Just tried Motheload... a well-intentioned game-design rant follows.
It's an interesting concept, but there are a lot of instances of poor game design throughout, and with so few core mechanics, you need to put extra care an thought into designing them. The interface was more hindrance than help; the Save Bot was a hassle to avoid, as were shops, and there were far too many pointless clicks necessary to navigate menus (popup notifications, etc), which is much more noticeable due to the frequency with which you have to use them to advance. Movement and clipping was always a problem, especially on vertical ascents when what precious little fuel you had would be wasted. Exploding on fuel-loss also felt like a cop-out ending, especially with the incredibly slow pacing of the game, and how difficult it can be to predict how much fuel you'd burn flying back up. Throwing players a bone, like letting them operate under "auxiliary power" preventing you from digging, making you move more slowly, and/or even forcing you to jettison your cargo would have been nice penalties... but sudden death is unnecessary.
I'd say kill the fueling station menu and replace it with refueling over time, with automatic deductions, by sitting on the station. The mineral sale menu was pointless, since I never found any reason to sell fewer than all of it; combo bonuses (ex. a small multiplier for bringing back a certain number of one cargo type) might have been a nice way to make careful planning more important, and reward exploration rather than digging up the first thing you saw.
Meh, okay, rant over. I wish the game included contact information, as the rant would be more useful directed toward the developers.
Author
Topic: Obsession with... mining games? (Read 3086 times)