A short review/mention here as part of a series I'm doing on IGF finalists.
The Dust Forms Words - Dyson (
http://http://amongthedust.blogspot.com/2009/01/dyson.html)
Loved the game, have the following specific feedback:
* Bugs (?)
- Running under Vista - Fullscreen mode worked immediately after install but crashed the game on each subsequent launch until I rebooted the computer. Resizing the game window produced the same problem.
* User Interface
- It can be difficult to see which planets you control when zoomed out when playing as the "yellow" team as it doesn't sufficiently contrast with the white. Possibly change this to a darker colour?
- Coloured world cores in general are quite small and hard to see when zoomed out. Possibly include an option to make these proportionally larger when zoomed out?
- It can be hard to tell how many units you have at a glance, particularly if they're of the small variety. Possibly an include an option to make numbers hover next to each world showing how many units are present, even when you're not moused-over the world?
- As far as I can tell the only way to see whether a planet's trees are Dysons or Defensive is to zoom in. Possibly include this information in the info bar or hovering next to the planet upon mouseover?
* Gameplay
- Levels shaped like a torus which are two to three worlds wide across the ring (as in Level 4) aren't particularly tactically interesting as it's too easy to defend your territory by walling up. Could we have more levels that have wider rings?
- You can't tell what sort of troops a world builds until you conquer it; this makes selecting your next target to attack less meaningful than it could be. Could this information possibly be available once you scout a world but before you conquer it?
- Micro-managing the flow of troops from old worlds to the front line gets tedious on larger levels. Could you implement either or both of (a) rally points that allow you to make units produced on a world instantly travel to some other destination, and (b) where units can't get directly from one world to another due to distance, but you own the necessary waypoint worlds in between, allow the player to send them to their ultimate destination in one click rather than having to do all the jumps in between.
Thanks!
