Long bulleted list of my thoughts and suggestions

[cold sequoia]

Aplologize in advance for the length. I tried to stay as brief as I could. I'm taking a break until either the next playtest (if there is one) or the full launch so I don't burn myself out on the game before it's even out. The bones of greatness are here.

Flat out positives

• borderless fullscreen works like an absolute CHARM. love it.
  • Also, running incredibly smoothly at 5120x1440 on a GeForce 3080 Ti. It's kind of an unusual resolution, thought you guys might like the feedback
  • Addendum to the above: the game works great on steam deck, too!
• LOVE the music
• controller support is great, almost perfect
• the gameplay loop is nearly nailed, where I get close to but not quite overwhelmed by the things I need to do
  • the exception is the monstrous garbage pileup in early game, more on that in a min
• honestly, the game should straight up jump to Overwhelming Positive reviews as soon as it releases
  • this is already a more polished and refined experience than a lot of indie games at full release

Suggestions

• please, please let me fine people who litter when there are available trash cans
  • update to the below: if a patch dropped, it mostly fixed the problem; if not, then maybe it was just restarting the game? Though I have a lot more trash cans now, so maybe placing the additional cans helped? I dunno. They still do it but it's less bad. Leaving the other bullets in place for reference.
  • these mfs really be putting trash on the ground for NO reason--four trash cans, one avaialble next to the other, one is full, the other is not, they just toss trash on the ground
  • this would be especially awesome if it was something an option that unlocked after setting up the maintainance shop. ahhhhh, that'd be SO satisfying
• button (X on controller?) to dump everything in my backpack into the targeted container
  • bonus points (I'll buy extra DLC) if I can dump the contents of the truck
• let me put the skateboard in the back of the truck
• The below bullet was from earlier in the playthrough before I found out you can cancel the next train, but the statement still kinda stands
  • let me go into the schedule and cancel upcoming trains
  • in the absence of this, since we don't need to sleep, at least give us the option for some downtime on the train schedule from 10-6 or something so we have scheduled time to build and clean
• option to pause game when in build mode
  • maybe just any time i'm on my phone? I don't even have time to read the descriptions of things I'm buying in the tech tree
• bubble gun is hilariously fun--can we make it so it interacts wtih people?!
• keybinds - i want to be able to swap b and y--b is used to exit vehicles, but y is used to get in them. i'm too dumb for that lol
• rotating buildings -- i want my garbage dump away from people; not sure if ti's needed (if not, it should be), but the furthest point faces the dump away from the road, and since trucks can't go off road, i have to walk all the way around the dump. I just moved the dump, but it's bothersome I had to do that
• A notification when we have enough research points to buy new things from townco
• it's not entirely clear what some of the recipes need
  • book nook, in particular, is unclear what it needs to sell books
• actually, on that above note, just a whole details popover for an item would be ideal
  • i wanna know what's needed to produce it and where it's produced, primarily, though sell price and stuff would be nice
• now that i'm approaching mid/end game--I've unlocked nearly everything from the store--I still feel a little overwhelmed.
  • I'm not quite sure what the cause is. I think it's a combination of lack of storage and not knowing what to do with the excess
  • There is something that feels a little off...like I simultaneously have too much to do but not enough, like there's no reason at all to fish or mine on my own anymore, but the automation isn't deep enough for that to feel rewarding

Do you guys have plans for the npcs to interact with decor? When Dinkum added townies sitting on benches and stuff it made the little world feel much more alive. I may have just missed it, but I haven't seen any visitors or townies interact with any of the decor except the trash cans--looking at Forg's town with all the tables, it'd be amazing to see people grab their food, sit at a table, and eat. Depending on the behavior scripting tools you guys have in your engine, it feels like it wouldn't be horribly difficult to build except for accounting for edge cases.

[night flame]

To answer this, townies should interact with furnitures, such as the bench, and the groffle rides. Certain ones they do not interact with such as slides. But they have interacted with furnitures in previous playtests.

[cold sequoia]

ahhhh that's dope. Thank you!

[spring wadi]

Hello! going to go through these now!

5120x1440! ultra ultra wide!

RE: Early game trash: Yeah there's definitely a balance pass that needs to be done there. I also think there might be an issue with the AI and how it detects nearby cans. It's on my todo list, and hopefully we'll have it sorted for a future playtest.

Dumping everything: I've got a prototype for pressing and holding to continuously dump/pick up items. It's great, and I hope to get it into a build soon. You become like a mayoral vacuum cleaner.

Train Scheduling You know, I hadn't considered the ability for the player to define when the trains come. But that's a pretty great idea. I'll add that on to the thoughts list and see what we can do. In the original design, the trains would not run at night time, and the player could go home and sleep. But what we think we might end up doing is making sure there are fun and unique activities to perform no matter the time of day.

Menu Pausing: I can probably make that an option!

Bubble Gun Interactions: 100%. We want to make sure almost everything interacts in a meaningful/fun way. Should definitely de-stink any stinky tourists.

Keybinds: Yep! We'll be adding full rebinding.

Rotating Buildings: This is a tricky one. Because of the fixed camera, there are certain buildings that become incredibly difficult to use once they're rotated. but the garbage dump seems like one we might be able to rotate. I'll talk to design about it.

Notification for EGO Unlocks: Can do!

Recipe Discoverability: Yep, there's a big hole here. We will eventually have a phone app to help manage this. As well as where to locate specific resources/items.

And the manage UI needs a full redesign. It hasn't really changed from the first time I implemented it. So Ive got to go back and update it to fit all the cool new stuff we've added.

End Game: Good points! We have a variety of things in the pipeline that should help with that. Some curveballs we plan to throw at you, as well as some cool things that require more active participation from the player.

I hope that answers all your questions!