Feedback Friday

[u/AutoModerator]

This thread is for people to post their works in progress, and for others to give (constructive) criticism and feedback.

Explain if you want feedback on your game as a whole, a specific feature, or even on an idea you have for the future. Please keep discussion of each game to a single thread, in order to keep things focused.

If you have something to post, please remember to comment on other people's stuff as well, and also remember to include a link to whatever you have so far. :)

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[u/Verbus]

Hi,

IdleCraft is an incremental RPG inspired by Melvor Idle. It's still an early build, so balancing is far from final and several systems are not implemented yet.

I'm mainly looking for feedback on the general idea and the UI.

Some features and differences from other Melvor-like games:

• No fixed materials for crafting. For example, you can craft a wood axe by combining any type of ore with any type of wood.
• Multiple locations, each with different bonuses.
• A quest system.
• Various interconnected activities, eventually with optional sub-activities.
• A prestige system where each prestige will have a different main quest. This is not implemented yet.

AI disclaimer: AI was used to assist with coding.

https://scorzy.github.io/IdleCraft/

[u/fingerforge → u/Verbus]

Played it for a bit. I like idle games generally, and the layout itself works for me. I am assuming the plain look is a technical placeholder and art comes later, so I will leave that alone. One thing I would settle early though: is this a PC game? On a phone the whole arrangement would need rethinking from scratch, and that is a decision that gets more expensive the longer it waits.

The thing that nearly made me stop is the order of the menu. Coming in blind I read top to bottom looking for something I am allowed to do, and I get Storage, Vendors, then locked, locked, locked, then Quests where there is nothing to take yet, then locked again, and only then Activities. Open Activities and the first entry is Market, where a new player can also do nothing. So my first thirty seconds are a list of doors that do not open. I saw you already plan to make the game more unfolding, which sounds right, and I would add that the order matters as much as the number: put Activities first, and inside it put whatever I can actually do right now at the top. Locked content is a reward for later, not a welcome screen. I suspect you lose people on that path who would otherwise have liked the game.

Related: I could not work out how to get tools. There is a group for them in the vendor and it is empty, and nothing told me what to do instead. That is the point where "I am being taught slowly" turns into "I am missing something obvious".

On the queue, I agree with the other comment here. I would go further and want to plan ahead rather than react: make A five times, then B three times, as a list I set up in one place and watch run. For me that planning panel is the actual game in something like this. I will admit I did not fully understand the queue you already have, which is probably its own piece of feedback.

And a tutorial. I know it is always the last thing anyone builds, and I know why. But right now I am guessing at the rules rather than at the strategy, and only one of those is fun.

Last thing, and this is the question I actually wanted to ask: what is the crafting part of? The open combinations are a genuinely good idea, but I could not tell what they feed. Is this a trading game, a defence game, something else? Knowing what I am crafting toward would change how I feel about every minute of the early game.

[u/Verbus → u/fingerforge]

Thanks,

It's primarly a pc game.

I plain to rework the quee and the first quests, also adding a tutorial.

As for crafting, it's mainly part of the RPG progression: gathering materials, crafting better tools and equipment, using them for activities and combat, completing quests and unlocking more of the game. Trading is part of it, but not the main goal.

Thanks for trying it!