Hey there!
I just completed the current content yesterday after buying the game via steam. I am really enjoying the game so far and would like to give some feedback.
Campaign
The Levels are very fun to play and on the higher difficulties rather challenging! I especially loved the ladybug level, since trying to control them at night while further digging around in the underground and fending off bugs and such really took some multitasking and was fun as hell! I haven't much to add here since I felt like they were well done and balanced appropriately.
edit: Oh one thing: Choosing royal jelly as extra reward seems like the only worthwhile thing. Im getting showered with more than enough food. All in all, progression is extremely fast at the moment. and neither extra food nor territory is really needed.
Challenges
Felt more like a statcheck. If you attempt them too early they just kill you, if you attempt them after maxing out, you afk-pass. I love the general feel of them, with the scientists and everything, but I felt a bit useless. Literally all i did for the second challenge was setting a "all soldiers" waypoint at the nest entrance. For the second one I died to the spiders once and then passed after re-grouping my army next to the queen. (The spiders were a really nice touch and required player interaction). I would love to see more stuff that requires the player to act, rather than to have an appropriately strong army.
Base-building
I am in love with building a base in this game. I just cannot wait for more different rooms to be implemented. The way this game makes you build hexagonally is awesome as well. I would like to touch on the subject of refilling spaces with walls. I know you want to prevent turtling, but I don't really see the issue, as long as all rooms are connected. I think the reason why this is such a much-requested feature is because many players make small mistakes while building their hive and would love to rearrange some chambers. Currently the only way to do that is to start completely over, which may be rather frustrating especially once more procedural content is added. What exactly do you mean by turtling?
Another thing that got to me a bit was the fact you cannot upgrade smaller speedupwalkways to t3, because they dont have enough upgrade points. I would love to be able to upgrade even short smaller walkways between chambers to t3.
I am really looking forward to more different tiles to put down!
Other than that, I am completely sold on the base building mechanics!
Gameplay
I love the swarmy feel of the game. I also dig that you cannot individually control the ants but rather put down pheromones to control groups. Fighting feels cool and messy and I love how the ants chop up their victims afterwards. The enemies during the campaign are diverse and have interesting mechanics. Meeting the funnelweb spider for the first time has completely demolished that particular try for me xD
However i feel that currently there is not enough use for workers. Since warriors can claim food rather effectively as well, the need to build larger worker chamber diminishes. I would love some more food effectiveness upgrades on the worker ants or penalties for foodgathering with soldiers. (I know there are upgrades already, but currently it does not give enough incentive to actually build a workforce, at least in my opinion)During some of the levels the 7 Starter workers were all i needed and i never built more.
Multiplayer
So this one is probably rather far off still, but like many here, I immidiately thought how cool this would be in multiplayer. I don't know if and what you have planned here, but indulge my thoughts on this for a second, will you =)
The two options that come to mind are:
1. One-time matches, starting 2 or more colonies from scratch on a map and requiring the extermination of all other colonies. This one would not involve the Formicarium base at all or any upgrades done to it.
2. Raiding the Formicarium bases of other players to try and steal larva/resources/jelly. This one would include your upgrades and give more meaning to your homebase (which i would very much love to see). I think making your actual base an important point in multiplayer would make players more enthusiastic about designing and upgrading their nest, not just for the challenges.
The first one feels a little more appropriate for the current speed of the game (a few hours pretty much unlocks and upgrades everything to max, so no particular need to raid anyones base for resources). The second one would require more and slower to achieve upgrades in order to make the hunt for resources more of a focus (Which could absolutely be a cool thing).
It would be really cool if you could share some insights of your perception of a possible multiplayer!
Conclusion
All in all I love what the game offers so far and I am looking very forward to any content updates that may be coming our way in the future. A Roadmap like they've done with Subnautica would be a great thing as well!
Please re-evaluate your stance on filling up walls, and keep up the good work! The game is going in a great direction!
I just completed the current content yesterday after buying the game via steam. I am really enjoying the game so far and would like to give some feedback.
Campaign
The Levels are very fun to play and on the higher difficulties rather challenging! I especially loved the ladybug level, since trying to control them at night while further digging around in the underground and fending off bugs and such really took some multitasking and was fun as hell! I haven't much to add here since I felt like they were well done and balanced appropriately.
edit: Oh one thing: Choosing royal jelly as extra reward seems like the only worthwhile thing. Im getting showered with more than enough food. All in all, progression is extremely fast at the moment. and neither extra food nor territory is really needed.
Challenges
Felt more like a statcheck. If you attempt them too early they just kill you, if you attempt them after maxing out, you afk-pass. I love the general feel of them, with the scientists and everything, but I felt a bit useless. Literally all i did for the second challenge was setting a "all soldiers" waypoint at the nest entrance. For the second one I died to the spiders once and then passed after re-grouping my army next to the queen. (The spiders were a really nice touch and required player interaction). I would love to see more stuff that requires the player to act, rather than to have an appropriately strong army.
Base-building
I am in love with building a base in this game. I just cannot wait for more different rooms to be implemented. The way this game makes you build hexagonally is awesome as well. I would like to touch on the subject of refilling spaces with walls. I know you want to prevent turtling, but I don't really see the issue, as long as all rooms are connected. I think the reason why this is such a much-requested feature is because many players make small mistakes while building their hive and would love to rearrange some chambers. Currently the only way to do that is to start completely over, which may be rather frustrating especially once more procedural content is added. What exactly do you mean by turtling?
Another thing that got to me a bit was the fact you cannot upgrade smaller speedupwalkways to t3, because they dont have enough upgrade points. I would love to be able to upgrade even short smaller walkways between chambers to t3.
I am really looking forward to more different tiles to put down!
Other than that, I am completely sold on the base building mechanics!
Gameplay
I love the swarmy feel of the game. I also dig that you cannot individually control the ants but rather put down pheromones to control groups. Fighting feels cool and messy and I love how the ants chop up their victims afterwards. The enemies during the campaign are diverse and have interesting mechanics. Meeting the funnelweb spider for the first time has completely demolished that particular try for me xD
However i feel that currently there is not enough use for workers. Since warriors can claim food rather effectively as well, the need to build larger worker chamber diminishes. I would love some more food effectiveness upgrades on the worker ants or penalties for foodgathering with soldiers. (I know there are upgrades already, but currently it does not give enough incentive to actually build a workforce, at least in my opinion)During some of the levels the 7 Starter workers were all i needed and i never built more.
Multiplayer
So this one is probably rather far off still, but like many here, I immidiately thought how cool this would be in multiplayer. I don't know if and what you have planned here, but indulge my thoughts on this for a second, will you =)
The two options that come to mind are:
1. One-time matches, starting 2 or more colonies from scratch on a map and requiring the extermination of all other colonies. This one would not involve the Formicarium base at all or any upgrades done to it.
2. Raiding the Formicarium bases of other players to try and steal larva/resources/jelly. This one would include your upgrades and give more meaning to your homebase (which i would very much love to see). I think making your actual base an important point in multiplayer would make players more enthusiastic about designing and upgrading their nest, not just for the challenges.
The first one feels a little more appropriate for the current speed of the game (a few hours pretty much unlocks and upgrades everything to max, so no particular need to raid anyones base for resources). The second one would require more and slower to achieve upgrades in order to make the hunt for resources more of a focus (Which could absolutely be a cool thing).
It would be really cool if you could share some insights of your perception of a possible multiplayer!
Conclusion
All in all I love what the game offers so far and I am looking very forward to any content updates that may be coming our way in the future. A Roadmap like they've done with Subnautica would be a great thing as well!
Please re-evaluate your stance on filling up walls, and keep up the good work! The game is going in a great direction!