22cans: Don't reach too far, stop mobile-PC interaction.
May 31, 2014 12:32:07 GMT
Lord Ba'al likes this
Post by rubgish on May 31, 2014 12:32:07 GMT
brief note: when I say 'you' in this post, I mean 22cans. [sidenote: I copied this to the steam forums if people want to comment there instead]
Currently, the game is very bare bones & really not much fun. However i'm not too worried about this because I feel a lot of things can be added that will make the game far better without the need to drastically change the underlying mechanics of the game. What I am concerned about is that you are trying to do too much with the mobile-PC interaction, and so will end up failing on both counts.
Currently, the game is very bare bones & really not much fun. However i'm not too worried about this because I feel a lot of things can be added that will make the game far better without the need to drastically change the underlying mechanics of the game. What I am concerned about is that you are trying to do too much with the mobile-PC interaction, and so will end up failing on both counts.
To elaborate on this point, we have a game based on mobile, tablet and PC simultaneously that will have different versions for the different platforms. This is all fine and will work, the problem comes from the fact that they are trying to link this experience between platforms and to get the people to play together. It's an admirable attempt to do something new, but it isn't going to work.
I want to take a look at what PC-Mobile interaction actually does:
The positives:
- Compared to PC-PC interaction and Mobile-Mobile interaction, I genuinely can't see how PC-Mobile can have any benefit to the game.
The problems:
- FACT: PC games and Mobile games are very different. The way you control them is different, the way people play them is different, peoples expectations are different, the screen size is hugely different & the amount of information you can give is vastly different too. This means that they need different mechanics to be successful games.
- Attempting to link mobile & PC games together is going to influence the mechanics of both of them in a negative way. You force the mobile game to play more like a PC game, and the PC game to play more like a mobile game, the end result of which is that both of them are worse.
- All the time spent trying to get the games to work together from a totally different platform is time that is much better spent elsewhere.
The solution:
- Keep the mobile & PC games totally away from each other.
- Mobile godus is already in a pretty good state for a mobile game. It's F2P model is the same as other games & is of a good quality compared to other mobile games. It will be successful as a mobile game with the addition of mobile-mobile hubworld and some more stuff to aim towards, all of which will come in time.
- PC godus is a long way behind its mobile cousin in terms of completeness. As a PC game, it should have more depth and much more to do than the mobile equivalent [as they are played in different ways], but it's totally lacking any of this at the moment. If you insist on trying to keep it in line with the mobile game, it will never be a success.
I understand the want to be the first people to do something, to finally link mobile & PC gaming together, but it's not going to happen now or anytime soon. The play styles, hardware & what people want from the platforms are just too different to reconcile them with a singular game.
The end result of this is that you have a great idea for the PC game that won't work on mobile, and you can't put it, so you get a worse PC game. What I am saying is you're going to just get a far worse game because you are trying to do too much & won't be able to manage it. I'm thinking along the lines of spore here - a game that promised so much & looked fantastic, but tried to do too much and so ended up doing lots of things badly rather than a few things very well.
To conclude: Mobile & PC games have never been made the same before for a reason, and Godus isn't getting rid of that reason. For the sake of both versions of the game, don't try and link them, allow them to develop separately from here on out and both versions of the game will be better as a result of this.
