jvonm
07-22-2009, 06:34 PM
NOTE: These are NOT in order of priority.
Grr... I spent like three hours writing a big list of these and then I clicked submit and I realized I wasn't signed in anymore... but I've decided to do it all over again. Because if my suggestions are good it would be cool to have them put in the game! Feel free to leave feedback or just comments, I'd love your input.
1. Minimap
Although [almost] everyone has suggested this feature, I think I could expand on the idea with some specific features. In the past I've played many RTS games like Bunni with minimaps. Not only were they useful for orienting oneself and finding key locations (i.e, quest objectives, Deer, NPCs) marked on the minimap by symbols, but you could click any point on the minimap to shift the camera's focus to that area. Thus you could unfocus the view around King Bunni so that instead of moving around all the time, you could just quickly look around your island and check on things. that would eliminate the tedious running-all-over the place feeling that the game develops in time.
2. Animations
Just a small thing. I only recently noticed this, but characters always face forward. It makes the game seem very two-dimensional. I'm not sure if that's the feeling I'm supposed to get.
3. Notifications
when the ghost tells you that something has happened, you should have the option to click a magnifying glass icon (or whatever) and the screen would briefly shift to focus on the area in question before returning to you, as it does when you complete a Coriander plot mission. It would have to be optional, though, because it would be rather annoying if every time one of your forests were depleted you were forced to view the scene. This feature would fix the problem of not knowing what a notification is referring to, as well. "A fox has cut down the last tree in the forest" could refer to anywhere on your island. Lastly as to notifications, when you receive a notification, an exclamation point or something should flash in its location on the minimap for a moment.
4. Options
Minimap: On/Off
Notifications: Auto-Zoom/Manual Zoom
Event Markers on Minimap: On/Off
Flash Duration (grayed out if minimap is off): ___ seconds/Until event is over
5. Quality, Not Quantity
It's counterintuitive to say the least: Bunni Island is supposed to be peaceful, isn't it? in my opinion, there should be higher-level forests and mines that grow faster, instead of having to plant a lot of the lower-level ones. For example, instead of planting thirty forests and having thirty workers and ten rose gardens or whatever, I could have a few workers working on a few high-level forests that grow fast. That would prevent the industrialization of the island, which was the only real let-down. Instead of enjoying an island paradise, i was suddenly running a factory. I would recommend making the high-level forests and mines very difficult to unlock and purchase, of course.
6. Story Content
OK, I know it's controversial, but I personally I don't find the Peach dance particularly amusing. This game would be about a million times better if it had some real emotion. Sure, it was cute, but the characters were all relatively shallow. And just when I thought Peach had a little depth, it was ruined by that dance. Call me a party pooper or whatever, it was just a letdown for me. Now that I've put that out there, here are my story content suggestions.
A. Pirate Peach alternate ending/alternate plot
I remember the first time I played the game, all I knew was that it was probably a love story. Because one after another I discovered two girls that I was to say "hi" to, I got the impression that the game would involve buying more and more islands and reaching a destination, and along the way meeting a lot of girls to say "hi" to and at the end picking one. I was surprised to find I was wrong- there were only a few islands to unlock, and no additional girls. After I got used to the idea I didn't mind. After a while I was glad that instead of having a bunch of dim girls, there were two romance stories with a little more depth. However as the game progressed and I realized that the romance would only get as intense as clicking on her and getting canned responses, it got a bit frustrating. If anyone's ever seen the animation series There She Is, they know as well as I do how intense rabbit romance can get ;)
So basically I'm suggesting giving both the romantic stories more depth, instead of Coriander just wanted King Bunni to buy her stuff, and eventually marrying him, and Pirate Peach, well...
B. MOAR
As I mentioned before, unlocking more islands would be interesting. I got bored of how the entire plot was told to you by Coriander instead of you discovering it through exciting flash cutscenes and breathtaking discoveries. I guess for a cute little game the plot is fine the way it is, but if you want to make it amazing, it needs more. More islands that contain more mysteries and more intensity, even more romance could do the game some good.
The ability to have kids is a common suggestion, especially because Coriander even mentions it. Oh and PLEASE have something happen when you complete the tower of hearts? Just a tiny cutscene? C'mon...
7. Decorations/Upgrades
A lot of people want more decorating freedom- the obvious suggestion here would be "more decorations," but I also would add "more ways to decorate!" Instead of just buying stuff to put in empty space, you should be able to decorate the buildings and even people you have. I've noticed the game doesn't have any upgrade type stuff in it, which was a bummer for me because I love that kind of thing and most RTS games have buildings specifically for upgrading things instead of buying a lot of unupgraded things. It would be useful to be able to upgrade your sawmills and mines instead of blowing them up and replacing them with legendary ones. Even King Bunni could be upgraded and customized! Oh, the possibilities.
Additionally, I'd like to see more houses that are more unique. And don't forget the ability to move things without bombing them. Could be handy.
8. Fruit Tree Suggestions
I loved how the fruit trees were so... so... well, fun. I think to make them MORE fun there are some things you could do.
-Have different trees drop different things. I'm not sure if this is already the case, but I didn't note much of a difference between my pear trees and my apple trees.
-Make legendary plum trees less valuable. Otherwise it makes the game too easy! I got 1000 gems easily by getting a plum tree from my apple orchard, planting it, shaking it for a few minutes, getting more plum trees from it, until I had an entire orchard of them. Then, I took a bomb, blew it up, and sold them all. Hey, presto. Even if I had no gems (which wasn't the case at all) I would only have needed to sell 20, plus the other valuable things that dropped from the plum trees. Halving the
-Some things that fall out of trees just shouldn't. Ever. I mean... deer? Forests? Hills? Sawmills? .......
9. Wii compatibility
I haven't tried playing this on Wii Internet Channel but considering it's 100% mouse operated unless I'm forgetting something, that would be a great functionality feature!
EDIT: Thanks to Chokladkakan for clarification that the game would not work on DS.
10. Things that don't need their own category but still need mentioning.
-Maybe increase how much it costs to go to the next islands initially- the resources that you start out with are more than enough to buy you plenty of islands. Just to try it, I wasted all my starting money by buying and selling everything, and went from there. I found it was more fun to have to earn every island in turn.
-Every island could be unique. Perhaps have a different store or worker type on every island.
-A way to get rid of the problem that when you place a forest over another forest or whatever, the new forest is only like, one tree
-A mute button
-Something unique about each of the worker types so that Bunnis don't become useless after a while- I mean, they ARE the main characters... for example, pandas eat a lot but chop/mine fast, monsters cost a lot but are pwnlicious, foxes chop/mine slow but run fast, etc.
That said, I loved the game. I just want to do my part in making it the best it can be! Again, feel free to leave feedback.
Grr... I spent like three hours writing a big list of these and then I clicked submit and I realized I wasn't signed in anymore... but I've decided to do it all over again. Because if my suggestions are good it would be cool to have them put in the game! Feel free to leave feedback or just comments, I'd love your input.
1. Minimap
Although [almost] everyone has suggested this feature, I think I could expand on the idea with some specific features. In the past I've played many RTS games like Bunni with minimaps. Not only were they useful for orienting oneself and finding key locations (i.e, quest objectives, Deer, NPCs) marked on the minimap by symbols, but you could click any point on the minimap to shift the camera's focus to that area. Thus you could unfocus the view around King Bunni so that instead of moving around all the time, you could just quickly look around your island and check on things. that would eliminate the tedious running-all-over the place feeling that the game develops in time.
2. Animations
Just a small thing. I only recently noticed this, but characters always face forward. It makes the game seem very two-dimensional. I'm not sure if that's the feeling I'm supposed to get.
3. Notifications
when the ghost tells you that something has happened, you should have the option to click a magnifying glass icon (or whatever) and the screen would briefly shift to focus on the area in question before returning to you, as it does when you complete a Coriander plot mission. It would have to be optional, though, because it would be rather annoying if every time one of your forests were depleted you were forced to view the scene. This feature would fix the problem of not knowing what a notification is referring to, as well. "A fox has cut down the last tree in the forest" could refer to anywhere on your island. Lastly as to notifications, when you receive a notification, an exclamation point or something should flash in its location on the minimap for a moment.
4. Options
Minimap: On/Off
Notifications: Auto-Zoom/Manual Zoom
Event Markers on Minimap: On/Off
Flash Duration (grayed out if minimap is off): ___ seconds/Until event is over
5. Quality, Not Quantity
It's counterintuitive to say the least: Bunni Island is supposed to be peaceful, isn't it? in my opinion, there should be higher-level forests and mines that grow faster, instead of having to plant a lot of the lower-level ones. For example, instead of planting thirty forests and having thirty workers and ten rose gardens or whatever, I could have a few workers working on a few high-level forests that grow fast. That would prevent the industrialization of the island, which was the only real let-down. Instead of enjoying an island paradise, i was suddenly running a factory. I would recommend making the high-level forests and mines very difficult to unlock and purchase, of course.
6. Story Content
OK, I know it's controversial, but I personally I don't find the Peach dance particularly amusing. This game would be about a million times better if it had some real emotion. Sure, it was cute, but the characters were all relatively shallow. And just when I thought Peach had a little depth, it was ruined by that dance. Call me a party pooper or whatever, it was just a letdown for me. Now that I've put that out there, here are my story content suggestions.
A. Pirate Peach alternate ending/alternate plot
I remember the first time I played the game, all I knew was that it was probably a love story. Because one after another I discovered two girls that I was to say "hi" to, I got the impression that the game would involve buying more and more islands and reaching a destination, and along the way meeting a lot of girls to say "hi" to and at the end picking one. I was surprised to find I was wrong- there were only a few islands to unlock, and no additional girls. After I got used to the idea I didn't mind. After a while I was glad that instead of having a bunch of dim girls, there were two romance stories with a little more depth. However as the game progressed and I realized that the romance would only get as intense as clicking on her and getting canned responses, it got a bit frustrating. If anyone's ever seen the animation series There She Is, they know as well as I do how intense rabbit romance can get ;)
So basically I'm suggesting giving both the romantic stories more depth, instead of Coriander just wanted King Bunni to buy her stuff, and eventually marrying him, and Pirate Peach, well...
B. MOAR
As I mentioned before, unlocking more islands would be interesting. I got bored of how the entire plot was told to you by Coriander instead of you discovering it through exciting flash cutscenes and breathtaking discoveries. I guess for a cute little game the plot is fine the way it is, but if you want to make it amazing, it needs more. More islands that contain more mysteries and more intensity, even more romance could do the game some good.
The ability to have kids is a common suggestion, especially because Coriander even mentions it. Oh and PLEASE have something happen when you complete the tower of hearts? Just a tiny cutscene? C'mon...
7. Decorations/Upgrades
A lot of people want more decorating freedom- the obvious suggestion here would be "more decorations," but I also would add "more ways to decorate!" Instead of just buying stuff to put in empty space, you should be able to decorate the buildings and even people you have. I've noticed the game doesn't have any upgrade type stuff in it, which was a bummer for me because I love that kind of thing and most RTS games have buildings specifically for upgrading things instead of buying a lot of unupgraded things. It would be useful to be able to upgrade your sawmills and mines instead of blowing them up and replacing them with legendary ones. Even King Bunni could be upgraded and customized! Oh, the possibilities.
Additionally, I'd like to see more houses that are more unique. And don't forget the ability to move things without bombing them. Could be handy.
8. Fruit Tree Suggestions
I loved how the fruit trees were so... so... well, fun. I think to make them MORE fun there are some things you could do.
-Have different trees drop different things. I'm not sure if this is already the case, but I didn't note much of a difference between my pear trees and my apple trees.
-Make legendary plum trees less valuable. Otherwise it makes the game too easy! I got 1000 gems easily by getting a plum tree from my apple orchard, planting it, shaking it for a few minutes, getting more plum trees from it, until I had an entire orchard of them. Then, I took a bomb, blew it up, and sold them all. Hey, presto. Even if I had no gems (which wasn't the case at all) I would only have needed to sell 20, plus the other valuable things that dropped from the plum trees. Halving the
-Some things that fall out of trees just shouldn't. Ever. I mean... deer? Forests? Hills? Sawmills? .......
9. Wii compatibility
I haven't tried playing this on Wii Internet Channel but considering it's 100% mouse operated unless I'm forgetting something, that would be a great functionality feature!
EDIT: Thanks to Chokladkakan for clarification that the game would not work on DS.
10. Things that don't need their own category but still need mentioning.
-Maybe increase how much it costs to go to the next islands initially- the resources that you start out with are more than enough to buy you plenty of islands. Just to try it, I wasted all my starting money by buying and selling everything, and went from there. I found it was more fun to have to earn every island in turn.
-Every island could be unique. Perhaps have a different store or worker type on every island.
-A way to get rid of the problem that when you place a forest over another forest or whatever, the new forest is only like, one tree
-A mute button
-Something unique about each of the worker types so that Bunnis don't become useless after a while- I mean, they ARE the main characters... for example, pandas eat a lot but chop/mine fast, monsters cost a lot but are pwnlicious, foxes chop/mine slow but run fast, etc.
That said, I loved the game. I just want to do my part in making it the best it can be! Again, feel free to leave feedback.