Project P.I.T.T.

one of the best games i have every played, its so addicting to build automaters for each of the phases and somehow connect them in many different and amazing ways

[h2]Phase 4 pretty much killed the game for me[/h2] The game itself is... fine. I wouldn't say it's insanely fun, but I liked the style, the physics are entertaining, and watching your little factory slowly turn into something automated is pretty satisfying. [b]Then I reached Phase 4.[/b] And honestly, this phase completely killed my motivation to keep playing. The problem isn't even the grind. I don't mind having to produce a lot of something if the process itself is fun to optimize. The problem is that making anomalies is just [i]annoying[/i]. You have this big cauldron where you're supposed to physically throw products inside. There's no proper way to control how many items are being sent to it, no proper buffer, no router, no clean way to say: [i]"Send one duck, one cash register and one piñata every X seconds."[/i] Instead, if you try to automate it, you basically have to throw a bunch of physics objects toward the same open container and hope the whole thing behaves. And that's where all the little problems start stacking up. [list] [*]Piñatas can break during transportation. [*]Cash registers lose durability. [*]The cauldron itself has no proper ingredient inputs. [*]There isn't a convenient way to meter the amount of items going into it. [*]Building precise setups with the game's physics and placement system is already awkward enough. [/list] [hr][/hr] [b]What makes it worse is that the previous phases teach you the exact opposite lesson.[/b] You start with something manual, unlock more tools, automate it, improve the production line and make everything cleaner. That's the fun part. Phase 4 doesn't feel like a harder automation problem. It feels like the game simply stops giving you the tools required to make the new process comfortable. There's a huge difference between: [i]"How can I optimize this production line?"[/i] and [i]"How do I fight the physics engine enough to get the correct objects into this bowl?"[/i] The first one is an automation game. The second one is just tedious. [hr][/hr] [h3]One tool could fix most of this[/h3] Give us some kind of [b]buffer/router[/b]. Items enter it, and then you can configure each output: [list] [*]which item it outputs, [*]how many items it outputs, [*]and how often it outputs them. [/list] Something as simple as: [b]1 duck → 1 cash register → 1 piñata → wait → repeat[/b] would probably fix 90% of my problem with this phase. Separate ingredient inputs on the cauldron would be even better, but honestly, I don't even think that's completely necessary if we had a proper way to control item flow. Piñatas breaking is actually an interesting mechanic by itself. It forces you to think about how you transport them. But when you combine fragile items with awkward building, physics-based delivery and basically no proper flow control, it stops being an interesting engineering problem and just becomes frustrating. [hr][/hr] I liked the visual style. I liked the idea. I liked slowly automating the earlier phases. But Phase 4 made me stop playing. Not because it was difficult. [b]Because it was inconvenient.[/b] If better buffering, routing and item-flow tools get added later, I'd happily give the game another shot. For now, though, this phase ruined the experience for me.