Messages

Same here. Also 10.9.5.

If this is all about the stories, why not record them in a diary? I'd have thought it'd be relatively easy to just generate a simple text version -

"Dear diary, day 14. Today was a good day. We finished building our geothermal generator, and AJ the Medieval Minstrel joined our colony."

"Dear diary, day 17. Disaster! Raiders from the Grey Knives attacked, blew up two improvised turrets and then shot Lestrat. Katten was injured, and had a mental breakdown when she saw the bodies."

That'd make for quite a nice record of it all.

Is it confirmed whether water will be added as a resource? This is one area of development I really think would enhance the game.

I'm all for challenge modes - lots of replay value that way.

Yes and yes. Non-lethal options would be great, but I agree they should be harder to get.

What about an optional link to fear tech through repressive policing with these...?

That all helps - but could we get a simple addition that allows you to tab between your colonists? I often realise that one has wandered off but I have no idea where they've gone, and this would really help.

I think this is a great idea. It adds variety, plus I should think this'd be cheap to implement.

I was thinking along the same lines - saboteurs. The main thing would be not to get a message announcing that they're coming. (Or at least, not until they're right on top of you, or something is taken/broken...)

Those lovely pictures for the narrators? Put them in the messages, so the art gets used more and the emails feel more personal and less cold.

Having played this for a while - and hugely enjoyed it; so pleased this has been funded! - I wondered if my interest might eventually wane once I'd got the hang of it. I think adding challenge modes might enhance replay value. It'd interest me more than just more/less difficult, giving flavours of difficulty.

These could be simple - a stormy planet, more rabid wildlife, persistent raids, scarce resources - or more complex.

More complex ones could be hardcore (disabling saves and autosaving more often, so no strategic saving and re-loading), or social dysfunction (so happiness decays over time), or escape (work through the research tree and build a rocket to get your colonists home).

I'm sure other people here could come up with lots of other ideas too. Effectively you'd make this lots of related games, rather than one game.

For real compulsive behaviour, combine the above with an increasing difficulty scale and make length of time sharable in an online league table for competitive play.

(There's a game called Kingdom of Loathing - http://www.kingdomofloathing.com - that I've played for years because they have this kind of functionality - see http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Challenge_path)