The one thing that’s been specifically said the developers intend to improve is the feedback the game gives you, saying they don’t intend to have you play following a wiki with a calculator. So I’m wondering what players think the game should have told them. Like what did you read in the wiki that you never would have figured out on your own?
I had made a spreadsheet for the genres and topics so I could mark off which ones were good combinations. That was easy enough because the game always told you. I also had spreadsheets for platform/audience and platform/genre. The platform/genre didn’t get very far because it doesn’t always tell you when it’s good so I did need the wiki for that.
I also had one for genre/focus referring to the sliders in development. That one didn’t have enough data because it rarely says when a specific focus was right. Also by the time I get to the reviews I can’t remember where I had the sliders and I can’t be sure which of the nine slider contributed to the success or failure. I also didn’t know that it’s basically either above 40% or below 20% where you need time spent to be for a development area. There’s also the design/tech ratio. The reviews sometimes say when you got a good balance, but when you see that you’re already past the screen where you saw the design/tech numbers.
Lastly I didn’t know you needed to use the latest graphics engine to level up and unlock the next one. I did figure that out myself but for a long time I wasn’t moving up as soon as I could so until my last playthrough so I didn’t get to the high graphics levels before I knew that.
That’s all I can think of right now. By the way, I’m wondering how long other people played before they read the wiki or other high detail guide? I lost my first game, finished a second with some basic tips and was struggling in my third without really knowing why when I went and read the wiki.
First thing that comes to mind when I read this “what did you read in the wiki that you never would have figured out on your own?” is how to set the sliders for the genres. Second thing is that you’re only competing against your own previous game, especially considering the encrypted messages of that fishy agent that offers to sabotage another competitors game development. Still haven’t figured out what good that really does.
The game tells you ahead of time if you are going to make a good combo.
Exact numbers on the horizontal slider during game development
Even if you make a good game but make one bad slider decision, have the game/reviews tell you which slider…
Even if you make a bad but had one or more slider decisions that kept it from being worse, have the game tell you that.
Say what genres/ages each platform is good for up front.
I do think some player exploration is in order and getting a good feel for the sliders is better done through practice than wiki, but there are some concepts too detailed and too buried under the hood that are too important to leave to second guessing.
In short: we want info. If the game won’t give it, then a wiki will.
One thing i probably wouldn’t have guessed is, that i only compete against my own top game. Any hint to that in the beginning would be great. Even if it just a general popup, not specific to a game, that might have failed to live up to the expectations.
The genre/platform and audience/platform would also be nice to know upfront. The Topic/Genre-Combination i would leave left to trial&error as most of them can be correctly guessed.
When a game gets its review-score i would like to have a button “Detailed review” and there have information about every bonus and penalty i recieved for review. Not the exact numerical values more like “The leve design left room for improvement” (Not enough time allocated) or “Game is ridden with bugs” (Released with too many bugs" and so on.
With this the player could always learn from the game “What did i right, what did i wrong?” but, unless he read the algorithms-pages on the wiki, would never know if there aren’t some bonus-options he haven’t discovered yet.