I love the art/drawings of the individual assets, i do feel there is some aspects of visual cohesion that hurt the game a bit, such as elements of the environment i am confusing with actual units, as the treatment is almost identical. For instance a random flower in the scenery had more detail and more of a unique design, than one of the basic controllable units.
The tutorial focusses on things like camera control and basic things that are intuitive to RTS players, but there was no real description of a goal, or what or how to build units, or even any indication that the tutorial had ended?
I then tried level 2, where I could actually play the game, but i was just lost, as i had no idea if i was meant to be building an economy, drone units, or what the deal with the resources even are. It did not help that in fullscreen, half of the UI is hidden behind the map, making it next to impossible to build certain units.
I also have to be honest, and say that I feel like most RTSs already have some element of farming in them already?
It is a very impressive achievement to put this together, and I really do love a lot of the art, but I feel like as a game that functions in response to the theme, priority might have been focussed on the wrong areas.
But overall I think this is a really great thing, I dont mean to be harsh or have this come off as negative review. just my honest opinions
I very much appreciate the lengthy comment!
Hope you wont't mind a lengthy response - I'd love get more feedback, if you got a couple more minutes to spare
visual cohesion [...] elements of the environment i am confusing with actual units, as the treatment is almost identical [...] a random flower in the scenery had more detail and more of a unique design, than one of the basic controllable units.
I'd love to hear more specifics, if you would, so that I can take a closer look myself.
Any perticular assets you have in mind?
All units have like a bobbing animation when idle to help them not blend into the background (wish I could upload a gif).
Beyond that, if it is accented blue, it's one of yours, if it's red - it's the enemy.
A lot of enviromental assets propably do have a higher density of detail, especially in the textures, than many of the lower tier units.
That's largely an admission to my limitations as an "animator". An enviromental asset only requires a singular sprite, a unit requires at the bare minimum four. So every bit of extra detail quadruples(+) the work load. So fancier details have to be reserved for stuff that doesn't move.
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The tutorial focusses on things like camera control and basic things that are intuitive to RTS players, but there was no real description of a goal, or what or how to build units, or even any indication that the tutorial had ended?
I'm certainly not entirely happy with the state of the tutorial. It was something implemented very late and I think its inadequate; but I'm not sure I can agree with you on all these points.
I apologize for the wall of images.
The tutorial then ends with the notification that the tutorial has been completed.
The tutorial isn't nearly as elegant, or hand holdy as I wished, and some of the hints are too easy to miss. But it's all in there. I'll gladly walk you through things though, should you feel like giving this another chance.
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I then tried level 2, where I could actually play the game, but i was just lost,
The goal in chapter two is to destroy the four enemy bases revealed on the map.
It did not help that in fullscreen, half of the UI is hidden behind the map, making it next to impossible to build certain units
Please, PLEASE, PLEASE send us a screenshot of that. Sounds like a major bug that should obviously not be happening. We encountered nothing like what you're describing on our own end during development. What format monitor do you have?
I dont mean to be harsh or have this come off as negative review. just my honest opinions
No, please, more of it. We're allways desperate for actual critisim. <3
Okay great, let me read this and play it more, and I can give you more extensive feedback. I appreciate the level that you are going to invite this level of discussion, but I want to give it some time so I can give you more descriptive details. Maybe we can continue the conversation on discord DMs? This comment section probably isn’t great for it
I'm Orkfaeller#0883 over at discord.
Feel free to shoot me a message where/whenever, if you're feeling like it.
Thanks for your in-depth comment on the game! It means a lot that you took so much time to give us feedback on our submission!
- Regarding the art: Orkfaeller already gave you a explanation. As the artist, he's much more qualified than me to answer that!
- Regarding the tutorial: We can all agree that we didn't do a great job here. Our initial reasoning behind this approach was to incorporate a funny character (the goblin as a lickspittle) to help players understand the game. After implementing it, we saw the flaws in this approach. We even placed a sign in the game to help visualize the most critical part as a last second implementation. Redesigning the tutorial any further wasn't possible because it was already late at night with no time left for changes, sadly. In the future, we'll go with more straightforward tutorials with an unskippable window if one is necessary.
- Regarding the mission objective: To be honest, this wasn't on my radar at all, but I agree. A small text box with the objective as a reminder would be easy to implement and is industry standard. It definitely should have been in there.
- Regarding the fullscreen problem: I'd also love a few more details on this because this bug never occurred during testing.
- Regarding the RTS farming: I can totally see where you're coming from. I have the exact same feeling about it. In theory, it sounded really original. However, during the design and programming process, I quickly realized that it felt like Zerg gameplay in StarCraft II. Even though some small tweaks made it a bit better, I never lost the feeling that the idea needed a bit more time in the oven. We're currently discussing internally what changes we could make to further embrace the farming aspect while keeping the RTS core.
Thanks again for your feedback. I can't express how much these kinds of discussions help us refine our skills.
I'm always down for further discussion, and as soon as I have time, I'll gladly take a look at your game to leave some feedback as well—it's the least I can do!
Cheers!