Hey, I've been enjoying the game since the play-test period earlier this year. I know a lot has been covered, but some thoughts:
Cottages should offer even more protection from spores than huts. Right now they're both at 20%.
I was surprised the tomatoes didn't grow during heatwaves. It would have been a nice tradeoff to have a plant that thrives in the heat but requires a lot of water.
It would really help the game to be building towards something. Frostpunk and They Are Billions both have a tough mechanic at the end of the game. What is my ultimate goal or ultimate challenge? Maybe the Onbu ultimately sets off over the ocean to a land without spores, and so the final challenge is surviving the ocean crossing by fortifying the onbu.
Others mention it, but I HATE the "hurt Onbu" mechanic. It's a bit psychopathic and my heart drops at the thought that it's required. It could be interesting to turn it into a forked path, where you solved the problem differently by drilling into the onbu versus cultivating a greater and greater trust from the onbu (maybe a happy onbu grows trees/berries faster, attracts more birds and roaming traders, allows for increased abilities, etc. An unhappy onbu causes its trees and berries to slowly stagnate and die off, but this can be made up by producing advanced chemical fertilizers for more effective farms/nurseries, and onbu painkillers to prevent it from slapping at you with its tail, eating villagers, or trying to shake you off. A "harmony with nature" path versus an "industrialization" path. And maybe the industrial path has some added benefits, like being able to produce tech that will allow me to save more humans so that I can justify harming the onbu). That would produce more replay-ability.
I personally love the aesthetic and how peaceful it is. That is a very strong strength of the game. Another strength is the sense of helping/saving people. In this sense, I feel the game is mostly a city-builder with some weak survival elements.
The biggest weakness, as has been pointed out, is that the strategy element hasn't been invested in. There's a real sense of "hurry up and wait", where I'm frantically researching/building, followed by stretches where I have less to do. It feels like the survival mechanics are a bit all over the place and actually feel even weaker to me than when I played it earlier in the year. Then, I had a tight fit to get the resources to cover the onbu in the first iteration of the decontaminators. Now there's not a clear "event" I need to plan around. The first time I had multiple playthroughs to optimize my build for the first big storm. Now I don't know what I'm prepping for at any moment. I just need to have a lot of things.
It's really difficult to avoid the storms (thunderstorms, spores) and there weren't that many times where I really needed to.
I think choosing directions and randomizing the game is a mistake. There are too many different hazards to encounter, with seemingly low stakes for each one. Maybe the onbu should go through one biome at a time, or there should be a better overall threat (think of the constantly-lowering temperature in Frostpunk or the successive wave of zombies in They Are Billions). I would love to feel like every moment counts and that I'm walking a careful tightrope. As it is, the tension isn't there consistently.
I do really enjoy this game and appreciate its vibe. In my opinion the vibe is by far the biggest strength. The strategy element is the biggest weakness.
It's wonderful that this is so successful. I'm so happy for you all! I think this success is also showing that by making a more serious investment, the game could be even bigger.
I'm looking forward to the final product, along with the other updates along the way.
Thank you all!
(check out Frostpunk's choice of bringing the community together through either religion or "order").
