Finished off the first-ever playtest of the game. It has now seen eyes and touched hands that are not mine.
It went fairly well and I got a decent bit of useful information. There were a good handful of minor issues to patch as well as one or two major oversights. Unfortunately, one of the major ones was how Genetics/Mutations worked. Genetics and Mutations can give you upgrades for a crop's combo timer. This means that with enough upgrades you can get a combo timer longer than it takes to grow a crop, and sustaining a combo at that point can be as simple as holding two buttons. You don't even have to move your mouse. This takes a lot of depth out of planting, reducing it to about as shallow as it could be. Now, there is a legitimate way to achieve a similar outcome even without upgrades, but it takes a little more effort and is less likely to last as long. However, what this does mean is combo timer upgrades are being flat removed, as they are pretty much unbalanceable. This leaves only two other crop traits in the upgrades pool: Worth and Combo Max, both of which I like. But two upgrades are not enough to justify both Genetics and Mutations--I originally added those systems to create some player choice and agency, and a meager two options is not a shining example of a "choice". So I need to rework both of those systems. It's very likely that they may get combined or nixed altogether, and I will need to design a suitable replacement. As much as it sucks to roll back major features to square one, it is an inevitability of making games--or at least good ones, as a willingness to throw away underwhelming or dysfunctional features is the filter to a cleaner, crisper game. I'm honestly a little glad it has ended up this way--hindsight is 20/20, and looking back, Genetics and Mutations didn't offer very much to the overall experience. Or, at least not as much as they could've. Genetics are there for player choice and agency, and Mutations are there for casino-like dopamine hits (i.e. some semi-random rewards). However, I'm already starting to meld a few ideas and can envision a much improved v2.0. My attention and time is currently very split, and this rework will take a bit to do. I'll keep you updated on how I decide to change it. |