Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(3 edits) (+5)

Bizarre little game. The novelty is in replacing the traditional "clicking" of clicker games with mouse-based "writing," which mimics writing like a scribe. However, it's more like scribbling in execution, as you can "write" anywhere on the page and it'll fill up all the same. A tad confusing at first, then tedious, as the initial barrier to real income is arduous. Once you pass the initial hump, around 10-20 scribes, the books really start to write themselves and the idling begins. It gets fun from there as you can improve your books aesthetically.

Besides a real lack of content at present (understandable for such an early project), the biggest issue is by far the UI. The main problems begin with the three icons beneath the "Chapters:" UI text, which represent the progress of the currently written book. The default icon is a blurry pink/black checkerboard, which seems to be unintentional as it doesn't match the aesthetic of the rest of the game.

Apart from this, the game's UI features are spaced in a very odd manner. There's uneven spacing between most elements, and some UI text is overlapping their relevant icons (namely the button to hire more scribes). Also, the page itself seems awkwardly placed over the background image. A couple possible fixes could be to either "fade out" the page once complete and "fade in" the replacement blank page, or to make the page itself smaller and put it on top of a leather book cover to give a sense of depth, or both.

I do love that the game only explains its one novel mechanic, which is the "writing" on the page, and leaves the player to organically experience and find out the rest of the mechanics which mirror the common tropes of the genre. The background subtly changing to reflect your progress was a nice touch, although the page takes up so much space that it's hard to fully appreciate in its current form.

Sorry if this comment is a bit wordy. The premise is intriguing and I wanted to give my thoughts on it, and this is how I think. I respectfully disagree with the other commenter that the problem is lack of explanation for the mechanics; the mechanics are straightforward and sensible, and the one original mechanic is explained well by the game. My one tentative recommendation for the writing mechanic is perhaps it could require the player's mouse to be roughly where the new text is being generated, or give a bonus if the player does so. Regardless, this is a great idea!

(+1)

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation of your experience with my game! Many of the topics you presented were already on my to-do list for future versions, and I'll have to gradually improve the game's balance based on public feedback, so it will take a while to get it polished.

But most importantly, no major bugs that could hinder playability were found, which is already a victory (take that, EA)