Beggar's Life

It's hard to explain how I felt while playing. The gameplay reminded me a bit of Kittens Game but Beggar's Life quickly grows even more overwhelming than Kittens Game, which is odd considering how complex that game is. I think it's due to some QoL issues that Beggar's Life has right now. The screen space looks big but quickly becomes cluttered and cramped due to the amount of things happening, even when you don't have any moods turned on that reveal new options. Menu-ing feels unintuitive, both like this was made to run on a smartphone AND a widescreen monitor at the same time?? It's also hard to keep track of which moods you have turned on and whether they've run their due because again, there's so many options on the screen that you will lose it when you scroll. Active effects should be highlighted, like on its own spot above everything or with just icons or something. I haven't gotten an ending yet but from how I'm understanding it, you need many many playthroughs to get all the achievements due to classes being exclusive, which I am not a fan of. Closing the game and reentering changes the order that the menus appear on the screen which is so odd?? All in all, this has potential. But I cannot recommend this at its current state. I hope the developer will continue to tweak it more and add some QoL fixes.

Seems interesting and like it's 90% there, though I am disappointed that it followed it's inspiration's choice to lock out other classes of the same tier. Could also use some QoL (mouseover descriptions in the log, increase the sensitivity of the mouse scroll wheel for scrolling up and down lists, more signposting). But if the dev treats this like early access, I think it can be pretty good incremental.

TLDR: If you like idle games, this aint it chief. The game has a lot of potential. But it has more issues. First of all, its the least idle idle-game I've ever played. It's got far to many resources that cant be automated when you progress past them. It would've been fine if you select an activity and if you run out of a resource the game will start other activities on its own to generate it before going back to the one you selected and continuing it. Also, there are activities that are like a stance, toggle or a buff, those effects are so strong or useful that they should be a toggle on/off kind of thing, not a timed buff.

Do I think it's a good game? No. With all its depth and originality of theme, the UI/QOL is terrible. (see the earlier comment about scrolling). No ability to queue actions. Red text on black background. UI popup elements get locked. And if you don't realize that "Locations" are hidden, you'll miss half the game. I did. I'm upvoting to help the developer. We need more idle games. 'nuff said.

Bad UI: poorly readable "mods", you can't get what your income and outcome for a resource fast. Moving tabs, game do not remember how you set them and reset for default every time you enter the game OR just enter settings. As an idle game - no idle mechanics. No offline progression, no queue for different task. Overall math is not great. Have a feeling that dev saw Hobo tough life, some idle games, make it whole, but they're not working together. Yet.

Initial impression: Fun Balancing and pacing good. Hope to see more in the future.

Despite the otherwise bare bones UI, the game has a lot of depth in terms of builds. The class system and the ability to pursue different task trees based on what you're trying to process is a fun addition for an incremental title. Furthermore, the fact that this game is a true incremental game is a huge boon. You'll only want to idle in Beggar's Life if you've put yourself in a corner and don't want to take any of the class options (something that can happen if you're just learning the game and run out of skill points experimenting). The focus and buff system keeps the gameplay active, though I wish focus mood was a toggle rather than a buff as it has no cost and you have no reason to ever turn it off. Overall, Beggar's Life is a fun incremental title with a lot of flavor as long as you've willing to use your imagination a little.

The more you unlock, the more cluttered it gets. Started giving me a headache with how many times I had to scroll just to press another skill.

Jeez, it's really sad that good games like this gets mixed reviews on steam. Sure it's a bit rough around the edges, but who cares? The world needs more non-idle incremental games like this!

The dev made a big mistake advertising it as similar game to theory of magic. First of all, Theory of Magic is an overworked maze with dead end pathways designed by long gone contributors, filled with features that are either completely useless or require planning ahead with a wiki on another tab. Unfortunately, this game is not the case. I can clearly see that it has a more single minded design and pathways, which makes the content much more fun and interesting to explore. I'd even say say this game is much more playable than theory of magic