Treeternal (Prototype)

This was pretty cute! Overall fun concept, like others said it needs a little more time in the oven. Loved the CRT screen overlay and the swaying of the trees in particular.

I played to about 1.4m/1m $ before accidentally refreshing and some gameplay things I noticed were:

- Like Wired Pixels said, the impact of the upgrades vs the price of the upgrades was not the most satisfying (though it does sound like it's been improved!). 

- It seemed like the easiest and most effective upgrades were the woodcutters and woodcutter upgrades, which is maybe not what you want, considering that there are a lot more upgrades for the direct impact of the player. I did enjoy them though. Watching them nyoom through the forest was fun, haha.

- It wasn't clear how long the day would last or why the fog covered up the screen if going back to camp was an option at any point, and it seemed kind of odd that there was no real reason to use the statue to go back when it was so front and center. 

- I couldn't tell what effect the X/50,000 had other than occasionally unlocking new kinds of tree. My best guesses were that they upgraded tree regrowth rate? It was fun to hit them regardless, but if they triggered changes, I'd like to know.

- This one is kinda on me but I didn't read the description before playing, so I couldn't figure out how to move or hit things for a couple of loops because the only on-screen cue was [E]. It would be nice to have a control scheme either on screen for the first loop or shown in the settings.

Suggestions:

- It would be cool if there was some kind of penalty for not returning to the statue before the fog hit, or something like that. It's got a very encroaching ~ominous~ vibe and I liked it.

- A visual cue for how big the player's area of effect is and/or how many trees they can hit would be great, and make it much more interesting to engage with the gameplay after getting the woodcutters. Otherwise, some other angle to which the player could more directly strategize about how and where to chop trees would make it much less repetitive.

- Expanding on the kinds of trees and making the upgrades stronger would add a lot to the overall sense of progression.

Bugs I noticed were:

- Occasionally spawning in with no trees. (Running around in circles fixed it within a few seconds.)

- Getting to the end of the gameplay loop and the "return to camp" option not returning me to camp, but instead beginning another loop. (Had to refresh to get out of it.)

- I could walk off into the fog and wander around, noclip style.

- The audio is laggy and "grainy" for me, but I don't know how much of that can be affected coding-wise.

- The SFX for chopping isn't lined up with the chopping animation.

OK cute game, could be an awesome game. So I'll point out stuff I see to see if it helps. 

1. I run around the camp and saw a table that said "$80 to unlock" and I was like "ok, lets get 80" so I went to the forest, farmed for like 170 and came back. The bench was unlocked but the cheapest thing to buy was $300... that was a bit frustrating, why would I even need to farm for "at least 80" when the first upgrade costs 300? there was no point in that, either the cheapest upgrade should cost 80 or at least say "300 to unlock" so ] don't go back and forth for nothing.

2. The campfire says 130 to unlock, I have 170 and I can't do anything. So instructions are not clear, maybe it's a bug? or maybe I ALSO need a match or something? maybe it unlocks after a specific day? if so, please specify it in the label, otherwise it's confusing.

3. Economy can be improved a bit, upgrades are too expensive at the beginning, it feels too slow (and boring to be honest) for the first 5 minutes. Then after you buy the first woodcutter it gets interesting but I'd argue you need to capture the player's attention immediately. Upgrades are expensive, like 500k or 1.8k... Having them farm for like 10 minutes just to get an upgrade that doesn't really improve gameplay it's not right.

Other than that I really feel you have something interesting in your hands, it's a nice and polished proof of concept, keep it up!

not bad but yeah too little content to be called a game yet. Now for what i see some times the rain day appear with no trees at all to cut, unless a joke that's not cool. but i am not sure what content could be added to be honest. well i will look at it again if there is something interresting coming up.

the game aesthetics are really cute

the game didnt save progress for me. after closing the browser and then coming back later.

game seems alright I guess. not sure I would consider it a 'game' yet though. will check back when the game is more feature complete

Awesome game. I love the setting and feel. The only thing it lacks is... hats! :D 

Really a good game! A bit repetitive, but I’m not worried since it’s a first version. Maybe you could add something that breaks this loop during a run. I won’t influence what you should add, or even whether you should really add anything—after all, you’re the artist ^^.

I also had a strange feeling about progression. It’s not unbalanced, but at times I felt like I was stagnating while waiting for an upgrade, and at other times a single upgrade made me progress much faster. You could add an upgrade that makes trees grow faster, or something along those lines to stay within the game’s theme—maybe scout NPCs that allow you to expand the map to always have a dense area, etc.

The aesthetic is good. I’m not really a pixel art expert, but I find it simple and effective. Good project!

It's simple but enjoyable. Keep it up.

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