– I think this game is neat, but it's a little bland at the moment. The open world is neat, but it doesn't really put many constraints on the player. Unless you're doing a speedrun, it seems like there's no real pressure put on the player to do anything. You can just sit there and wait until all of your orcs are level 20 before you go stomping everyone. The original rogue used hunger as the time pressure. Maybe there could be a “main” human force who repeatedly sends increasingly powerful waves at you?
– I don't really understand the resource gathering model. First of all, you can mine that you'll ever need in less than one day, so it makes resource gathering seem like some task you need to perform without any strategic decision involved. Secondly, do we really need four resources? Gold is unique, because it acts like a supply cap in an RTS, but the other three resources are just all the same. Like maybe if trees had to be constantly harvested to fuel your dungeon, and iron was used to make weapons? idk… just something to differentiate them a bit?
– Finally, I wonder if it would be a good idea to assign a resource cost to hire every minion. First of all, this would give the game a bit of replay value, because you wouldn't be able to get the same unit composition every game. I know that creatures just walk in randomly now, but I can just keep drowning them until I get what I want. But, if I were only able to find an ogre camp and a bear camp, then I might have to use different tactics than would use if I had found a harpy camp and a wolf camp.
Other points:
– Could some enemy races learn how to tunnel through rock so that you can't just use half a dozen boulder traps to make an unbreakable dungeon?
– The Elementalist is a good villain, because the player is forced to go find him.
– I wonder if some tile animations or particle effects could be thrown in? It's not hugely important, but a little bit of animation gives a nice touch to the game, like the way the enemies bounce up and down a little when they walk.
