Looking forward to those
I've been waiting 2 months for others to finally check it out 
Cubesis [God Sim Puzzle] Sacrificing Cubies for Grain
- Thread starter Toma
- Start date
Looking forward to those
I've been waiting 2 months for others to finally check it out DISCLAIMER: Have just finished the tutorial and the first mission of the campaign.
Enjoying this so far, but as much as I'm digging the game, I've got to say that there are some little nitpicks that I just can't help but to air:
- The biggest one for me is the lack of hotkeys for the various actions. If I'm sending an army of guys to mine stone (and more on this later) it gets really old to repeat each... individual.. path for each guy to where I want him to dig, then go down and click the "dig down" button. Since 1-4 are taken, maybe assign the QWERTY row to the various build commands? Also, is it really necessary for us to have to plan out each individual turn for the guys? Why not just say "go to this spot across the map and dig for stone?". Sure, if we want to micromanage on a turn by turn basis, leave the option, but so far I find that most of what I want my guys to be doing is more than a turn away anyway, so the option to just assign a destination and let them pathfind their way there would be greatly appreciated.
- And speaking of the army of guys to mine stone, if we're being forced to move them two squares at a time, then the "future turns" thing should keep in mind the plans of the other unts. For example, I create one unit and tell him to move one space to the right, then one space to the right again. He moves the first space on his turn and then will move again on his next one. I create another unit from the same city and the game simply won't let me even plan a move the the spot to the right, because the other unit is there, even though he won't be there on the next turn.
- A minor complaint, but it did throw me off in one of the tutorial levels. The objectives are listed as number of items remaining instead of "number of items attained/total". I think it was the wheat tutorial where I spent a decent amount of time wondering why the game didn't recognize the objective, which I thought was 50 wheat, was completed. Turns out that the 50 in the objective window meant 50 remaining.
- General feedback on why a certain unit can't move to a certain place would also be useful. I eventually figured out that they can't go up or down over a given amount, but there's still times where a unit won't move to a certain space that's well within the two-space limit, and can move there on a subsequent turn, he just won't move there for some reason. I did notice that the space is highlighted in a different color, but I have no idea why the guy won't move directly there. I'm going to try to research this one further on my own, if for nothing else than to try and get some good pictures of the phenomenon.
- If you noticed an undue amount of harping on the "army of guys to mine stone" complaints, there's a reason. I don't know if I was just approaching it wrong, but the two levels that got under my skin both had to do with the whole churches vs population dynamic. I liked it in theory, but since your cities automatically increase in population you either have to build enough churches to exceed the population cap for your cities or constantly burn off your excess population in order to avoid a flood (and in the case of the two levels I saw, drain the seas). And since fields cost money and wheat to plant, it was stone mining I went. Now, I suppose in hindsight that I could have just mined up and down the same square next to my cities (since building up only uses the single stone, I believe), but it's still a lot of a grind after a while, especially since the sea takes a while to drain even at a high imbalance.
Funny thing is, for all the nitpicking, I do like the game so far. All of the above is really relatively small stuff that could be fixed with some interface tweaks. Other than that, I do like what the game's trying to do. It looks great, has a nice mellow soundtrack, and there's a lot of interesting systems interacting that should hopefully provide some interesting levels later on.
Enjoying this so far, but as much as I'm digging the game, I've got to say that there are some little nitpicks that I just can't help but to air:
- The biggest one for me is the lack of hotkeys for the various actions. If I'm sending an army of guys to mine stone (and more on this later) it gets really old to repeat each... individual.. path for each guy to where I want him to dig, then go down and click the "dig down" button. Since 1-4 are taken, maybe assign the QWERTY row to the various build commands? Also, is it really necessary for us to have to plan out each individual turn for the guys? Why not just say "go to this spot across the map and dig for stone?". Sure, if we want to micromanage on a turn by turn basis, leave the option, but so far I find that most of what I want my guys to be doing is more than a turn away anyway, so the option to just assign a destination and let them pathfind their way there would be greatly appreciated.
- And speaking of the army of guys to mine stone, if we're being forced to move them two squares at a time, then the "future turns" thing should keep in mind the plans of the other unts. For example, I create one unit and tell him to move one space to the right, then one space to the right again. He moves the first space on his turn and then will move again on his next one. I create another unit from the same city and the game simply won't let me even plan a move the the spot to the right, because the other unit is there, even though he won't be there on the next turn.
- A minor complaint, but it did throw me off in one of the tutorial levels. The objectives are listed as number of items remaining instead of "number of items attained/total". I think it was the wheat tutorial where I spent a decent amount of time wondering why the game didn't recognize the objective, which I thought was 50 wheat, was completed. Turns out that the 50 in the objective window meant 50 remaining.
- General feedback on why a certain unit can't move to a certain place would also be useful. I eventually figured out that they can't go up or down over a given amount, but there's still times where a unit won't move to a certain space that's well within the two-space limit, and can move there on a subsequent turn, he just won't move there for some reason. I did notice that the space is highlighted in a different color, but I have no idea why the guy won't move directly there. I'm going to try to research this one further on my own, if for nothing else than to try and get some good pictures of the phenomenon.
- If you noticed an undue amount of harping on the "army of guys to mine stone" complaints, there's a reason. I don't know if I was just approaching it wrong, but the two levels that got under my skin both had to do with the whole churches vs population dynamic. I liked it in theory, but since your cities automatically increase in population you either have to build enough churches to exceed the population cap for your cities or constantly burn off your excess population in order to avoid a flood (and in the case of the two levels I saw, drain the seas). And since fields cost money and wheat to plant, it was stone mining I went. Now, I suppose in hindsight that I could have just mined up and down the same square next to my cities (since building up only uses the single stone, I believe), but it's still a lot of a grind after a while, especially since the sea takes a while to drain even at a high imbalance.
Funny thing is, for all the nitpicking, I do like the game so far. All of the above is really relatively small stuff that could be fixed with some interface tweaks. Other than that, I do like what the game's trying to do. It looks great, has a nice mellow soundtrack, and there's a lot of interesting systems interacting that should hopefully provide some interesting levels later on.
All fair criticism, I'll collect these type of suggestions/feedback and send it to the dev. He usually commented on everything I sent to him, so I am sure he has something to say about this as well.
One thing I already did inquire about though, was the waypoint function. The game was originally without any waypoints at all, and you had to go through all your units every turn telling them the next 2 steps. That was incredibly tiresome and I suggested a pathfinding/waypoint system to keep the UI/clicking frustration a bit lower. Thankfully the dev listened to my complaints and worked on the waypoint system which I got to test. The problem is that the pathfinding feature would be too complex for him to implement without much time (maybe in a sequel?), and the waypoints itself were a feature that he wasnt sure he could put in the game either.
I really like the feedback part about why a unit cant move to a certain place by the way. What kind of visual feedback would you suggest? Small popup box?
Wow, I guess that makes me appreciate what we've got. While there's still a lot of clicking, I can't imagine doing this one unit at a time, one turn at a time. I guess that's where the holdover "press tab to cycle to the next unit" stuff comes from. I haven't come across a single situation yet where I've created a unit and didn't know exactly what I wanted him to do from turn one, or have needed to change orders midway.
I'd say just stick it in one of the pre-existing text bubbles that the units do. Similar to how they'll give you some surly comment if you try to make them plant on a non-grassy area, or they'll complain about being hungry or "boiling". Something like "I can't climb that high", if that's the case. As-is, though, I haven't been able to replicate the scenario. From what I can tell, the game doesn't even highlight the square if it's too high to climb onto, so I don't know what the heck was going on that time I saw it.
I did manage to find something else out that's been bugging the heck out of me on mission 2:
Ok, so yeah. My guy's on the square with the three rocks and I want him to move to the square to the upper-left of him, which is where the cursor is pointing. However, the shadow that shows where he'll end up seems to be BEHIND the tile I'm pointing to, but if I click, he goes to the intended three-rock square. I don't know if this is a graphical glitch or what, but it makes the level really difficult to navigate.
I know stuff like this is pretty much the nature of the beast when it comes to games with an isometric viewpoint, and I've always had a rough time with the depth perception in games with this graphical style. While the current approach of control-scrollwheeling to make part of the level invisible is novel, I haven't quite wrapped my brain around the best way to utilize it yet. Honestly, I find myself hoping for a way to rotate the level around, but I'm sure that sort of thing isn't exactly simple to implement.
Yeah,that might work and maybe wouldnt be too much of a hassle to implement. Dont think you can do much about the isometric style issue you have there unfortunately, since it might be an issue of clicking on two tiles at the same time that are overlapping in that scene a bit since the back one is lower. I think I had an issue with this sometimes as well, but it didnt bother me much in the end.
Thanks for playing and writing up impressions btw, I do appreciate someone discussing the game, even if mostly about some criticisms
Thanks for playing and writing up impressions btw, I do appreciate someone discussing the game, even if mostly about some criticisms
Yeah,that might work and maybe wouldnt be too much of a hassle to implement. Dont think you can do much about the isometric style issue you have there unfortunately, since it might be an issue of clicking on two tiles at the same time that are overlapping in that scene a bit since the back one is lower. I think I had an issue with this sometimes as well, but it didnt bother me much in the end.
Thanks for playing and writing up impressions btw, I do appreciate someone discussing the game, even if mostly about some criticisms
Well, unfortunately the criticisms are just things that popped out to me over the course of playing the tutorial. I'm still planning on going back to it to see how all the things I just learned will come into play through the actual game.
Perfectly valid, as I said the game was way rougher when I played it 1-2 months ago and the dev did a LOT to improve it in the meantime. To be honest, I was having a rather sizeable list of things that needed to be added and fixed when I played too, so I definitely see where you are coming from, but even WITH those quirks, I ended up loving the way the levels and gameplay were being structured.
Hope you'll like the levels too and dont just consider it wasted time based on my recommendation
Some more answers from the dev:
"Just a few things to the valid criticism. Fisrt of all I am graphic and game designer, not programmer. Main programmer and game designer of this game was Jan Horacek (Ikkju). He is responsible for the earlier parts of code and I can´t simply change them. I have to build up on the things that had been done. There is many things that I had to change, but these were mainly superficial. There are deeper codes that I can´t change. It would mean to start over from scratches. Second thing is that I was unable to work on a game for nearly half a year because of the problem with GM:Studio – We thought that we won´t be able to work on the game again, this also caused the release in a state in which it was. Third thing is that I am not blind I just have to compromise.
Now to the points:
- Hotkeys are good point. I am not used to hotkeys and they didn´t come to my mind. I would suggest 1-9 for buildings and QWER for path planning.
- “Go there and dig stone.” Yes, that would be awesome. But there is no place to click. Beneath the isometric terrain there is flat map where is everything. Isometric terrain are only pictures. You can´t click on them. That is why I always have to create tiles: to be able to click on something. This is one of the thing that cannot be changed without changing the very basics of the game.
- Issue with walking with each guy in the same direction probably can´t be fixed. :-( I am unable to do this. I can´t say for sure that the guy will not be there in the next turn when they move. I will wonder about it once more but as I said: I am not hardcore programmer. Please be patient with this. I do what I can.
- Listing of objectives: I agree. This thing is here from the very beginning. Jan wasn´t able to tell me why he made it like this but I have got used to it – I was mainly graphic after all. He surely had some logic into it. But I will discuss it with him.
- Unit that can´t move somewhere – Screenshots would be helpful. I am not sure what do you mean exactly. Movement tiles are there only if you can go there. Unit will stop only if there was some change in the terrain that would cause that you can´t go there (even in the next step). Blue tiles are for planning. Green for this-turn-movement.
- Problem with cities: it really depends on where you build a city. Especially on the temperature: the higher the temperature of the place, the quicker the increase in population. But yes: one of the features and mechanics in the game is the limitation of your population. I usually build fields. Or level up and level down one square. Just believe me that allowing you to stop the increase would disbalance whole game and it would probably destroy the challenge in later levels (especially these in Likael´s revenge campaign). Try to imagine it as real population: it increases all the time. What works really good is simple combination of one city and five to six churches. In later levels it should be challenging to create conditions that enables you to survive. Plus when there is higher temperature, you usually need only 2-3 fields. You really need to get used to the basics but it can´t be done without practice.
- Rotation: I am trying to figure it out. It seems that it will work but it needs some time to get it work for every feature of the game (see screenshots: terrain and cubies are changed, but the rest isn´t). Funny thing is that I am using script that I have written at the very beginning of the development (something around six years ago?). Jan said that rotation isn´t important and he didn´t use the script. Many things haven´t been important for him (path planning, zoom, more levels, etc.)… Or lets just put it like: he wasn´t able to do it so he found them unimportant. It is really hard to fix them now, because many changes and because I am in the last year of my university studies and I really do not have time right now.
- Scrolling: It is used mainly to dig a hole."
Have a nice day,
Jindrich
Glad you like it
The above mentioned criticisms are definitely valid, but I still think the game is good enough to be enjoyable to others, so I am really glad some more people check it out now. How far did you get in the game so far?
Glad you like it
The above mentioned criticisms are definitely valid, but I still think the game is good enough to be enjoyable to others, so I am really glad some more people check it out now. How far did you get in the game so far?
I haven't been able to play a whole lot, just finished the tutorial. So far I understand and agree with the given criticisms, that said they're not game breaking at all, granted some of them would make things easier but not expected for small dev team indie games.
Be the looks of it the development has been pretty rough as well.
Yeah, doesnt seem like the original dev put much thought into making the programming decently future proof, so its kind of a miracle the game improved the way it has lately.
Btw, the deal is only running for 16 more hours!
Sent, if the key is invalid, let me know please. And as I said, the game is a turn based puzzle game at its heart, so there is not really much background knowledge required.
Btw, I forgot I actually made a few gifs for the game, which I might as well post:
Already bought it or still need a key?
...I-I guess I should t-thank you for the key, so....thankyouverymuch.
But don't get me wrong, i-it's not like I'm doing this just for you, Toma-niichan! *runs off to install Dark Souls 2*
Am i kawaii yet uguu
Yeah, no hotkeys yet, but apparently hotkeys and world rotation has the highest priority for the dev atm, so that should be in soonish.
On a different note, I was the highest donator for Cubesis, so I'll work on 3 extra mean levels for your pleasure
I already have a cute idea for one level, lets see how that works out.Played a good chunk of the tutorial. Without yet being able to go into detailed criticism, my first impression would be that there's a interesting game here that's buried under clunky UI and obtuse writing. Though maybe it is not exactly buried, as the "game" part of it still stands out.
Gonna have to dig deeper.
Gonna have to dig deeper.
It will naturally get a bit better once you start getting used to the game mechanics and UI elements. I reached a point where I didnt think of the UI as getting in the way anymore, but the tutorial levels are still rather basic with not much influence/thought from the player needed, so these elements stick out a bit more.
Haven't played as much as I would have liked yet, because I got busy and then sick. Here;s some general points I wrote down though.
-I liked the writing and humour, I thought it was a fine mix between flavour text and instructions, never really hindered my understanding or progress.
-Some really fun mechanics! I liked the temperature and water level stuff.
-The way workers are used feels fresh and fun. Sacrificing a cubits to lay down in a field while holding seeds and die to create a field was great.
-Music was pretty good, I didn't wanna mute it which is a plus.
-UI seems fine. I'm not a hotkey type person but I could see how others would be wanting that feature. I really liked the zoom in you can do because my main complaint was the elevation and restrictive elevation based movement was making it hard to navigate, but zooming in really helps.
-Pretty good tutorial, it went though a bunch of the concepts in order while still allowing for some freedom.
-Campaign also good so far.
Will actually write up a real first impressions or review once I play more of the campaign.
-I liked the writing and humour, I thought it was a fine mix between flavour text and instructions, never really hindered my understanding or progress.
-Some really fun mechanics! I liked the temperature and water level stuff.
-The way workers are used feels fresh and fun. Sacrificing a cubits to lay down in a field while holding seeds and die to create a field was great.
-Music was pretty good, I didn't wanna mute it which is a plus.
-UI seems fine. I'm not a hotkey type person but I could see how others would be wanting that feature. I really liked the zoom in you can do because my main complaint was the elevation and restrictive elevation based movement was making it hard to navigate, but zooming in really helps.
-Pretty good tutorial, it went though a bunch of the concepts in order while still allowing for some freedom.
-Campaign also good so far.
Will actually write up a real first impressions or review once I play more of the campaign.
Sounds like you enjoyed the first bit
Curious what you think after some more levels then.You can grab it inthe current steam sale for 1,24$. I am unaffiliated with the dev, but I still have a copy if you really cant afford it yourself. I'll send it to you for some impressions (steam name?)
I started working on some, but then was busy with other things. Unfortunately, I never got back to him once I actually had the time for it, but maybe I can just throw him another mail and talk to him about it.
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