I’ve just released my latest game called Cellmates. It is a cartoon styled prison game where you unlock weapons through spending time in the game as well as finding badges hidden throughout the map.
I’ve noticed that most players spend a fair amount of time in game, but get bored quickly. I believe this is due to the lack of a game loop. I think that I should remove unlocking items after a certain amount of time and replace it with a currency system, and add more stuff to do outside or inside. I am not opposed to this, but then the game becomes just like every other prison game.
How can I add content to my game, either inside the prison or outside, without having the game become similar to jailbreak? Any other genuine feedback is greatly appreciated as well.
Game: Cellmates
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Gatekeeping items to time seems a little… ehh…? For currency-based item unlocking, it’s usually the way you get said currency is what makes games different (how easy is it to earn money? how many ways can you earn money? are there riskier ways to earn more money – at the cost of losing more? etc.)
Since you have badges throughout the map, why not make exploration an actual part of the game and it’s progression? Maybe scattered around the map are very weak weapons, or even money, or even secret NPC’s or shops – or literally anything.
Played the game for like 1 minute, and honestly I think you should put more focus on “player interaction” – here are my first impressions:
- Spawned as a police officer, and am I right to assume that if a police officer closes everything, nobody can do anything about it? I think the inmates should be given more options – that way, you could actually engage players to do things with each other.
- There was this one inmate who was just stuck in a room, actually I was trying to figure out how to open their door but I seemingly didn’t figure it out in time because they just left… just, stuck in that room.
- This prison is really bland, and the layout is a bit messy… I can’t really tell where I’m going, and there doesn’t seem to be structure in where each area is. I wish there was more to the place than just grey concrete. Making seperate parts of the map distinct would help with cooperating with different police officers / inmates (e.g. “dude the police are at the blue room” “near the entrance with the reception desk” “im hiding by the plants to the hallway”).
- The background music, it’s just me but it lowkey takes me out of any mood to take this game seriously – not saying you should remove it, but atleast add an option to turn background music off.
As of now, the game feels bland. Please think about expanding on the gameplay with “player interaction” in mind. Games like Jailbreak (or Prison Life) work because they give you a tooon of options to fend for yourself – and more importantly – push you into interacting with players (which is of course, the whole point.)
We’re definitely working on a new map. Players being able to control which doors are locked will definitely be removed and a way for prisoners to pick the locks of the doors will be added too. I am just unsure whether to focus on the inside of the prison or the outside. There needs to be more content but the idea was to have a fighting game inside the prison instead of a robbery game. Thanks for your feedback.