Lo-Fi Games

Firstly, I bought the game yesterday on Steam, and am enjoying it a lot so far. I started in Clownsteady, and my attempts to cross the desert so far have been cut short by stopping to ask for directions from some bandits, who quickly gave me directions to hell.

I'd like to ask: Has there been any thought of putting in roads between the towns? I'm not talking tarmacadam, obviously, but even lumpy sand where someone might have walked, for example. I'm certain that roads would be a must, especially if there is a lot of trading. Even a single line of bricks linking towns would mean people have a chance of not getting lost.

Another reason roads might be a good idea is navigation. Without opening the world map, I can't tell where the hell I'm going. There doesn't seem to be a way to set a waypoint, or tell the character to go to a certain place by clicking on the map. These aren't necessarily bad things, but they make it very hard to move around in the desert. A compass would be a good way of solving this.

In the desert, there's not much in terms of landmarks, unless you're an expert at telling sand dunes apart. So, would it be a good idea to have the occasional rock, skull, road signs, deserted bandit camp or (worse) not deserted bandit camps occasionally turn up throughout the region? It'd make navigation easier, and give players a chance to search for some form of loot, even if it is the skull of an old party member (+1 to sentimentality).

There's other stuff too, but I've prattled enough. Let me know what you think!

While the only extant terrain is desert this won't always be the case, once there are other areas of the map, I am fairly certain they will have roads. Roads aren't an impossibility in the desert, but given the nature of this early map, namely making sure the gameplay is entertaining/fun I don't imagine roads were a must have feature. Once you begin to familiarize yourself with a few locations, it actually becomes fairly familiar and easier to navigate between the cities. I like the idea of milestones and occasional signs for the desert areas more than roads, even a compass on the GUI at this point might make it easier for new players to acclimate to the current map.

I agree that landmarks are a better idea than roads. Considering the heavy bandit activity, going through the same route repeatedly would be asking for trouble. Instead, knowing that the route between Clownsteady and Catan is littered with large rocks, while the route between Clownsteady and Brink has unusually large sand dunes would allow players to navigate by the terrain.

I didn't know the current focus was on gameplay, but I just wanted to get my say in.

Thanks for the comment!