Hi,

Found out about this game through RPS, really excited by it, registered here just so I could post some comments. (I'm playing the 0.5.7 build.)

-Difficulty: My first playthrough hit what I expect is supposed to be the ideal level; if I worked as fast as possible, I'd just barely manage to break even when paying for rent/heat/food/sometimes medicine, and occasionally make a little more. Which feels like it inspires just the right amount of panic to try to get through as many people as possible. By the second playthrough, when I was familiar with all the rules, I was building up a modest profit.

-The old man without the passport on the 3rd day flummoxed me, and I had to do a search online to find my way past him. Looks like a lot of people have had the same problem; I think there are a couple problems that make this one confusing: First, it's the first case we meet where we have to use the investigate function on the rulebook. Before this, we could just spot the errors visually and deny the passport, or use the investigate button on, say, the person and their passprot photo or indicated gender to notice a discrepancy. Second, using the investigate button to click on the empty desk to represent that he's passportless really feels unintuitive; it's not something I would've ever guessed to do if I hadn't looked up the solution on the web.

My suggestion would be to make the Temporary Visa Slip used for denials available all the time, maybe in a stack at the end of the desk, so that we can deny people without passports without having to puzzle out the steps the game wants us to take to identify their lack of passports, even though it's immediately visually obvious.

-Finally, I noticed it mentioned a few pages ago, but about an earlier build, so I'll just point out that this is still in: When denying entry to the brothel owner/human trafficker, I get a citation that reads "Brothel help invalid". Also, I don't know if this is deliberate, but even after denying him, the newspaper article the next day mentions the girls being murdered or something to that effect. I'd gotten the impression that I could have prevented this just by denying him entry; is it supposed to be necessary to detain him?


That's everything. Love the concept, love the visual style. Congrats on producing such a unique, engaging game!