Hello Devs:
Here's a short feedback from a few hours (I am on a 4th mission) into Xenonauts 2 (played the original Xenonauts and loved it).
1. The girl from Operations - she's breaking the magic for me when she tells me to "get on with it, Commander!" (or something like that) before one of the missions. If I am the Commander, then she is my subordinate, isn't she? Why is she yelling at me? She also bickers with the Scientist Guy and I find her annoying. I know it's 2023 and everything has to be woke but the game is set in 2009 (in pre-woke times) so can we have one game without the diversity and inclusion, please? If the game is Early Access, it's not to late to re-write her lines or (it's on my Christmas list) write her out of the game entirely?
2. The UI: I still can't figure out how to assign multiple Research Projects - I hired more scientists but the Research view - for whatever reason - is unlike the other menu panels (Personnel, Engineering, Storage, etc.) which were ported intact from Xenonauts 1. I may be the only person in the world saying this but I don't mind if you re-skin the original Xenonauts - the new graphics are clean looking and the game has this weird (compliment!) mix of looking fresh and the same (in a nostalgic kind of way). This is a compliment: please make the Research menu like it was in Xenonauts 1 or - that is to say - the same as other menus.
3. The Cleaners is a nice idea but I don't understand the point of it: they're described as a group controlled (organized) by "several intelligence agencies" (sorry - quoting from memory). It seems a bit contrived - the original Xenonauts was an international agency, funded by governments (UN?) to fight the UFO invasion. How do these Cleaners fit into this? I know that you're trying to introduce new game elements, so maybe this criticism is not fair and maybe in the later game Cleaners will make more sense to me...
4. The Geo view shows the funding counter increase with each passing day: I think in Xenonauts 1 this wasn't like that. The new funding was allocated at the end of each month and I kind of like it better - it adds to tension in the game - not knowing how much (more or less?) money you'll get next month is a bit unsettling. Here, seeing the money rolling in every day seems very gamey.
5. Music and sound effects are great.
6. Graphics are more polished and the improvements in aiming and shooting systems are nice.
That's all I have for now: please don't "dumb it down" and make the game more serious. Xenonauts (I cannot be the only one saying this) had always had this feeling of nostalgia, especially that it was set in the 1980's (if I remember correctly) and the city maps kind of reflected that. It would be great if you could localize (both geographically and time) the maps so the shops and cars look like they did in 2009.
The original game had this fleeting sense of creepiness to it (understandably so) and I am asking you to please make Xenonauts 2 at least as creepy as its predecessor!
