Oh, wow, I wish I'd played this when I first downloaded it instead of waiting a couple of weeks - it's great! Even with only the first two levels, it's more than worth playing.
I'm looking forward to the next update - I'm going to be the sluttiest darned virgin there is! (footjobs don't count, right? Gotta keep my S cred up, after all~)
Praise aside, though, there's a couple of minor points I'd like to see added or changed.
-The entire point of the game is that everyone employed by the prison is useless, but it still feels a bit weird that you're subduing everyone on your own. Maybe make a couple of guards into equippable accessories, to establish that you're not
entirely on your own, but that your backup isn't really useful enough to count as real people? Or have guards appear in rooms you clear, to establish that they're "right behind you", even if they're "pushed back" whenever you sleep? A minor point either way, though.
-During the prologue or in the note, it might be a good idea to emphasize that your subsidies go away as order is restored. Otherwise, players too eager to focus on order can find themselves in a position where they're actively losing money each day, but haven't bought anything that would be useful in beating the first boss - and find that they're only losing a couple of order each day, making in-game weeks before order is low enough for meaningful subsidies. Without the possibility of a Riot, things can end up remarkably stable for a prison out of the Warden's hands.
-Relatedly, I think a day limit to avoid a game over for the first floor would be a good idea, both to prevent the aforementioned situation and to help convey how dire the situation is; the rioters have taken control of the prison, after all, and can freely come and go as they please. If Karryn can't at least retake the first floor to keep them bottled in, then what is Order even representing?
-Speaking of floors, on the second floor I'd recommend pushing the goblins back another room and switching them out with rogues - they're nigh-impossible to hit until you resolve the goblin problem, meaning that the player can only realistically fight two battles per day until it's fixed. If a player has their heart set on anti-goblin squads instead of demeaning goblins, but hasn't previously trained their guards, it's pretty expensive to deal with the problem, meaning that they can feel like they're "wasting" a lot of days while they wait for money/EP.
-Regarding the fatigue penalties... Is there going to be a way to improve how long you can go before suffering fatigue penalties in the future? Once you reach a 30% penalty, it's pretty severe, but you barely need to upgrade your bed to fully refresh. This makes it feel a bit pointless to upgrade your bed further, since you'd have to be taking ludicrous risks to actually benefit from the additional fatigue relief, and the only other benefit is a random chance for a 3% bonus.
-Also, it makes it a pain to completely subjugate a floor without sleeping, but that's "Weird Self-Imposed Challenge" problem, not game problem
.
-It's fun to see the effects of our Edicts; will we be able to fully explore subjugated floors in the future, or does that feel like too much of a tangent? I mean, I'd
like to go into the workshop that I've made into a sweatshop to hear the thugs complain about working triple shifts while they're drugged into complacency, but... I understand if making alternate "suchandsuch room repaired" maps for a few lines of dialogue isn't worth it.
-Not to complain, but... Does the game
really need to be "autosave only"? I don't ask because I'm a filthy savescummer who will restart at the drop of a hat to avoid consequences - I do that anyway, autosave or no. I ask because I really, really like to experiment, and with the game designed like this, I can't do so while playing at a difficulty level that feels fun. Like, the two prisoners mention that there's a special title if your first kiss is a blowjob, and I'd really like to find out what that is - but not at the expense of actually having to live for the rest of the game with having given a blowjob at that point.
-Is there going to be a way to lower a stat in the future? I like the way the level system works at the moment, but it would be nice to be able to "respec" in the future without having to restart the game.
-It would be nice if the passive that lets you gain the Confidence bonus at the start of a battle worked per-wave as well, especially since the first wave is when you least need it.
-I want an edict to make guards fan me with palm leaves and feed me grapes
. As the corrupt warden of a prison, I want some really ridiculous and self-indulgent edicts! If they're going to banish someone as talented as me to a backwater, I want to make it my personal paradise
! (Joking aside, though, corrupt edicts like demanding a personal luxury meal are fun; they don't need to offer any mechanical benefit, either, since it's fun enough just abusing your power. They don't need to be sexual, either; just using the prisoners as your personal servants is a kink of its own.)
Hm... I think that's all of my thoughts for now. Looking forward to version 0.5~ !