that line of thought I would think you would do the same for factories which will not allow the player to walk in between them.

The player can get soft-locked in the sand temple. Once the player unlocks the lightning rod, they are going to the opposite side of the temple to retrieve the key. Instead of taking the two blocks to activate the gates, the player can enter the first area by just hitting the pedestal with the lightning rod. On the opposite side is a pedestal so that the player can get out with the same method. However the gate after that can be passed as well by hitting the appropriate pedestal and then dodge rolling through the gate. Once here the gate closes behind the player, and they are now stuck because the next gate can't be passed with the same method, requiring a save and exit.

I realize most, if not all, of what I said you were all ready thinking. I hope I assisted in some way though!
Great job on the game! I can't wait to see more!