Week ago, I took a part in Indie Showcase 2014 - indie games festival which was a part of Digital Dragons 2014 in Cracow. I have a chance to present The Miners not only to players, but also to other game developers, publishers and journalists. Everyone could sit by my table, play the game, share opinions and ask questions. My main goal was to gather as much feedback as possible from everyone. I'm happy to say that in general feedback was very positive. But on the other hand I received lots of suggestions for changes, which I have to think over (I have almost 20 points on my list). As I watched like people were playing in my game I realized that it is not ready yet (unfortunately), and there is still something to change, improve or add.
First of all I have think about controls and interface. Many people have problems to control miners (despite the fact that there are 3 ways of control them), and move around the game. Some of them even said that game is too difficult. Adding in-game tutorial or tooltips may be also very helpful (provided guide in main menu was not considered useful, because hardly anyone remembers all the information put there). Almost all players were trying to scroll the map, what is not possible (we can see only that part of terrain what is being seen by selected miner). People were also asking about implementing fog of war, increasing amount of animation frames of miners and many other minor changes.
I have already decided that some of proposed changes will be implemented. Some of them I have to think over and test in game. Unfortunately at this stage I'm not able to say how much time this will take me.
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