Comment by BatmansMom
10 hours ago
A little too much going on all at once in the beginning. For a complex game like this I think you have to start small and slowly introduce functionality. Why are so many buttons available to me from minute 1? I'm not using them.
I think the overwhelm is kind of the point. If you want a well-balanced video game, where everything is optimized to help you learn the ropes and to get you into a flow state, the classic versions of SimCity provide exactly that. But this game's implementation of a full-fledged city builder is quickly drowned out by the fact that it's shoving resident petitions and requests for variances in your face every 20 seconds. It's an attempt to put the player into the shoes of an actual city planner, mayor, or city councilor that is drowning in interruptions and paperwork.
I think that's a charitable read, and I submit that starting slow and ramping up is vital not just from a UX and usability standpoint but to imbibe a sense of panic later on.
The contrast from simple and slow to complex and rapid and the buildup between is what produces the emotion, a cluttered and busy UI is just a cluttered and busy UI.
Also : a city planners' job is still fairly serialized and procedural even if it is busy and back-and-fourth; a cluttered UI does little to convey 'busy-ness and conflict'.
Alternatively, AI.
Give the player a set of AI-powered department heads that manage the day-to-day decisions. The player only gets to write "policy documents" that steer those department, who implement the policies (or not!).
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Occam's razor strikes again!
Yeah I was excited to try this right up until I looked at the toolbar and inspected a property and got the AI wall of text.
The subject area is great (teach actual civics) but this fails in execution. It could really use a strong pass on UX and learning curve, because right now its a product that everyone is just going to bounce off of.
Whether or not the topic is complex is beside the point. The point of this project, as far as I can see it, is get to teach this subject through experience to as many people as possible. Walls of text and tons of controls fundamentally undermine that purpose. Teaching complexity comes by removing everything that isn't absolutely necessary and arranging the complexity in a form that introduces it in compelling bite-sized chunks, so the player is always engaged.
To the creator - this is cool, you're certainly barking up the right tree subject-wise. The best thing you can do now is identify the specific learning goals and sequence, and the magic moments you think are possible along the way, and radically simplify the approach. Fork the project and take a different angle on it. I bet there's solid foundations here but if you want to influence you gotta refine.
Thanks - I obviously didn’t get the balance right for everyone, and honestly it’s partly because I started with a maximalist position of “don’t hide the complexity that’s the point”, spent a bunch of time getting those details right…and then quickly realized during playtesting the same thing you and many others pointed out: progressively layering/revealing the depth works better to establish the contrast, while also being significantly easier for players to actually engage with.
Thanks for taking the time to take a look and give thoughtful feedback!