The past few months have been a crazy ride! On top of many tweaks in UI or mechanics and constantly balancing the game, we’ve spent countless hours playtesting. There have been larger and smaller hurtles along the way and many moments when the game and some bugs made us laugh. So let’s talk about some things we’re tweaked, changed, and balanced out. Then some funny bugs we’ve encountered and fixed.
Constant tweaks
The Map is one of the most complex elements of the game. The relations between countries other than The US and their collective approach to your presidency are a tough element to show. We created filters and color-coded systems showing specific relations. The most important element of this was changing the way we display some things on the Map. Even the smallest countries have to clearly show up, so you know who to negotiate with or wage wars against.
Another element that we tweak, especially visually, is the Projects tab. We want every part of the screen to clearly show you how your points investments will affect your statistics and placement on the political compass. Your choices here may also affect the story, so we want everything to be very clear and intuitive.
A revamp of tutorials and the way we display them was also a big element of our work in recent months. Looking at mechanics from a perspective of a novice player can be difficult when you’re the one who made the game in the first place. Now the introduction to everything is gradual and allows the story to flow with mechanics better. Additionally, every mechanic has its separate and dedicated tutorial, which of course can be immediately skipped by more experienced players.
Balancing the game
After playtesting the game over and over again, some testers developed strategies that completely broke the game and made it impossible to lose. Every time we fix that, a new strat emerges. So we are constantly working on that problem. Number’s game is the most dangerous one in game dev.
On top of fighting with game-breaking strategies, we are trying to find a balance between playthroughs for first-time players and returning ones. We want to make sure that the beginning explains every mechanic organically. The start of the game and how we introduce different elements have been changed multiple times so far.
Bugs we squashed!
Oh dear… a lightning round of the more fun visual bugs!
The Air Force One is a lie:
Well technically... your stats can be too high...
Snow in the Oval Office.
Gigantic Babushka is NOT REAL I PROMISE…
We’re constantly playtesting the game to see where we can improve performance, elements of gameplay and balance. There are also many smaller things we can’t share in detail like supplementary sound effects, new story elements and original music added to the game. While we continue to put work and effort into polishing the game to the point where we’re happy with every aspect. This unfortunately takes time, but we’re positive we can finish soonish. Let us know what’s the most exciting change we listed here. You can do that here in the comments, in our discord or on our social media.
