Hey Abstract Laser!

I did not know you had submitted a game on here!

I played it for an hr or so and here is my feedback.

Things I liked

• The new tutorial is much nicer. I like how it explains things. Did get stuck in one or two places but probably it was an oopsie on my end.

• I like that the initial neighbour-hood is a small one and then we can graduate on to a bigger one.

• This also gave me time to be introduced to my place of stay and decorate my room, a mechanic. The upgrade home mechanic I did not notice in the old iteration. (or maybe it wasnt there.)

• I kept the game running idle for over an hr while I was finishing some work and it did not stutter or lag at all. This is a great sign! No memory leaks.

• The neighborhood feels like it has much more personality than before.

• It seems you have spent quite a while on the sound effects. They were really nice.

My gameplay

I tried to open as many locations as I can because they only cost a 1000. When I ran out of cash I would work a job that took less time but gave good popularity. I would also regularly do public speeches, move around to clean the trash and so on. Within the first seven days I have made one of each buildings.

The Big real estate always seemed to out pace me tho. I tried rallying with around 100 popularity, gathered crowds and still always seemed to lose. I had no idea which buildings have more HP and which had low.

I played 2 entire rounds and by 7 days or so they would deplete my HP with attack bots and completely take over the neighborhood.

The buildings I rallied against also always seemed to destroy my crowds despite of using the disruption + protest technique. I am sure I am missing something.

I have not tried just gathering high amounts of popularity, above 100 and trying to win. Maybe that works.

Things that can be improved upon

• I do not like the movement much. put markers with single click and move with double click seems a bit odd. I think we dont really need markers, but single click and people can move should be ok? But then idk, maybe you have probably tested tht before and it must have some issues.

• There needs to be more explanation as to what the buildings do and how the bars move in relation to each other.

• The HP and protest number required would be a nice indication to have before raiding a big corporate place.

• There was an issue with windows version where the game didnt go fullscreen but covered the entire screen. This made the start bar at the bottom hide the energy bar in the game. Maybe a web build + some fullscreen options can be managed?

• It would be nice to have prices below icons so I dont have to click each to see.

• I also felt that the energy was a bit insufficient but it could also be because I am a noob at this sort of game.

Overall, I still had fun! I will retest this game again and try to win this time.

I like all the improvements you have made since the last version!

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Also, Feel free to ping me on discord when you want me to playtest another version!

When I first scrolled through the list I missed your game. The new name and art were different enough. Then I saw the dev name and took another look.

I like the new tutorial map being smaller and dedicated. I went through all the Control Tips. I like the new details about the Ratings. Placing the first building, and the new bars for how much buildings improve the Ratings are an excellent addition! The energy bar being replaced by the hexagons is also a nice change, making it easier for players to see the change in max energy more clearly. That tutorial is well done, and a huge improvement from the old one. Just playing through the first area I'm really liking the changes so far.

The core mechanics are the same, but a lot has also changed. I spent the first couple days learning things. I'm so used to rallying every residential building as soon as I can, that I had to stop myself and remember to treat them like the Campaign Day crowd gathering and save them up. I did one early, and then I waited until Day 4, when I gathered all and reclaimed 5 lots. I might have done more, but I missed one of them in my initial gathering, so first protests likely lost more than they would have otherwise. By this point, before building on the Reclaimed Lots, I was at Marginal in 2, and Adequate in 2 other Ratings. After some rest, I built on the Reclaimed Lots. Moving to 3 Adequate, 2 Marginal, and Health at Poor. I guess I need to work on that one next.

The Utility Pole at the top, just to the right of the gate, did not spawn a lot for me to build on when activated. There was still a cash pile next to it that I grabbed next, and another spot was occupied by BigRealty, so maybe that was the issue. The next one I went to worked fine.

It would be nice if the furniture in your room had an indicator for what is installed on the buttons. It's not too hard to check if unsure, but would be nice to have.

The mafia quest is a great addition, though I've yet to see what having them team up with BigRealty means. The quests in general are a nice feature that adds more to the game to get you involved.

On Day 7 I gathered most of the available crowd, skipping one on the far end of town. I protested at the remaining 6 branch locations, and then went to HQ. The first protest was not enough, but was close. I still had a good sized crowd, so did it again and won. I'm not sure what the mafia were going to do, or if they boosted BigRealty against protests, as I got that event just before the protesting.

ENT is Good, EDU, ECON, & LOG are Adequate. SAF & HLT are Marginal.

All around this was a good update. The game feels more alive and there is certainly more to do. I did not unlock any Cafe upgrades. I did check on them earlier on, but did not meet the requirements, and then I never quite got back to check again. I built a lot more building than I normally do, though still only built the free ones from Utility Poles and Reclaimed Lots.

I really like this title conceptually! A sim game where you use collective action to drive away crappy corporations ruining the neighborhood is so up my alley!

It is a bit difficult to play though, which is understandable for such an experimental project. In the UI department, there are a few small nitpicks that I think could easily improve the game. When you double click an object such as a building or trash, you walk all the way over to it, and then have to wait until you're done walking before clicking it once more and then interacting with it. I think it would reduce friction a lot if that double click immediately opened the context menu once you reach your destination.

In terms of onboarding, I wasn't actually sure what type of game this was going into it, so it didn't become immediately clear to me what my goal was until I got to the second town. Once I finished the tutorial, I felt a little bit roadblocked as well. My protests weren't effective, and I couldn't figure out how to efficiently rally people before I ran out of energy. Running around picking up trash felt a bit sisyphean in the way I was doing a boring, degrading task in order to gain favour with the public, only to fail to meet the threshold for a protest and have them all turn on me when the sun goes down, only to start from square one again the next day. In a way, that is a bit of a realistic depiction of how these things can go, but as a sim game it's not exactly a pleasant experience, and for the brief time I played it I definitely didn't feel like I had the power to rally the people and make a change for the better in the community, which I assume is kinda the point of this title.

After three or four days of picking up trash and rallying citizens, I finally decided to give it a rest. Perhaps I am the problem, not dedicated enough to my community to keep on fighting even after these corporations stomped me down!

In terms of graphics, the map graphics all look very good, I like the use of a universal purple colour to denote buildings controlled by the corporations. I did find the coffee shop a bit of a pain to use, needing to click on this tiny little coffee mug that blends in with the rest of the artwork is definitely a strange choice. I also find the portrait faces to be a bit strange looking, they have a lot of smooth shading which lends a kind of uncanny feel. I almost want to say these faces would actually look really good in a jazzy impressionist kind of painting, but when they're juxtaposed with the sanitized and clean graphics everywhere else in the game, they look a lot less professional.

I like the music and sound design, it's all very chill as any game like this should be. Pretty much no notes in that department, good work!

This is a strong idea, and exactly the type of game that should be submitted to Feedback Quest. A lot of titles in this jam are a bit *too* polished to the level where it doesn't feel like they're really getting the most out of a playtest, but something experimental and a little jank like this is what I like to see, it really feels like you have a fresh new idea that can be moved in a good direction. I'm not the target demographic for this type of game (although I find it conceptually very appealing), so I don't know what it would take for something like this to catch my attention "in the wild", but I think some small design changes and maybe a little more direction for the player would improve this game tremendously. This is a very neat idea!