5366

@BrianRubin have you tried Orch Star recently? Wondering how it is now that the release date hit.

5367

I keep meaning to, but I’m not that excited about it, so I keep putting it off, truthfully. I should try to make time for it, sorry.

5368

Brian, can you take a look at this game:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/894630/Final_Theory/

It looks to be more of a war game in space rather than a 4X.

5369

Nice find, and I too am interested with what the space guru has to say on it. Two other curators gave it a Recommended rating.

5370

You can get a vague idea of what he’ll likely have to say by trawling through this conversation.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/894630/discussions/0/1742220359688598200/

Spoiler alert: it’s not massively flattering.

5371

Thanks for the link. It looks like another Gladius type game, where there is a lite-strategy layer as a framework for a meatier tactical layer.

I don’t mind the devs skipping a tutorial, but the lack of any sort of documentation is rather damning.

5372

Ugh, well that didn’t go well.

5373

Yeah, I was not happy the way that conversation went at all. :(

5374

You’re more forgiving than me. I would have refunded it after that conversation.

5375

I got it for free via Curator Connect. So no refunds. ;)

5376

Sweet! So crush him in the review. I also remember “old school” gaming. Yes, games were much more difficult then. One has to learn via trial and error. But they had big beefy manuals, so even if you didn’t know what strategy to use, or even where to go, you at least knew the ground rules. He’s making things difficult just for difficulty’s sake…

5377

Exactly. This smacks of laziness to me, and they’re gonna get slammed for it.

5378

We also have to remember that “old school” games came on floppy disks. Which means that the game took any where from 500k to 10 meg depending on the type of floppy used (5 1/4 or 3 1/2) and the amount of floppy’s used. Those old games didn’t have room for tool tips or tutorials and needed manuals to explain the game. Now days developers have the “space” available to create tutorials, tool tips and any other documentation need to play the game. I don’t need to have my hand held while figuring out a strategy, but help with the basic’s of the game, explanations of what each unit/building is and what is does, err, um, yes, I do need that. I got the impression from that brief conversation Brian had with the developers that they were condescending, arrogant and a “how dare you question our vision” attitude.

5379

Yep. Shame, because the concept of the game is something I’d like (looks like a more strategic Sid Meier’s Starships). Still, my fear is it will feel just as empty once the hurdle of “figuring it out” is done. If I had to guess, that’s what they’re trying to avoid. I’d love to be proven wrong, of course.

5380

Was it deleted? The link takes me only to the discussions page, not a specific thread.

5381

Son of a gun, they did. Good thing i saved the html of the page. I’ll upload it soon.

5382

Please. The deletion makes me only more curious.

5383

Three cheers for integrity are clearly in order.

5384

Here we go!

https://www.spacegamejunkie.com/files/Tutorial%20or%20Manual_%20__%20Final%20Theory%20General%20Discussions.html

5385

Wow. I think the developer got the wrong end of the stick then proceeded to walk with said stick for miles.

It was apparent you were doing the guy a favour. Writing a short pdf manual is a trivial amount of work (as a minimum amount of instruction) and as you say, could help him with customer feedback.

You handled it well.