S-kladom in IOS

Overall fun, but could use improvements

I liked the antiyoy game so I wanted to check this one out, too. Overall the concept is fun and I enjoy playing. I think the most important improvement is related to the pathfinding logic + UX improvements. To the developer, I recommend checking out Prison Architect (especially the mobile version) or Blockheads to get some comparison on player feel - the touch mechanics are quite similar, so I think it’d be beneficial. I find that a useful measure of how to make these specific changes are whether or not it’s the “player’s fault” when an issue goes wrong, or if it’s the “game’s fault”. Obviously these things can be subjective but here is what I’m driving at: Very often I find the bots cannot predict how actions I’ve assigned them will affect their future position, and as a result, they’ll be “trapped” in a corner by their own tail of minerals and can’t get out. I find I have to do some complex trickery to coerce the bots into not bumping into an object merely two squares away or picking up minerals in such a way that doesn’t completely trap them in the corner. On the one hand, (especially as a manager irl) managing the intellectual inferiority of your units may be a worthwhile challenge that can in some sense be part of the game’s appeal, but I find the frustration to be more related to the inconsistency. Like, sometimes they don’t trap themselves and sometimes they do, and there isn’t an obvious way to work around it. For that reason it comes across as a bug and not an intentional challenge. It’s most annoying when the bots run into each other and can’t foresee objects on their own path until they immediately bump into it. For the most part, it’s not an issue when I’ve clearly ordered the tasks in a way that is clearly wrong; for example sometimes I ask it to pick up three of an object but I queued the one far away instead of the first one the bot could reach: fair enough, that’s probably something I should avoid. If the bots are going to be dumb and require micromanaging, then imo it should be consistent how dumb they are. If they’re going to be smart they have to be really smart - it’s the inconsistency that causes the greatest frustration. The other bit is I can “cancel” a drop off action but not a walking action, so sometimes I’ll find my bots dropping off three blocks and then walking in all the places I cancelled, and getting stuck as a result - so I have to cancel all of my queued actions just to rescue them. That’s annoying. It should be possible to cancel walk actions as well, simply by tapping again. Those little UX and pathfinding issues are enough to make me want to quit and restart the level which is very aggravating. I wouldn’t call it game breaking but it definitely removes from the fun, which is unfortunate because I do find myself wanting to try and get better at it. So overall I think there’s a great game and concept, but it just needs a little polish. Great work as always 😊