Your "conversion" includes a chromium browser. To play this not on windows, you would have to exctract the app (which is 27.5 MB) and run it in browser.
I cannot say that I understand how this game is supposed to work. It is rather confusing. I did not figure out, if it is possible to sleep on demand. Or how to gain favor with the ladies.
After reading your tutorial on ng, it got a little better. Sadly this information is not presented in the game. Or in a way that I would find it. I played management sims before, including yours. This is among the most non intuitive confusing things I experienced. For example the click that advances time. That happens just about everyhwere. And do I have to acknowlege work messages or not. Oh, and one click too many will advance time, because clicks outside of click areas still do something - but not rest. Most annoying is the time management with the auto sleep. Maybe I did not find the rest button, as the gift button also was hidden in plain sight. A game that has time slots for events to happen should have something like that, and not make me go sleep at the time I want to do something and give me not opportunity to shift my sleeping times.
An analog clock is nice on paper, but who can read those anymore. You could have both. And night is a little very dark.
If you make click areas visible, that is nice. But people expect all click areas to be marked, or at least the important ones. Like that pond. But more importantly, click areas suggest, that clicking elsewhere does nothing. This is not the case here.
When reading a skill up to 20, there is a bug. It just keeps telling you, that your energy is low.
Game could do with an introductory screen that tells you the basic setup (story). And maybe something similar as you had in that beach game, where you could see what each button would do. But maybe I just did not realize that the inventory button would be repurposed, because your tool tips are deativated when a girl is present. Changing the icon from storage box to a gifting icon would also do the trick.
Helpful tooltips can usually do most or all of the job of a tutorial. They are also not in the way and let a user advance at a chosen pace to new elements of the ui.
Will probably try again later, but my backlog is big.
Thanks for the review. This is the free (testing-download) version of the half-finished game (ver.0.54) I am still working on the game for Patrons (ver.0.84 is the most recent) Once I get to ver.1.00 it will be finished and for sale... somewhere.
The click issue was a big problem. I'm pretty sure it's been fixed now, and clickable items are highlighted in red (at least in the Newgrounds ver.0.54)
Well, in my house ONLY my analogue clocks have the correct time! All the digital ones are flashing 12:00... Speak up sonny! Obviously I'm joking.... (my computer and cellphone have digital time) BUT I think the old-timey circular wood clock style fits the game. I will however add a mouse-over that shows the digital time for all the analogue-impaired individuals.
I will take your advice and include a proper tutorial, starting and ending stories, in-game or mouse-over tool-tips and pop-ups or hints where and what to do next.
Don't read too much into a single experience of your game.
I think what irritated me about the clock was, that night and day of course do not correspond to 0-12 and 12-0. But there is daylight twice with some hours and the irregular sleep times disorient me.
Since you added night effects, you might want to consider using the sun as an indicator. Sun and moon wandering across the sreen. Or as a background of the clock or whatever. Or a more granular night and day, with dusk and dawn in between. Speaking about the lack of light on the map in night.
It is mostly the sleep times I think. If a day is scheduled regularly, I do not need to think about what time it is after waking up and have some inkling what time it is depending on how many things I did. What could do the trick is tell me how long I slept or rather what time I woke up. There is a sleep dialoge anyway. It could end with something like, you sleept till 6:00.
These are good suggestions. I like the sun-moon moving idea and the moonlight making night more visible. I'll have to think about the regular sleep time. So far, the game has been purposely designed so you run-out of stamina, then sleep, for 2 reasons.
1: Stamina is very low at the start, but as the game progresses the player can use upgrades and items to stay awake longer (indefinitely, if they wanted) and it become more about planning when you want to sleep.
2: Women appear in a staggered time setup. Every 8 hours is a different woman. So, the player can time their sleeping to meet a desired woman.
The recent versions do have 3 sleep setting styles, one of which shows the hours passing and what events happened while you slept.
If there was a way to activate sleeping without running out of stamina, I did miss it.
I am used to some time management, but mostly in twine games. And they of course have digital time display. And typically there would be an option to rest or nap to gain a little stamina back. Or trigger a full nights sleep/end of day.
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Your "conversion" includes a chromium browser. To play this not on windows, you would have to exctract the app (which is 27.5 MB) and run it in browser.
I cannot say that I understand how this game is supposed to work. It is rather confusing. I did not figure out, if it is possible to sleep on demand. Or how to gain favor with the ladies.
After reading your tutorial on ng, it got a little better. Sadly this information is not presented in the game. Or in a way that I would find it. I played management sims before, including yours. This is among the most non intuitive confusing things I experienced. For example the click that advances time. That happens just about everyhwere. And do I have to acknowlege work messages or not. Oh, and one click too many will advance time, because clicks outside of click areas still do something - but not rest. Most annoying is the time management with the auto sleep. Maybe I did not find the rest button, as the gift button also was hidden in plain sight. A game that has time slots for events to happen should have something like that, and not make me go sleep at the time I want to do something and give me not opportunity to shift my sleeping times.
An analog clock is nice on paper, but who can read those anymore. You could have both. And night is a little very dark.
If you make click areas visible, that is nice. But people expect all click areas to be marked, or at least the important ones. Like that pond. But more importantly, click areas suggest, that clicking elsewhere does nothing. This is not the case here.
When reading a skill up to 20, there is a bug. It just keeps telling you, that your energy is low.
Game could do with an introductory screen that tells you the basic setup (story). And maybe something similar as you had in that beach game, where you could see what each button would do. But maybe I just did not realize that the inventory button would be repurposed, because your tool tips are deativated when a girl is present. Changing the icon from storage box to a gifting icon would also do the trick.
Helpful tooltips can usually do most or all of the job of a tutorial. They are also not in the way and let a user advance at a chosen pace to new elements of the ui.
Will probably try again later, but my backlog is big.
Thanks for the review. This is the free (testing-download) version of the half-finished game (ver.0.54) I am still working on the game for Patrons (ver.0.84 is the most recent) Once I get to ver.1.00 it will be finished and for sale... somewhere.
The click issue was a big problem. I'm pretty sure it's been fixed now, and clickable items are highlighted in red (at least in the Newgrounds ver.0.54)
Well, in my house ONLY my analogue clocks have the correct time! All the digital ones are flashing 12:00... Speak up sonny! Obviously I'm joking.... (my computer and cellphone have digital time) BUT I think the old-timey circular wood clock style fits the game. I will however add a mouse-over that shows the digital time for all the analogue-impaired individuals.
I will take your advice and include a proper tutorial, starting and ending stories, in-game or mouse-over tool-tips and pop-ups or hints where and what to do next.
Don't read too much into a single experience of your game.
I think what irritated me about the clock was, that night and day of course do not correspond to 0-12 and 12-0. But there is daylight twice with some hours and the irregular sleep times disorient me.
Since you added night effects, you might want to consider using the sun as an indicator. Sun and moon wandering across the sreen. Or as a background of the clock or whatever. Or a more granular night and day, with dusk and dawn in between. Speaking about the lack of light on the map in night.
It is mostly the sleep times I think. If a day is scheduled regularly, I do not need to think about what time it is after waking up and have some inkling what time it is depending on how many things I did. What could do the trick is tell me how long I slept or rather what time I woke up. There is a sleep dialoge anyway. It could end with something like, you sleept till 6:00.
These are good suggestions. I like the sun-moon moving idea and the moonlight making night more visible. I'll have to think about the regular sleep time. So far, the game has been purposely designed so you run-out of stamina, then sleep, for 2 reasons.
1: Stamina is very low at the start, but as the game progresses the player can use upgrades and items to stay awake longer (indefinitely, if they wanted) and it become more about planning when you want to sleep.
2: Women appear in a staggered time setup. Every 8 hours is a different woman. So, the player can time their sleeping to meet a desired woman.
The recent versions do have 3 sleep setting styles, one of which shows the hours passing and what events happened while you slept.
If there was a way to activate sleeping without running out of stamina, I did miss it.
I am used to some time management, but mostly in twine games. And they of course have digital time display. And typically there would be an option to rest or nap to gain a little stamina back. Or trigger a full nights sleep/end of day.