These are a few photos of how my game currently looks. I just wanted to know if I should keep working on it, if anyone likes the style, etc. I know survival-crafting games like mine aren’t really the norm anymore, but I’ve been obsessed with this genre ever since I joined this platform.
Thanks in advance
update ‘forgot to share link’: Bonk | Play on Roblox
Bump since no one has replied yet
Alright, here’s what I’ve got as your game is right now:
Issues
I understand that this is very much a alpha/prototype build, so not all of those things are intentional so much as just not implemented/fixed yet, but that was the list of things I noticed while playing
Things I Liked
Main Weaknesses
+ my suggested fixes
Problem: The Map
For this genre, an interesting map can make or break a game. As-is, your generic map won’t cut it. It’s decent enough for testing, but if you want to release this as a proper game the map will need quite a bit of effort.
Solution: Intensive rework, or an entirely new map.
I would honestly suggest making a new map from scratch. Don’t throw this one away, but it’s probably easier to start from scratch (by importing a heightmap from the elevation data of a real place) and then editing it with studio terrain tools. Don’t be afraid of cliffs, don’t abuse the smooth tool. Make absolutely sure that if the game is only going to be on one island that:
A. The elevation has quite a bit of variance.
and
B. The terrain has to be intentionally traversed. Make it so people can’t just walk in a straight line from any point X to any point Y on the map.
Add different biomes/ecoregions, make sure they have their own resources/benefits/drawbacks for visiting/basebuilding. Maybe take a cleaner approach to bodies of water, rather than your current setup, using part-based water might be easier to manage.
Problem: Resources are randomly distributed, and interactions with them are strange as-is.
Resource distribution will significantly affect how players interact with the game, and the current random distribution makes for very boring monotonous gameplay. The map is large, but every part of the map has virtually the same terrain, and worse yet: the same 4-5 resources.
The weird resource interactions mostly boil down to two issues I had while playing:
Solution(s): Make resource distribution sensible, and tweak node interaction
Resource distributions is an easy fix: place clusters of certain nodes in places that make sense (sort of like how clay is only found on shorelines right now), and use terrain to your advantage to force players to put effort into getting a specific resource. Boulders should not be everywhere. Ore-bearing boulders should be in harder to reach places. Small foliage should spawn mostly in fields, away from trees. So on and so forth.
As for the node interaction issues: the first is just a matter making rocks that look like they have ore in them drop that ore, and bushes that look like they have berries drop those berries. The second issue is a little more subtle, but I think it’s pretty important. When I walk up to something like a berry bush, I don’t instinctively go to break the node for the berries, I would prefer an action to “pick” the berries, and leave the bush. Same goes for small plants and anything else similar.
Problem: Progression
Currently it seems like your progression mechanics are split into two competing paths: character level and crafting stations. Personally I really dislike the character level requirements. They add unnecessary friction and gate fun gameplay behind tedious crafting and grinding that brings no benefit. The crafting stations are by far my preferred method for gating progress, but as of right now none of them work, and a lot of the crafting stations are too easy to make.
Solution:
If you really want to add leveling mechanic, tie it to specific skills, and don’t gate too much gameplay behind arbitrary skill levels. Locking an iron tier of equipment behind say level 10 metallurgy, and armour behind level 15 is fine, but don’t force players to craft 100 bronze knives to reach those skill levels. It should be doable somewhat organically, through making like crafting materials and whatnot. Also don’t bloat your game with a million skills, keep the list short and make sure players get bonuses for certain milestone levels.
As for crafting stations: they’re the way to go in general for progression, but they need to be done right. The first few crafting stations should only unlock a few new (but important) crafting recipes/processing methods. Campfire unlocks cooked food/torches, crafting table unlocks some simple wooden, maybe stone tools, maybe a primitive fabric, rope, or clayworking, that sort of thing. That should unlock some new resources either via a new processing method (specialised crafting station) or a new tool that can gather resources you couldn’t before. Then players need to leave their camp/base and gather some of that new resource, craft the new items for that tier/resource type, upgrade crafting stations/build new ones, rinse and repeat. Make sure it’s tuned well enough that resource collection doesn’t feel like a slog (it does right now, for leveling), and make sure it doesn’t go to fast (it also does right now, for everything else).
A few more high-importance things worth addressing that I think have self-evident solutions/may just not be implemented yet:
All in all, you actually have a pretty solid foundation for a survival game by the looks of it. I know I might have been pretty critical here but I feel like most problems I’ve listed you already know about and just haven’t had time to fix. For 3-4 months of work this is looking very solid.
I don’t know the extent of what surivival/crafting games you’ve played (on or off this platform) but I can name a few that I like that are worth looking at to draw on for inspiration, in no particular order: Subnautica, TerraFirmaCraft mod for Minecraft (very much so NOT like the base-game), and Survival 303 originally by davidii, community maintained thereafter and I believe currently deprecated, but semi-functional. It was the inspiration for Booga Booga, which I was never a fan of, but it’s the modern survival-crafting standard on Roblox, and is also uncopylocked if you wanted to see the code yourself. I’m a fan of survival games and I’ve been toying with the idea of making a survival game next if I ever finish my current project so feel free to pm me/reply if you want any more feedback or ideas.
Tldr; your game has a ton of work to do but what you have so far looks solid. If you build up a solid foundation and rework a few things it has potential to be a really fun game.
I can’t even begin to mention how thankful I am that you spent your time writing this behemoth of a review. It is honestly more than I expected to get from this post and it’s exactly what I need.
A lot of the issues are either things I haven’t implemented yet or things that are placeholders, but you also pointed out quite a few things I hadn’t noticed. 
I want to be very open about the blueprints and crafting stations. Their current implementation was made with the help of ai just to give me a rough prototype and an idea of where I wanted to go with them. I also want to explain what I had in mind for it; my idea was to have a blueprint for every structure and crafting station, so you craft the blueprint, place it down, and that’s it. That’s why they exist as a phyiscal hotbar instead of opening through a GUI button. I do understand why that felt strange though
I totally agree, but to be fair it’s procedurally generated. To elaborate more on that, I’m currently making and testing a new tool that procedurally generates natural-looking terrain for me, and I don’t expect a game-ready map just from that, I will sculpt the map manually to my likings, but it’s just to give me a base.
I’ll definitely keep this in mind!
Makes way more sense that way, lol
Most of the missing survival features, animals, storage, d/n cycle, settings, shop, etc are things I simply haven’t gotten around to yet. The game is still extremely early but your review gave me a much clearer idea of which parts of the foundation I should focus on before I keep piling more content onto it
I will also check out the games you recommended. I’m familiar already with some of the older roblox survival-crafting games since that whole genre is basically why I wanted to make this in the first place, but I’m always looking for more things to draw inspiration from.
Again seriously, I can’t show enough gratitude for spending this much time playing it and writing all of this. 
I don’t mind!! I honestly really appreciate how critical and thorough you were. I’m grateful to anyone who takes the time to try the game, even briefly, of course but the fact that you spent enough time with it to understand its current systems and write all of this means a lot to me.
As of right now I have few dislikes with the current state of the game. Since it’s in early stages of development I’m not thinking too much about things.
Those dislikes being:
Very easy to learn how to play, but you do need to make more information available to the player.
Glad I was helpful! I spend a lot of time thinking about practical game design ever since I started my project and I’ve always like that style of survival crafting game. Plus it looks like you’ve put quite a bit of effort into this so I thought I’d try to be as thorough as possible for you.
When you contextualize the blueprints as being like how buildings appear in your toolbar in the oldschool Roblox survival games that makes sense. Also the natural-feeling procedural terrain sounds really fun, just be careful it doesn’t eat up your whole project.
I’ll keep an eye out for any updates on your game as well. Good luck!
I am honestly amazed at how much effort commenters put into reviewing games.
Not much to add, but can I theorize a bit, some general advice (may improve how you think about game design)?
The idea and the implementation of your game both need improvement, and commenters look like they found the same or very similar issues, could also be the same with most players getting into your game.
There is still a long way to go.
I believe some minecraft-like games will succeed on Roblox once again, but only those that are never seen before, to some extent.
Let’s assume there are 1000 minecraft-like games right now, and only a few percent of Roblox developers are sufficiently successful (the reality is harsh, but it often selects the best that go on the top). Knowing that, what uniquely fun can you still create, that most crafting/mining/survival players haven’t seen before? Some developers will find out what is missing in these genres and will present something in a substantially new way (or will adapt something existing) to the Roblox platform and will probably get 60k-200k CCU easily, but I don’t know for sure.
There are a lot of developers right now, constantly thinking about what will click with players. If you are not focused or strategic enough, someone else is, or will be, eventually. You should be too.
I would advise you, in another few months, to study what’s out there and what is missing in those genres and try to implement it well, but don’t get stuck on one idea, wasting months or years is possible, if not enough players will play.
Last question, and a very important one, that could decide your game’s main potential… What truly unique features or mechanics are you planning to implement? If it’s not “truly”, still, how will you present the genre/genres differently, than what was before?
needs tutorial, and the mobile controls are overlapped by the jump button
I’ve been working on the game some more, so I thought I’d post an update with a couple of videos and screenshots showing the main changes. I won’t list every tiny thing I’ve changed because this would turn into a massive changelog.
There are now survival factors!
On the left there’s hunger and on the right there’s thirst. Should be very self explanatory.
I’m contemplating whether I should add other factors such as feeling too cold or too warm, but that might push the game further into realism than I want. It’s still a game after all
If either bar reaches 0%, the player starts taking damage until they consume something that restores it. Health also only passively regenerates while both bars are above 30%.
DAY AND NIGHT
There is now a full day & night cycle
Zombie like creatures (I think? Maybe they’re mutated) that spawn during the night and chase you if they see you. They disappear during the day and don’t drop anything yet
SLIGHT TERRAIN CHANGES
Very basic caves, but I plan to expand them later.
TOOLS HAVE A PURPOSE NOW
Axes are much better for trees, pickaxes are much better for rocks/ores. You can still use the wrong tool but it’ll be much slower
NEW BUILDING PATCHES
I followed the suggestion about making blueprints a menu button instead of a hotbar item, and I think it works much better!
I even updated the UI for it (took some inspiration from The Survival Game | Play on Roblox)
There’s now an entire network to drag through.
I’ve also made a bunch of smaller changes based on the feedback. Resource nodes take longer to respawn, crafting stations are required for certain recipes, etc.
Me personally I really like the new building UI 
. I’d like to hear y’alls feedback on it!
Don’t add temperature unless it actually changes how people play. If it’s just another bar to watch without any new gear or mechanics tied to it, it’s just bloat. The building UI looks a lot better as a menu, though.
Yes, that’s what I would’ve done if I proceeded with that plan.
Good. Keep it simple and focus on making the existing mechanics feel polished instead of just adding more bars to monitor.
