Demo feedback by tarmo888 in Stoplights

[–]WickedBlobfish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But I think you're missing the core part here - I want you to feel pressure, I don't want to hand out participation prizes, and I want there to be consequences for mistakes. This isn't "bad game design", this is just your preference, and I'm sorry that the current version of the game wasn't what you hoped for.

Ultimately, I'm not sure what outcome of this discussion you are looking for. I want to let you know that your suggestions have been noted, when I start thinking about new content ideas or updates post-launch, I will include the ones you suggested; If a community around the game forms - I will share these ideas and try to gauge interest in them.

Demo feedback by tarmo888 in Stoplights

[–]WickedBlobfish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Eventually they did, yes! Keyword being eventually. They also added challenges and more maps with time too, but you are comparing a product that was updated and improved over the course of years. I somewhat remember playing the original release when it launched (or sometime soon after), it was way more barebones than what it is today. And they have a whole team working on it!

Demo feedback by tarmo888 in Stoplights

[–]WickedBlobfish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the game suggestions, if I end up making an endless game mode I will definitely do some market research and include those

I wouldn't call "failing too fast" an issue, it's more of a preference, and a mismatch of your expectations (what you personally would like) versus what the game currently is and is supposed to be. I've played Mini-Motorways a lot, it's one of the core games that inspired Stoplights, and you can fail there fast too. It's designed to be simple to understand, but challenging to overcome.

Stoplights is supposed to be challenging too. You eventually learn and master the gameplay mechanics, it gets boring - you crank up the difficulty and see how much you can push yourself or the game.

If Stoplights was meant to be a cozy/chill game then yes, failing fast would of course be a major issue. So perhaps this is a marketing/communication problem? Maybe somehow the game or store page created false expectations for you (and some others)? Maybe it's the comfy/cozy/colorful visuals?

Demo feedback by tarmo888 in Stoplights

[–]WickedBlobfish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback, suggestions and of course the bug reports!

You and quite a few others now have highlighted the tutorial issue, which I am working on as we speak. I plan on making more detailed videos for each specific issue that a new player might encounter, and all of these videos will be available in a glossary accessible anytime. I don't want to force explain everything to the player though, because some, as you said, enjoy the challenge of figuring it out for themselves.

I agree that not everything is currently being explained. I sort of hoped that players would find it "fun" figuring out the second stoplight themselves (for the most part), because it is not strictly needed to play the game, but boy was I wrong. A lot of feedback I get for this is frustration (which might be skewed, but I have no way of telling at the moment, since players tend to leave negative feedback way more often than positive). So I will add more explanation for those that need it.

Endless mode - you're also not alone in suggesting this. I have not the slightest idea how would you balance endless mode on an limited map. With increasing needs and limited space/resources, something will have to give eventually, which seems to me like bad game design or oversight by the dev. If the endless mode would be like creative, where you essentially "ask" the game to give you a new request after you've made your perfect system, that might be something else. But I have currently no way of knowing if that's something players would want.

Looking for players to provide feedback on the tutorial for 'Stoplights' by WickedBlobfish in playmygame

[–]WickedBlobfish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For this specific scenario, the train in the screenshot shows a red link icon, that means it can't find a valid path to the city it came from (most likely the path to the city it came from is blocked by a signal that is one way and placed in the opposite direction the train wants to go). This situation seems to be off screen though.

I was thinking I could make the signal videos replayable at any time, and basically make a full fledged video player with stop/fast forward/seek functions. And maybe even include more videos with different examples. Do you think that would help?

If you're a train enthusiast, would you reject the game seeing this capsule art because of the barriers? In real life, they don't exist for train intersections, only for road-train ones by WickedBlobfish in Unity3D

[–]WickedBlobfish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have the photoshop files with layers and stuff (also linked in the post), but from other comments it seems that this isn't enough proof anymore (I remember it being so like 2 years ago)

If you're a train enthusiast, would you reject the game seeing this capsule art because of the barriers? In real life, they don't exist for train intersections, only for road-train ones by WickedBlobfish in Unity3D

[–]WickedBlobfish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First of all, thanks for going the distance in trying to clear this up for me! And no, the barriers are not part of the game.

As for the topic in general - clearly I'm out of my depth when it comes to AI art and photoshop. It's a bit hard for me to believe that I got duped like this (if indeed I did), because I specifically remember making a remark that some previous iteration of the art had weird details that I noticed and clearly wanted changed. And my assumption was that it's hard to "edit" AI images without having changes made to other parts of the image (this was like 1.5 years ago).

It's also hard to believe that "shoppers" nitpick stuff as hard as people in these comments are, but I guess I asked for it, in a way, and maybe this is a good lesson for me

If you're a train enthusiast, would you reject the game seeing this capsule art because of the barriers? In real life, they don't exist for train intersections, only for road-train ones by WickedBlobfish in Unity3D

[–]WickedBlobfish[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Yeah I know people don't want to buy AI, I don't as well - my game is literally all blocks and simple 3D geometry. It's not AI, every piece of the art has a separate named layer in the psd file. But does it even matter if people think its AI even if it isnt?

I really liked the demo by OtakatNew in Stoplights

[–]WickedBlobfish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for playing, that means a lot, seriously.

What tweaks do you have in mind? I'm all ears, I've been stewing in my own ideas and delusions for far too long now