Hi there!
Soren generously gave me a code to try out the game so I'm logging some first impressions here! I hope they will be useful to the dev team.
Some background: I used to play a lot of RTS. All the Age of ___ games, a ton. Also lots of Civ. Then I played less RTS and more econ sims. Played probably hundreds of hours of Anno series, most recently lots of Banished. I never play MP though, only SP for me.
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Last night I played about 95m (says Steam at least) of the game, I logged some stream-of-consciousness style feedback:
Ok here goes:
- I really like the title screen and the general art style of the game. It's very clean and very pleasant. It gives me the happiness of first opening a brand new board game that came with very well produced game pieces.
- I decided to start from the tutorials. I watched maybe 15min of Soren's twitch and then decided I'd actually rather start the game knowing nothing and then I can give you all some virgin newbie feedback.
- Start of "Upgrade your HQ" tutorial: I immediately understood what's my HQ, the resource icons on the map, the resource list on the left and the information on the upper right. Mouseovering tiles did what I expected, gave me information on the tile. I wish the info would come up faster and be more reactive. Noticed that wind strength is described so that must be important.
- Spent a min of so trying to locate the build menu. Right click? nope. Click on HQ? nope. Then finally noticed the "hammer" logo on the lower left, clicked and expanded the list (later on I realized hovering over the $ signs expanded a per-resouce build option but that was not apparent)
- Once i realized how to build, I went to look for objectives, which as the tutorial mentioned, should be "upgrading my HQ". Ah. ok. Now I guess I have to figure out how to get those 3 resources to upgrade. Oh I could already upgrade, click button.
- Started building some water/food because that just intuitively seemed important.
- Wasn't really sure if resources being far away from my base had any downside, there must be right?
- noticed the white text saying "day 0: population etc". Did not understand what "jobs" meant.
- Saw RED and then realized oh, maybe I should build a power thing.
- the rest of the tutorial was pretty straight forward. Knew what claims meant. etc. After lots of upgrades, decided to quit out this tutorial to move on bc I knew how to upgrade the HQ and that seemed like the objective.
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Started the "Win as expansive" tutorial:
- really loved scanning the planet!! Kind of mesmerizing... oh but I should make a decision shouldn't I, but it's fun to hear the boing sound. Noticed that the game is urging me to be mindful of not spending all my time scanning bc doing so gives me black market goodness. Not sure what that means yet.
- quickly understood that building the same factories next to each other give me a lot of bonus. Still not sure what the downside of having things not immediately attached to HQ is, but it seems unavoidable.
- figured out that oh I can buy from the market so I don't have to wait for my own resources to make enough X to make my power plant. cool. Oh I should start paying attention to the prices then. Hm. I wish there is a price curve so i can easily visit historic prices over time.
- noticed the white building, hm, is that my competitor? (waaaay later I realized that must be the POPULATION that's begging me for water/food/oxygen!)
- Realized that I could buy shares in this tutorial. OH. Ok, I should keep buying the opponent's shares. Instead of just upgrading my HQ that should also be my goal.
- Oops ran out of claim before I upgraded. OH, now I see why claims are limited, oh, I should plan this out more carefully. Oh well I guess I have to buy 40 steel now.
- Still wasn't sure what's the downside of having stuff far away from HQ. Intuitively I would imagine my electronics factory should be closer to where steel/glass is made but it isn't communicated if that's in fact a strategic point to consider. I would expect it to though.
- I was making quite a bit of money, no debt, and was like hm I guess I'll keep buying the other guy's stock.
- What is a Patent Lab? It says it'll give me a big edge, ok i'll make one. Not clear what's the benefit though.
- Starting to feel really bad about water/food/oxygen being expensive. I want to keep my people happy. Really trying to keep the prices low, even though I know that's not part of my objective? I just feel so bad.
- After I have quite a few buildings built it was getting hard to quickly know where the "same kind of building" is at a glance because the VFX playing my "planned building" is kind of obscuring the shape. I'm just trying to visually match the shapes. The farms and the electronics factories are super easy to see though.
- I have so much money, I guess I"ll just buy all their stock. Oh, that's how I win. OHHH of course. So I won at first try.
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Started the Win as Robotic tutorial.
- ah ok I don't need water/food/oxygen, sweet. But more electronics, cool. urm, what makes electronics again? I think Aluminum. Oh huh, units consumer power to fly instead of fuel. OOOOH that means in the previous tutorial they were actually consuming fuel if the claims are far away. AH. Wish it would just tell me how much fuel I would spend before I place a claim far away... I don't think it did?
- placed my HQ next to a bunch of aluminum.
- Oh crap. Aluminum is not what I need for ELECTRONICS.... urm. Let me just start over because that was just... stupid of me? (somehow reading the building requirement I thought I needed steel instead, but actually i was just double wrong?! bc I do need aluminum for electronics.. anyway)
- started over. Looking to start near iron/silicon instead. Took so long scanning that the other AI all started before me and I was like, oh crap! they're not dumb this time! Got a bit excited.
- Didn't find a geothermal this time, so I guess I'll have to try something else, oh look this is good for wind. this is fun.
- realizing that not needing water/oxygen/food actually totally changes how I approach the game, suddenly realize oh man, this can get pretty deep!
- Watched an enemy AI take a super sweet claim I wanted JUST before I did! Omg! GARGH! Suddenly had to wake the brain up to immediately evalute what teh most valuable claims are around me ASAP. Suddenly there is urgency.
- Oh wow the AI is sabotaging each other with I guess black market stuff! I should think about that.. but no, I need to make money first! No time to learn about black market! I am running up so much debt!!! but it's ok I need to grab these resources FIRST before other peopel take them. electronics can wait a bit... ouch though, expensive to buy.
- AI is starting to buy each other's stock. Oh man, I better get in, at least they're not buying my stock.
- omg I have more debt than money.... wait a sec, how come water is over $100?! Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Food is over $200??? Maybe I should switch strategies and .... build that for money now.
- <did that, and at the same time, really gunning to be able to launch rockets off to sell stuff>
- oh phew I am no longer accruing debt. Oh wow, suddenly making a lot of money now! Can't sell it all off right away though, trickle it out for more $...
- let me build an engineering lab so I can make electronics faster since I"m gated by this one resource.
- one AI got bought out by another AI. Nobody is buying me yet so i'm still ok. Buy some of the AI's stock.
- Sent a load of electronics off to space. Holy crap. I have infinite money now.
- Buy all of the AI's stock. woo!
- Once I stopped accruing debt by having my electronics up it was a real sudden quick trip to victory. Won at first try.
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I will keep logging my thoughts as I play through the tutorial, if these notes are useful!
Looking forward to trying out Scavenger and Scientific!
Cheers,
Jane
