Cosmic Forge
Welcome to my new project! It is an incremental game. You start with Hydrogen and you have to learn technologies, fuse atoms to new elements, eventually gaining compounds, building science buildings, exploring the universe!
Ongoing project, early version to be expanded. Has cloud saving for continuity (optional autosave) or export text file saving. Enjoy and as always please leave feedback and improvements ideas! Balancing a game like this is hard and is ongoing.
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Hi Xtraluis its nice to speak with you again, I remember you from the Chips shop project. Hope you are well! I am enjying creating this project, I have just released this sample to check that my cloud saving is working ok. The game can evolve a lot from this point, I want to add a prestige layer in the form of the star map, like resetting on different stars with different weather and to actually have a goal not just unlocking resources.
i am open to ideas on which direction to take it, as I kind of just opened the IDE and started coding randomly without much design. Hopefully I can get you to playtest any new versions.
I havent played it as fully as you say, how did you find the balance, would you be able to give me any feedback related to the pricing and how it increases, does it seem to be ok or too slow? I have some empty tabs where I am planning to add upgrades to supercharge production, i am working on the energy tab to show consumption a bit better, to help to avoid the power tripping out, when you buy too many autobuyers.
would you say overall it could be a fun game when it is fleshed out a bit more? Thanks and have a great day!
Hello. I'm glad you remember me, I hope you're doing well too. I can see how challenging it can be to pass through many stars and deal with different climates, plus the fact that you have to actively manage your resources. Going this route will lead to an overall change in how the game progresses, but if it's just a challenge mode or something related, that's fine.
It took me about 3 hours to get to the point I mentioned, it's not that difficult to get there faster. The problem is understanding which auto generator you prioritize. The strategy I used is to buy everything from basic resources to final products until it got a little expensive depending on what I unlock in tech tree, for example: I bought 10 hydrogen compressors (20/s), then I started selling until I got enough money to buy the science kit. When I got some science kits, I started buying more compressors or any other equivalent upgrade of other elements;
Carbon and water are the best resources to sell. Managing energy is a difficult task for the greedy :p, if your consumption exceeds the production of one of the generators, congratulations, you're screwed. It would be nice if you reduced the price of the first sodium ion battery, the rest are fine. As it is the first version you will only have to accelerate the progression as you add content.
It will definitely be a fun game.
I just wanted to express some of the frustration I went through. I had a little trouble getting to the end of the game (compound and all tech tree upgrades unlocked) due to my poor energy management. I could invest in the battery, but it's very expensive.
Everything in the game looks good to me, you'll probably add some quality of life and improve the interface, so there's not much to say.
Okay, some feedback i got(i played until i got carbon)
Too many submenus unless you are planning to add the entire periodic table, also there is no mechanical difference between 'gases' and 'solids' so i dont see the point of separating them
You are able to click on the whole resource text but you need to click on the name to actually move to their menu
every single technology is just 'unlock something'. Improving collectors or something could be good maybe? Also, having the first two unlocks just be 'unlock the ability to do more research' isnt really fun. Research is too expensive.
Maybe hide energy until you actually get it? Like you did with the starmap?
Whats the point of fusion when you can just manually gather the result after fusing for the first time?
Helium sells for less than hydrogen, dunno if that is intentional
Actually having a tech tree so you can see future technologies could be cool. Also, knowing what the technologies i buy actually do/what they unlock before i purchase them could be helpful in knowing what technology i should buy
In conclusion, not really a fun game right now, but there is potential here
sorry if i was too harsh or didnt play enough
Excellent feedback. Its very early, in fact only published so i can make sure the cloud feature is working properly. i am thinking i will take it down to carry on the development. But then, getting this sort of feedback will help me no end. the game still lacks a goal and prestige, so i am open to absolutely any ideas. Definitely going to take a lot of your points.
The point of fusion is that you cant gather everything yourself (or wont be able to) but actually there is a whole new section called compounds that has things like water, diesel, concrete, glass and they are the hard to get resources - because you cant auto buy them, and need to create them from resources, ie 26hydrogen and 12 carbon makes 1 diesel and that is fuel for the basic power plant. etc
The balancing is going to be the hardest part, but i am glad you see the potential. I will give some thought to making space in the screen for showing a tech tree. I already have a graphviz one i use for dev purposes which i have shown here but as yet it is not in the game but could be if it would help. The tech tree shows where the game is generally headed, and the prestige will come in when you can reset on other stars. The other tabs will have the upgrades to give multiply boosts etc, but still on the drawing board.
Thanks again and please follow so we can talk more, i liked your effort to feed back! Leigh.