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Unity 2019.4 WebGL build just broke and I have no idea why. I haven’t changed anything, but it’s crashing my browser now (wasn’t an hour ago) … so this WebGL link may work for you, but if not there’s a video showing the game so far below: http://t-machine.org/web/betas/spacegame2020
Game background:
You start with a text console, and while you play the game gradually you purchase extra dashboard widgets that unlock / add different parts to your spaceship.
Eventually there’s no text console, everything is GUI only
The goal was to make a game that feels like the UI we see in big-budget Hollywood films, but that’s the entire game/UI, there’s no 3D flying etc.
Target audience: people who want the fun parts of EveOnline/Elite/etc but don’t have the time for a full 3D immersive experience, and/or want to play casually (in-browser, in background while working on other things, etc)
Feedback requested:
Mainly the general game idea and approach - does it make sense? does it look interesting?
NB: if the WebGL build doesn’t work for you … in the video I switch to a ship that’s still mostly text-console, but 50% GUI. In the main demo, if you don’t cheat, you are purely in text-console until the very end, when you have a choice of upgrading to the 50%-GUI ship
Feedback specifics:
Would you play this from the start with the text console, or get bored straight away and give up before unlocking any GUI elements?
Would you carry on using the console once you had the option to turn it off? (my plan is that you can sell the console for cash, and use it to upgrade other parts, but personally I find it quicker/more fun sometimes than using mouse - e.g. if I’m doing coding in the bakground, I can switch to this and play it fully from keyboard. But maybe I’m just weird…)
How is the interaction with the three AI’s (probe, and two spacestations) - in the video you can see the probe spits out yellow text and then immediately disconnects you (it’s intentionally rude), where the spacestation is slower, prints in white, and is more friendly/interactive (it will actually prompt you and remind you if you get stuck while answering its questions).
I had to resort to the video. The WebGL didn’t work for me either. (Chrome on Windows 10)
I may be more comfortable than the average gamer with text consoles. But I think even I would want to be able to see a new widget with the very first command I enter, even if it takes several more commands to add a second widget. It would just convey a reassuring promise that I wouldn’t be stuck with text forever.
I’d like to always keep the console as a way to drop down to a lower level, feeling like I’m hacking the system.
It was a little hard to discern. It might need to stand out more.
Overall, I like this idea. It’s unique. Some people love to go crazy with customizing their desktops. There’s even a long-lived Unity forum thread of people showing their Unity editor layouts. I’d like to be able to acquire new widgets and then arrange them how I want (e.g., slide them around, resize them, etc.), kind of like a sci-fi game version of Rainmeter. Think also of the glove-controlled virtual interface in the Minority Report movie. Maybe it’s not the most efficient UI, but everyone thought it was really cool that you could grab a window or widget, toss it over to one corner of the display, expand another widget when you need it, then toss it somewhere else when you’re done, etc. That would be fun to play with.
I like the idea of gradually getting more UI as the game goes by, but I think that it would be good to have the player get the first UI very early on to grab the player’s interest. Also, preferably all UI elements should be important to the player. When I looked at the video, I noticed that the UI to the left side (Pressure, Oxygen and Temp) never changed in value so by that I assume that they don’t have any importance to the gameplay.
That being said, it would be cool if you would have to use information gained from different UI elements to proceed in the story. However, I would suggest to always keep the keyboard command as the main form of playing, since that’s probably the thing that got people to play the game in the first place.
One thing I think is good practice is to not bombard the player with too much information in the beginning. Give them either one or two choices/actions to do, then gradually introduce more elements to work with. That way, the game is easier to pick up and lasts longer for those who stick with it.
Over all, I think the game looks quite promising and that it shows a lot of potential.
I think you’re on to something that could be really interesting for a niche audience that isn’t well served yet.
I would rather ask the question “would you consider buying a game that has a text console in the ingame screenshots?”, to which I’d answer “likely not if I was looking for something casual”. It makes a “promise” of high complexity and steep learning curve, while your description suggests that not to be the case. I’d suggest to make the text console a late game tool that expands the possibilty-space for the advanced player, and mostly show GUI in screenshots on a store-page. Start the game with easy to understand GUI elements that streamline your possible actions, so that you have better control over guiding the early game experience of a first-time player and integrate tutorial messages into the GUI, then slowly lead them towards higher complexity, branching paths and new possibilities.
Just my 2 cents, it’s up to you of course and you hopefully know your target audience better.
This is very helpful. They should change - everything in the UI should be active, and “live” (actual data, and in most cases clickable). But one thing I wasn’t sure of was: would anyone notice that some of them weren’t connected up yet, and were just using their initial values? Now I know :).
and I have no idea why. I haven’t changed anything, but it’s crashing my browser now (wasn’t an hour ago) … so this WebGL link may work for you, but if not there’s a video showing the game so far below: 