Hi everyone, I’ve been a long-time player of text-based crime/mafia browser games, and I’ve officially started development on my own project. I’m aiming to capture that classic “persistent empire-building” feeling—committing crimes, training stats, navigating a player-driven economy, and climbing the ranks—without falling into the trap of making it feel like a “second job” or a stale spreadsheet simulator. Since this genre thrives on community interaction and long-term strategy, I want to build the features that players actually care about, rather than just guessing. I’d love to get your input: The “Mafia” Hook: In your opinion, what is the best way to handle the “Family/Gang” dynamic? Are there systems (like recruitment, territory control, or leadership roles) that you feel are underutilized or currently done poorly in existing titles? Active vs. Idle: How do you prefer the game to balance active effort (manual crimes/attacks) versus passive growth? Do you prefer a “time-based” system where everything is about efficiency, or a more traditional “energy/stamina” model? Progression & Burnout: What is a mechanic that usually makes you quit a browser-based RPG after a few weeks? Is it power creep, a stagnant economy, or perhaps the lack of meaningful endgame goals? Social Friction: What kind of player-to-player interactions (like markets, bounty systems, or coordinated attacks) actually make the world feel alive to you? I’m currently in the early stages, so I have the flexibility to prioritize mechanics that the community is actually hungry for. I’m not looking for marketing hype—just honest feedback from those of you who live and breathe this genre. Thanks in advance for your time and expertise!
Sharing a quick peek at the early dashboard for my Mafia project. It’s still early days and definitely a WIP, but I’m looking for some constructive criticism on the UI. What’s working for you here, and what would you change to make the daily grind more intuitive?
vrek@programming.dev 1 day ago
I would also recheck your colors. For example you have revenue and treasury both green great. But then show xp and stamina as yellow, unless I’m missing a mechanic those don’t seem linked by anything but color. Plus this is personal preference but I’d like a visual way to color something as like good or bad. If my treasury is high but my revenue is negative my treasury won’t be high for long. Depending on how you are programming this, you could do this with brightness or with size or similar to like paradox games where you have 1 color for every type of resource but has a sliding color from red(bad) to yellowish(neutral) to green(good).
If you take this advice and start changing colors, make sure the game is accessible to color blind people.
Praise@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Thanks for the honest feedback! You make a great point about the color consistency. I’m definitely going to rework the XP and stamina colors to avoid confusion.
Regarding the treasury, I actually refer to it as the ‘Cartel Vault,’ where you store money to upgrade your caretl . Since it’s purely representative of your wealth, I’m keeping that green. I really like your suggestion about the ‘good vs. bad’ sliding scale—it’s a great way to show how a high treasury can be undermined by negative revenue. I’ll look into implementing something similar to show that relationship, and I’ll be sure to keep accessibility and colorblind-friendliness in mind as I refine the UI
vrek@programming.dev 1 day ago
After I made the post I also noticed “crystals” and “members” are the same color 😉
For most people who aren’t color blind you could create a standard format and then put in a check box for color blind mode. If you want to go fancy, create catagories of resource types and then allow for changes in those colors. This not only would help out people who may not be able to see the difference but would make it much easier to allow for “themes” like a dark mode or light mode(just ui, not talking actual design of gameplay)
If it’s “cartel vault” for upgrades, why does it say treasury in your screenshot? Personally I like vault or cartel vault better so I would change the label that says treasury but it’s your game…