I’m really enjoying the beta v0.7 update, which just downloaded itself for me on Steam. Very exciting!
I wanted to post this thread with a few bugs and oddities I’ve seen in my first game in this version:
- If you use your pre-work action on something that pops up a dialog window (like accepting a friend or relationship request, or buying something from the SHOP), you get sent to work before you can read what the dialog window said (or see other additional windows like aspirations being completed). It might be a good idea if the “Time for work” dialog only triggered up when all other dialogs windows were closed. Or maybe let going to work be postponed, by picking another option while you do 0-action cost stuff?
- Accepting an invitation to an event from your significant other doesn’t count as interacting with them for the day. I imagine it also won’t work if you’re both invited by a mutual friend (but I haven’t had that version happen yet).
- On the other hand, going to work at the same job as your SO, as their coworker, supervisor, or (untested) supervisee, does seem to count, which makes weekdays really easy (until you get another promotion).
- AI characters invite other AIs to events when the other AIs are busy. This should almost never happen. I certainly never invite busy AI characters to things, since they’re guaranteed to reject me (unless this has changed?). They might still invite people who reject them due to disinterest or personality conflicts with other friends, but they should be smart enough not to damage their relationships for no good reason.
- And speaking of business, it can be a real pain when an AI character you want to go to an event with picks their own events before you get a chance to invite them to anything. I’ve had a SO get mad at me for not doing anything romantic for most of a week because she kept going off on two-action events without me every day after work. I finally tracked her down being idle on Sunday (after a Saturday where she went on a four-action walk, then went to dinner without me for her last two actions).
- Another way that the AI characters seem to do stuff the player character can’t is that they go on events with people of dramatically different ranks. I’ve seen a 1 rank character (who I was friends with) report on Spacebook about going out to eat with a 5 rank character just a few days into the game. I’d certainly not have been able to invite anyone that much higher ranked than me to anything!
- Relationship change notices in some places have extra + or - characters. On the main screen, for instance, positive changes are always “++5” while negative changes are “—5”. While the duplication of the symbols may be intended (as a homage to the silly A+++++ reviews from sites like ebay, perhaps?), the differences between two pluses and three minuses may not be.
- Colors on the end of day summary page are a bit weird. When it describes a friend’s mood, it uses red text (after the green relationship increase bit), e.g. “++2 with Astra. Astra is feeling amazingly fit.” However when a coworker or your boss’s mood is shown, it is in yellow, probably because that’s the color of the “boss” or “coworker” label at the end of the previous line, e.g. “++2 with Arlen Haimes (boss). Arlen Haimes is feeling amazingly fit.”. Probably you have an unclosed tag or something, which makes it inconsistent.
- I got the aspiration “Become master of Transporter Accident Cleanup Supervisor” (which was my job at the time). The benefit it said it gave was “Skill: : +100” (plus some happiness). I assume its supposed to give me some specific skill, but its not saying what (just a pair of colons).
- I’d also suggest that it never give an aspiration to master a rank 0 job, since that mastery is never required for a subsequent job (unlike all the later ones, where you need to master something at each rank in order to move up). Mastering supervisor jobs seems like it is also a bad idea, since applying for them already requires mastery of a job of their same rank.
- Actually, that brings me to another issue. I’ve never understood whether the requirements for a job are strict or if there’s some discretion available to the hiring manager. In a previous game (with an earlier beta version) I tried jumping many ranks at once by applying for a job where the hiring manager was my SO and we had 100 relations. She shot that down right away. But it’s been pretty clearly suggested in your dev-logs that it’s possible to get ahead in your career through social stuff. Does it help if I meet some of the qualifications, but not others? I just don’t know how, and the game doesn’t say. Is getting a job through social maneuvers a skill? None of the skills actually say what they do (except that some skills are required for some jobs), so it’s all a bit opaque.
- AI characters often do non-spacebook activities before work (I see lots of singing, practicing the mandolin, and even sometimes going out to eat). That’s not something a player can do, so probably the AIs shouldn’t either.
- After my first away mission (where I lost two friends), there were a bunch of messages about characters being promoted to replace the dead guys. However, I think almost all of the dead characters were Rank 0 nobodies, not supervisors with important jobs you could be promoted to.
- After each of the first two away missions, I got a friend request from my first boss (the boss of the rank 0 jobs) who I was already friends with. Accepting the request didn’t seem to change anything, but ignoring it made him upset (I didn’t try rejecting the request). It’s possible that this is connected to the previous issue.
- On the End of Day summary page, it tells you which of your friends are feeling neglected. However, once the next day starts, that information disappears into the ether, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to track it down again (it’s not saved in the personal log). This makes it hard to do anything about unless you can remember who it was through the next pre-work and work periods (and I tend to get distracted by other stuff).
- I got a spacebook message from a friend saying some pretty hostile stuff like “don’t mess with my friends”, but there was a relationship boost reported when I read it (“read message” or something). The boost seemed very strange, given the message contents.
Well, that’s it for now. Despite the issues above, I’ve not seen anything game-breaking or even badly immersion breaking so far in v0.7. It’s all fairly minor stuff, or even just my own confusion. Good job!
However, you’re right, all this isn’t entirely clear, so I’ll see how I can better do that.