This game is cute, kinda fun once the groove becomes clear, and could easily become a classic with some much needed improvements:
#1 -- I didn't really want to sell my Ostriches at the beginning. My daughter and I wanted to play with them, raise them, give the pets and snacks and just hang out... and by the end OMGWTF PLEASE LET ME SELL 90% OF THESE CRITTERS. lol.
That intent to capitalize on Ostriches wasn't quite clear in the promo vids and description as the main cycle of the game -- once it becomes clear the rhythm starts to make sense why the individual ostriches aren't "for fun" as interactive individual agents, but for a collection in an engine.
#2 -- I'm really glad there was a "don't fail on missed deadlines" because I have 0 idea how the alternative could ever be fun, and this comes down to:
- The goals are quickly ruinous, and often counter to the player's initial desire to just experience ostrich color combos at a relaxed pace in this low/no stakes mode.
- The need to sacrifice to the capital van does create tension, which is good, BUT, it also kinda kills the game if you decide to say, "nah ♥♥♥♥ it, I need this female 2 color adult bird more than I want the reward, so I'll just take the hit."
- This elimination of a failure mode creates unintended bummer vibe situations where you'll desperately need a new tool but can't afford it until you fulfill an order, because there's no other clear way to make essence until you get the tool that lets you do so. (if we could sell individuals at any time, that would solve it, esp if priced on rarity.)
- The limitless play let me get to 505 Ostriches before the framerate tanked, and the truck never left, causing night to reveal some shader that caused everything to glow, and fulfilling the last order caused ti to permanently glitch out lol. Which I suspect comes from adding a fire & forget highly requested feature without playtesting one's own product. Which as a gamedev myself I can't abide by that. As much as I've had to face that choice matrix myself and also made that bad call, I know why it happens, I just can't advocate for it when it does.
#3 -- There are some wicked accessibility & quality of life concerns.
- The first few rounds are super cool, putting 5 eggs into the fulfillment zone? No problem, 10 clicks...... and then it goes to 45+ eggs and you're like.... how? There is an automatic drone to do this, but you get it after clicking eggs so many times your finger hurts on a time assignment, lol. And then without the drone + car + tray I have no idea how the game shipped without a tool to eliminate that issue.
- The game can scale ad absurdum, which is hilarious and I'm all for it, but without some QoL like Marque select, realtime pause, and multiselect -- guys, come on. I need a type to search & filter bar, because the 100+ Ostrich mark becomes more accessible via spreadsheet that this UI. The UI is great before 100+, but after that it's unmanageable, almost like the dev team never played the game at the ending, lol. Which again, as a dev I have also done that on solo projects where the ending was very hard to reign in for a game where exponents are at play.
- There were some minor bugs, like Ostriches teleporting outside bounds and ending up in other pens or outside the enclosure totally, and icons that were persistent in the environment without being attached to the original object. Nothing shattering, until the major bug where the truck arrived and never left, for a full 24 hour cycle til the red bar literally looped around to a new day, lol.
I'm going to tentatively recommend this one, if only because for 3 hours it was actually really fun and had enjoyable emergent elements getting different color critters! I was down for that, and I'll try playing it again -- but I'm bummed I can revisit my 14FPS 800+ Ostrich save... because lol that save is so far beyond skuffed. The last round I was on literally can't be completed, as it seems the trigger script broke.
I don't hate it, it's cool, I love where it's going, I'll go play it again this afternoon, but it feels like it's still Early Access and that's not ideal.
