Spacetopia

I'll handle my ideas to you guys but this reminded me a lot to the last phase of Spore. You have A LOT you want to do but I think what seems the most fun to me was the building your own spaceship part. Maybe focus on that and make it an auto battler where you only have to drive your ship and everything shoots or does things on its own while you circle a planet. 

I think games like this can be quite challenging to design, especially with all the systems working together — but seeing the visual assets you've showcased really raises my expectations. The art style looks promising and makes me even more excited to see how the final game turns out!

What I really liked:

• Modularity of the ship is very well thought out. Adding different expansions to different parts of the ships is definitely a nice idea, and I'm looking forward to it.
• I liked the idea of the fog of war because it adds to the mystery of the space and where you will end up. 
• The game loop was straightforward and understandable. It was nicely described in the report ,and it was nicely formulated. Also I felt like I understood the whole game by reading the report.
• Clear understanding and concept when it comes to "Road to Nowhere".
• The game is in a hybrid genre, which means it can attract different kinds of audiences. It certainly is interesting for me.
• The visuals looked really nice. When I read the report, I could imagine how the game looked, which was a really nice addition.
• Wave defences add more replayability, and I like it.

What I can suggest:

• A lot of resources/features to manage. The whole thing is a very ambitious game. I would cut back on some of the features to make others more refined. For example, instead of having this many resources, cut back on that and add a more sophisticated system for modularity.
• Even though Exploration will be a cool part of the game, it is gonna be very hard to balance. Also, the fact that you want to randomly generate it makes it even less feasible. 
• The story looked nice, but will it be portrayed? Or should it not be? I believe it should not even be portrayed, as we have very limited time.
• "Random chance of new species", what new species? Are they different in terms of needs or wants? Are they stronger/weaker?

Conclusion:

This is a game that I would definitely play. I love the idea to combine space with random exploration elements, where you get stronger and stronger, rather then just ending the game. I am looking forward to playing this game.

This seems like a vary involved and complex game, whith that come both benefits and hardships. There is a lot of stuff in the document and presentation, on first impact everything, if implemented, is cohesive and you can see how every pice fits together. What I will say is that you seem to put the same level of importance on all of the systems. For example the tower defence aspect is in the "Desirable" targets where from the presentation it seemed like a much more fundamental part of the game. But all in all I can see the whole package being quite good.

I had never heard of Cinemachine before, but after looking it up, it seems like a really interesting tool and I am really curious to see what you manage to do with it.

Regarding the choice of not having a clear goal, I understand that it ties into the theme “Road to Nowhere”, but I’m not entirely sold on the idea. Personally, I prefer having consistent objectives when playing a game. I would suggest adding at least some soft goals to the game (missions, achievements etc) to help keep the players engaged. 

I also really liked the story but I’m curious about how you plan to present it in the game. Will there be an opening scene to introduce it? Will players uncover more of the story by exploring? 

Also, given the time constraints, I would recommend focusing on a few core elements of the game first, like ship management, exploration and customization.

The modularity of the spaceship system sounds cool and challenging to implement. It reminded me of Subnautica the first time I heard of your game. One thing I am wondering is whether the scope of the project seems ambitious for the narrow time frame we have. Additionally, what would raids look like? Will there be some sort of a top-down view of the battlefield? Will it be turn-based or continuous attacks, and the player has to react in "real-time"? Otherwise, cool idea and I'm looking forward to DemoDay to see the final version :)

I liked the idea of having a resource management and tower defense spaceship game, and the story fits the “Road to Nowhere” theme really well. I think the most difficult part will be the modular ship design and how to implement it. It's always tricky to make player-driven modularity feel smooth and bug-free, but if you follow a good code architecture, it should be both fun and manageable to implement all the modules.

I’d definitely spend time upfront planning out that architecture, and I’m guessing you’re already doing that; otherwise, these types of systems can easily lead to a loooot of bugs that are hard to track down and fix.

Using a solid asset pack is a smart choice since we don’t have much time to build everything from scratch. Also, using Cinemachine is a really clever call for this kind of game, with multiple modules and perspectives, it makes camera control much easier and more flexible.

Overall, if everything goes smoothly, and I hope it does!! The game has a really nice potential. I’d love to play it once it’s done. Good luck!!!

Feedback Pitch:

- Cool interpretation of the theme

- Unfortunately the semester probably won't be long enough to implement all of it

- Well defined game loop

- Modular ship building sounds potentially complex

    -> maybe try to simplify the process

- Good idea to use premade art

- Having both procedural generation & a story seems like a lot of work

- Maybe focus on making the POIs & events interesting

Cool idea, reminds me of FTL. Love the modular ship system, sounds like it will add a lot of replayability to the game. I'm curious if there will be an overarching narrative to uncover or are the POI events isolated? It's an ambitious idea with a lot of systems and resources to manage, it won't be easy balancing them all together but you clearly have given it a lot of thought to it. Looking forward to playing it.

The game sounds really fun. One of the thing that came to mind when you mentioned traveling through solar systems is Spores, where there was a point where you evolved far enough to have your own spaceship and travel around the galaxy. This game sounds like a lot of fun with adventure and resource management, and I think it will be a very interesting game to play. 

I am a bit worried about the amount of game mechanics that is required to be implemented and whether they can be done in due time in this semester. I think that should just be a consideration point, where you determine the most core parts of the gameplay and make sure that they are implemented. If all the mechanics can be implemented, that would be great. It's just that it looks like a lot and I am unsure if it could be done with the amount of time we have.

Big fan of the game idea,  and a big supporter of using ready assets to focus your time on the game itself.

I love the idea of ship modularity (even if that's hard to implement) as this will enable different playthroughs and some player expression.

The game sounds like it has a lot of different systems you'll have to take care of so good luck with that and looking forward to build my custom ship! (please add some godmode where you can just max out your ship and try it out)

What I Really Like:

• The modular spaceship is a great idea.

• Nice sketches.

• I also like the tower defense concept.

Challenges:

• The scope of the project seems extremely large.

What I Would Change:

• As a simplification, you could consider leaving out the travel system and instead endlessly drift through space (void/only some stars in the background). I would focus on the tower defense and modular spaceship aspects of the game.

I like the game idea, but I think implementing all features you mentioned will be very difficult.
Some questions I have: What exactly does the player's UI look like? Does the player see their environment from a top-down 3rd person perspective overlooking the whole planet node or from a 1st person perspective? And does the player get resources continously or after delays or over turns?

- Love the modular spaceship mechanic and can not wait to try it out but doing all 3 directions from the start might be challenging. Maybe a 2D or 2D with very limited 3D elements approach could reduce complexity early. Like some building elements have the option to build something on or under it, but only 1 layer or specific other elements.
- Additionally the problem of "not building into itself / leaving enough space to not look super cramped" arises and might need extra thinking together with the checking of turrets line of sight being blocked with other ship elements.

Looking forward to seeing the ship-building system. I expect some cool animations and sound effects!
Seeing as you are following the theme quite literally, I'm wondering what's going to drive the main engagement of the player as there is no clear long-term goal or endpoint. I'd love to see some achievements or narrative fragments thrown in. Maybe you can implement a gallery of some sort in which you can showcase the spaceship you've made! I'd like to flex on the demo day if possible.