Please make your games playable in one sitting

I love your games. But I am not really willing to play a game that requires me to log on every day. I am willing to play a game that requires me to play for 2 hours in one sitting. Here is what I propose to fix this problem for all of your games:

-A new automatic-starting Lobby, with the following features:

-2-5 minute deadline

-Harsh punishments for frequently failing to meet deadline (going afk), i.e. a 1-7 day lobby ban

-The game starts every hour even if it does not meet the maximum # of players; bots will replace the players if necessary (they already exist anyhow)

-If it is difficult to monetize this while still getting it to fill and keeping your other lobbies, the first 4 players slots could be free-to-play while the last 2 are premium-only, for example.

I am fairly sure this is the #1 problem with ironhelmet’s games. The steam reviews call Blight terrible because of it, the queues are far slower than any .io game or epicmafia.com, and I’ve never seen someone praise a system that requires you to log in once a day, nor a system that allows you to only play 5 minutes a day. I don’t understand why this isn’t your #1 priority; I think it would be worth even more than making an entire game! Lastly, I hope I am not disrespecting you, you’re the ones with ten years of good game design while I have done nothing to contribute.

I think you’re missing the point. Most people playing these games are doing so because you only have to check in on them a few times a day. It’s something you can do while at work or school without it taking your attention away completely and it’s a way to stay social with friends.

If you know a few close friends IRL who want to play Neptune’s Pride 2 Triton, and if you have Premium membership, then you can create a “Password” accessed “Real Time” “Quad Speed” game, which is 15 minutes per turn.

Password accessed games are private, so you share the hyperlink to only your invited friends.

Design the galaxy to have fewer stars, and also “Starting Distance” = Close, and reduce “Stars for Victory”. This will allow a quicker end to the game.

To go even faster, set some higher starting tech levels, especially Hyperspace, and maybe also Scanning.

If your friends are truly quick speedy thinkers, then you can create a Turn Based game. The game server will advance the next tick jump when ALL players click SUBMIT their turns.

In NP2, AFK players do not earn Rank. QUIT players will earn 1 rank.

In many strategy games, often players like to be able to spend more time to carefully think about their moves.
But there are also good players who play Fast speed chess.

  1. I considered doing what you suggest xjh, but I would rather play a real board game, and I would never be able to convince my friends to play this wargame, or myself to buy such a minimalistic game for $48.

  2. Whether I’m missing the point is largely irrelevant if:
    a) My opinion is the majority view of newcomers, as queuetimes, reviews, and quitrate have lead me to believe.
    or b) This option could exist without increasing queue-times on the other lobbies.

  3. I played NP2 a few years ago, and the timing never worked out for me. I would need an alarm clock just to remember it, and then I would spend 5 minutes putting in my orders and 10 minutes looking around bored but not ready to quit the game and move onto something else.

You could always play the singleplayer content for Blight if you like?