"Although my score always stayed at 0"
* Was that in the end game screen or somewhere else? I just want to be sure you are playing the latest build as, in the latest build, you dont see a "score" until the level ends and it seems to be working ok??
The build I was playing, the executable has a Date Modified of 26/07/019 4:05pm - Seems to be the same one as the google docs link from your previous post.
Here's the start of the game of the version I have. Score is on the left hand side just above the map. I never got as far as a level end screen, how is the end of level triggered?
- "Is there a health/damage indicator for ships so I know when they are going to overheat and blow up?"
* Right now, ships just die immediately if they get too close or too far away from the sun. Im considering if thats the best way to work and how to communicate that better via the UI.
Ah I see. So there must be an internal timer once the ship is too close or too far from the sun, because if i get them back to safety quick enough, they don't blow up. I had assumed they were taking damage and therefore had something like a fixed amount of hp!
"The icons on the map screen seemed a little confusing, it didnt map intuitively to the game space"
* Fair point.. it needs work.
After using the map a bit more I notice it is useful, it shows ships as flashing triangles that turn red when they are in danger. It might be nice to draw the danger zones around the sun and the outer limits as red circles on the map to better indicate the play area.
Additional points after playing again today, feel free to use or ignore them as you wish:
- Volume + and - buttons. I feel the - button should be on the left instead of the right
- Volume doesn't appear to affect music volume, only sfx
- The background machine-like atmospheric "humming" present in the game seems to be a lot louder than the other sounds.
- Volume doesn't have an indicator like a slider bar or number (e.g. 0-10) to indicate the current volume level.
- When holding/releasing space to view/hide the map, the whole map surface flashes white for a moment.
- In the ship summary in the top right, perhaps the currently selected ship should be highlighted with a white box and the others not. It would make it more obvious which ship is currently selected.
- The exclamation mark flashing next to the newly arrived ships makes me feel like some kind of emergency is happening to them, I feel a bit panicked seeing them all, blinking away there. It draws a lot of attention away from the main action. After testing it a bit, I think it actually means they are just new ships I haven't clicked on at least once yet. My suggestion would be to keep the marker, just don't make it flash.
- When a ship is in danger, could you make the red warning circle with an exclamation mark into a triangle instead, to differentiate it from the normal circle with exclamation mark that is telling me it is a new ship? And have a short warning emergency siren sound to draw my attention to it?
- If I see a ship on screen, and then I left-click on it because I want to control it, the camera snaps/jumps to center the ship on screen. Can I suggest the camera smoothly pans over to it so that it is less dis-orienting? This is just for ships that are visible in the current view - the ship buttons in the top right probably don't need such a thing, as the ship could be very far away, and if I'm clicking on the button, I want to go directly to it.
- A more distinct sound for when a ship is destroyed, at the moment it seems to have the same sound as for when a signal mission is missed/ignored
- Does the sun have any gravity effects? I think good gameplay is more important than scientific accuracy, and I think the system works well as it is, but some might question this aspect, given that the planets/moon have gravity.
- Is there any significance to the way the word gravity rotates around the circle, or is it just to keep the word on screen so its easier for the player to read?
----- WARNING! It seems I was playing an older build. Just managed to download the itch.io version, so some of the above comments may not apply anymore -----
Latest Build Feedback Follows:
- I like the mouse controls for the ship, but now it seems if I have a ship selected, clicking on the GUI buttons, mission confirm dialogs triggers the ship to move as well. Ships should ignore movement commands if I'm clicking on button or GUI element.
- In this build, ships explode immediately when in the danger zones - I kind of liked the old build, where there was a small window of opportunity to save them.
- It might just be my graphics card (Intel HD 4000 Integrated) - but I'm seeing a lot of graphics flash as a white square briefly when they come into view:
- I really like the trajectory indicator showing the current path of the ship!
Ok, so that's all I have time for right now, I need to play this new build a bit further before giving more feedback!