Lovely little proof of concept. I like the idea of building a road network in a game about movement costs and exploration. It also looks lovely, and I find the little settlements versions of each tile very satisfying.
If and when you guys get back to this, I'd like to provide three points of focus.
1. A long-term objective beyond the little story going on. Do we want to link up all the towns in this region, then move on to the next and start again?
2. Since the road network seems to be your core novelty here, I think you should focus on connecting stuff up for different reasons. "If we get some steel we can bridge this canyon separating the region and reach the other towns." "x settlement has the Old World know-how to make steel but we need to find coal and connect it with a road."
3. I don't like random events. Randomly having stuff happen to you can be more annoying than interesting. Instead finding little Points Of Interest across the map that trigger certain kinds of events could be far more fun and encourage exploration. Because the player gets to say "oh what's that? Let me go see what happens". Like some people with a donkey, or a campfire, etc. Just gives the player control of when stuff happens, and lets them vaguely guess at what could happen while making the game about exploration encourage exploration.
Either way it's quite a neat foundation for something. I hope you guys fiddle with it more.
A big thank you for taking the time to give Trailblazer a play and for providing your feedback! A few people have made mention of having points of interest that they'd like to be able to go up to and explore. That would definitely be something we'd consider for future development.
Right now, our idea for the long term goal would be to connect all the settlements on the map. With each one giving you something (like a vehicle upgrades). We're also looking at locking certain areas of the map, like the mountains, until you've got the right vehicle to navigate those areas.
Again, thanks for the feedback! We'll make sure we take it all in to consideration should development on this kick off again 🙌
Amazing little journey! I enjoyed it a lot. Incredibly peaceful and seems like a really solid foundation to expand on with various additional features. Looking forward to what's next!
This is a fantastic proof of concept for an involved strategy game that pairs a little of Oregon Trail with network-building. I was sincerely really impressed by this. It has great potential! Some of the highlights I really liked were the narrative focus, with encounters and quests thoughtfully played out in dialogue and user choices, and the gorgeous minimalist pixel art, which reminds me a little of those big Ultima map tilesets from back in the day.
The core gameplay loop feels good and the events aren't so common as to be obtrusive. Dragging and plotting out roads and travel destinations feels pretty intuitive and easy too! Currently there are only tradeoffs in terms of affecting fuel and resources, which aren't too much of an inconvenience. I can see the game taking on interesting dimensions of trade or exchange where the resource management becomes more involved over time and factors in more of a challenge.
As far as constructive feedback, there isn't a lot - this is super polished for a jam prototype and all its systems work well. The only thing I can think of is that I was surprised roads offer no real bonuses to the player once established - travel is the same speed/cost (?) and the autosuggestions for travel routes don't follow them as a result. I wonder if there were more benefits constructing roads and even other things in future could provide for the strategy element?
Congrats on publishing this - I really enjoyed playing it. I would love to see how this evolves and try it again down the track, and really hope you continue development on the prototype!
Hey, first off thank you for your amazing feedback! We really appreciate that you took the time to play our game!
We're so pleased that the vibe of the game seems to have come across well. The roads should cost 0 fuel to travel across, as the idea with them is that they kind of act like a fast travel between settlements. We've had a few people point out that it feels like the auto suggestion paths should snap to a nearby road, if there is one. It's definitely something we'll put on our radar to look into!
Right now, our team is giving this prototype a break while we work on other things. But we're definitely keen to jump back onto the wagon (pun intended) in the future to see what else we can do with it! Thanks again for your lovely comment and feedback!
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Hey!
Lovely little proof of concept. I like the idea of building a road network in a game about movement costs and exploration. It also looks lovely, and I find the little settlements versions of each tile very satisfying.
If and when you guys get back to this, I'd like to provide three points of focus.
1. A long-term objective beyond the little story going on. Do we want to link up all the towns in this region, then move on to the next and start again?
2. Since the road network seems to be your core novelty here, I think you should focus on connecting stuff up for different reasons.
"If we get some steel we can bridge this canyon separating the region and reach the other towns."
"x settlement has the Old World know-how to make steel but we need to find coal and connect it with a road."
3. I don't like random events. Randomly having stuff happen to you can be more annoying than interesting. Instead finding little Points Of Interest across the map that trigger certain kinds of events could be far more fun and encourage exploration. Because the player gets to say "oh what's that? Let me go see what happens". Like some people with a donkey, or a campfire, etc. Just gives the player control of when stuff happens, and lets them vaguely guess at what could happen while making the game about exploration encourage exploration.
Either way it's quite a neat foundation for something. I hope you guys fiddle with it more.
Luke
Hi Luke,
A big thank you for taking the time to give Trailblazer a play and for providing your feedback! A few people have made mention of having points of interest that they'd like to be able to go up to and explore. That would definitely be something we'd consider for future development.
Right now, our idea for the long term goal would be to connect all the settlements on the map. With each one giving you something (like a vehicle upgrades). We're also looking at locking certain areas of the map, like the mountains, until you've got the right vehicle to navigate those areas.
Again, thanks for the feedback! We'll make sure we take it all in to consideration should development on this kick off again 🙌
Amazing little journey! I enjoyed it a lot. Incredibly peaceful and seems like a really solid foundation to expand on with various additional features. Looking forward to what's next!
Thanks for your lovely comment and for playing our game! We're so pleased you enjoyed it 🙌
This is a fantastic proof of concept for an involved strategy game that pairs a little of Oregon Trail with network-building. I was sincerely really impressed by this. It has great potential! Some of the highlights I really liked were the narrative focus, with encounters and quests thoughtfully played out in dialogue and user choices, and the gorgeous minimalist pixel art, which reminds me a little of those big Ultima map tilesets from back in the day.
The core gameplay loop feels good and the events aren't so common as to be obtrusive. Dragging and plotting out roads and travel destinations feels pretty intuitive and easy too! Currently there are only tradeoffs in terms of affecting fuel and resources, which aren't too much of an inconvenience. I can see the game taking on interesting dimensions of trade or exchange where the resource management becomes more involved over time and factors in more of a challenge.
As far as constructive feedback, there isn't a lot - this is super polished for a jam prototype and all its systems work well. The only thing I can think of is that I was surprised roads offer no real bonuses to the player once established - travel is the same speed/cost (?) and the autosuggestions for travel routes don't follow them as a result. I wonder if there were more benefits constructing roads and even other things in future could provide for the strategy element?
Congrats on publishing this - I really enjoyed playing it. I would love to see how this evolves and try it again down the track, and really hope you continue development on the prototype!
Hey, first off thank you for your amazing feedback! We really appreciate that you took the time to play our game!
We're so pleased that the vibe of the game seems to have come across well. The roads should cost 0 fuel to travel across, as the idea with them is that they kind of act like a fast travel between settlements. We've had a few people point out that it feels like the auto suggestion paths should snap to a nearby road, if there is one. It's definitely something we'll put on our radar to look into!
Right now, our team is giving this prototype a break while we work on other things. But we're definitely keen to jump back onto the wagon (pun intended) in the future to see what else we can do with it! Thanks again for your lovely comment and feedback!
Awesome! Congrats on the Itch launch!
Thank you! We're very pleased with what we managed to get done!