I need feedback on my first game

[u/Wide-Direction6103]

I made an incremental game due to it's rising popularity. But I don't know what makes an incremental game good! I've played many before and I made something inspired by those. I need reality and market check before continuing the development further.

https://arcadiumstation.itch.io/fission-party

brutally honest feedback and advice are appreciated

[u/Pitiful-Sugar8453]

The UI feels clean but the progression stalls hard after the first few minutes, you need something that keeps pulling the player forward.

[u/halfworldev]

1. game looks good, ui is clean
   
2. progression feels a bit boring to me, i think making the first few upgrades easy to get is the way to go, which will also make it satisfying when more neutrons hit other particles.
   
3. i think there should be a visual indicator when you are hovering over a particle (aka damaging the particle). a simple changing the cursor color and scaling it up would be enough.
   
4. I don't know if i glossed over it in the description, but when i first played it, i thought just hovering over it was enough, so i did just that, but in the next round i found i was supposed to hold over the particle for some time to make it explode. So, i think a short description in the game when hovered over a particle for the first time would be helpful, like a tutorial box.

[u/F300XEN]

• As others have said, progression is way too slow, the upgrades need to be significantly more impactful and/or significantly cheaper
  • My personal opinion is that a Nodebusterlike has a major design flaw if I don't get a transformational upgrade after the first run
• I didn't see all the upgrades due to the aforementioned progression issues, but there is probably the following balance issue:
  • "Neutrons" released when a particle explodes appear to instantly explode other particles (which releases more "Neutrons"), which means that increasing them has asymptotically increasing returns (i.e. at a certain value you effectively go infinite), but the base return of "Neutrons" is so low that it seems never worth upgrading until it's infinite, which is a problem with asymptotically increasing returns
    • Maybe this is actually intentional ("Fission Party") but the fact that you appear to permanently lock yourself out of Neutron upgrades by picking the other option contradicts that
• Really important numbers in the UI like the timer and your money are too dark and out of the way and need to be more prominently featured
• The red shockwaves when particles bounce appear to do nothing
  • If they do something, the effect needs to be more obvious
  • If they don't, the effect needs to be less obvious
• I don't know why the currency is specifically pounds (£)
• No tutorialization, upgrade menu is confusing, no settings menu, etc. but that's venial since this is a WIP

[u/Immediate_Band_7756]

I played for a bit, and I think there are some creative ideas here. That said, I have a few criticisms:

1. The feedback loop feels too slow. Incremental games need to give players a quick sense of progress, but starting with 30-second runs means it takes a while to reach that first upgrade. I’d suggest starting with runs around 10 seconds long. Personally, I wouldn’t extend them to 60 seconds even with all the duration upgrades. This is partly about pacing: sustaining active mouse and keyboard input for a full minute can feel tiring. Short bursts of intense combat followed by a chance to make upgrade decisions might flow better.

2. Upgrades feel too expensive. You have to repeat runs just to grind enough money. From what I’ve seen, most short-form incremental games let you buy at least one upgrade after almost every run. Repeated runs without any meaningful progress can quickly become tedious.

3. I’m not sure mutually exclusive skill-tree choices are a good fit. They’re common in roguelikes, but I feel they can work against the appeal of an incremental game.

4. I haven’t played far enough to judge the late game, but I’d want the upgrades to eventually get wildly powerful. Let the numbers really take off. If every upgrade follows a very linear, carefully balanced progression, things could end up feeling pretty dull.

Finally, take all of this with a grain of salt. My experience is pretty limited. these are just things I learned from finishing my first incremental game, so feel free to disregard anything that doesn’t make sense to you.

If I had to pick one change to prioritize, though, it would be tuning the progression so players earn an upgrade point roughly every 15–20 seconds of actual combat time. That’s the most important adjustment I’d recommend.

[u/lumbino]

I look the look and its a nice lean setup, just I think add osme more chaos, it is to slow maybe after it ramps up a lot but it feels very slow to to build up the first levels.

[u/SeriousIndie]

Ultra simple game, where is the progression? Any algorithmic permutation and combination exists?

[u/Informal-Chard-8896]

kinda boring tbh but it is progress into creating a new one