Hey there,
I must say first that I got involved in this Beta just recently after reading Blair Fraser's interview at IGN. After he mentioned that he was an old VGA Planets lover, I thought to myself....finally a game developer with the same gaming backround as me! I LOVE VGAP and still play it to this day!
That said, since I just downloaded Beta 2 recently, I only have a few simple suggestions at this point. Also, I haven't had time to read many other posts, so some, or all, of this may have been suggested already. If so, sorry for the dupe.
So far, SINS is an interesting concept, with a lot of potential. It's a mix of my favorite genres (4X/RTS). The following is a short list of my simple suggestions. I'd love to see some of these in Beta 3, if possible, but would ultimately just like to get some into the final version. These are in no particular order....
- As a new player to either the genre, or this game, I think that tutorials should be very straightforward. I found myself a bit lost at times, as far as knowing where to go next. If the next button to push was highlighted, to make it easier to find, then it would help with some of the frustration.
- A gameplay clock would be nice, or something that told you how long you were playing, or how long that game lasted.
- An option to change the Autosave frequency.
- An option to expose the entire map to players from the beginning (no fog of war)
- An option to toggle game speed during play, especially in single player. Sometimes you spend a while just waiting for the next thing to happen.
- A way to hide the "tool bars" at the top and bottom of the screen. Sometimes it would be nice to see more of the screen.
- Conversely, a way to expand the "quick pick" list on the left, so that you can see more of the detail without having to scroll down the list.
- Double-clicking on a ship should pick all ships of the same hull at the same location. It's frustrating having to take the time to choose each capital ship type individually.
- A way to display a list of all the ships that you have built so far, so that you know how many of each hull type that you have built so far.
- A config file, or screen, of some sort to allow the player to tweek the targetting priorities for each individual ship type.
That's it so far! Can't wait to see more of the game, and more races/ships!
