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EMBERROOST — PLAYTEST NOTES: 2HD

From a chat on 2026-10-09, at v98. For brainstorming together.

WHAT HE SAID

How it plays

• "Progress is a lil slow." It is "get on, spend money, send off on tasks, buy upgrades, get off."
• It is not like Melvor, where you swap between tasks and make active mid-term decisions. He does not want that added: "it would get messy" and take away from the mission focus.

Annoying or hard to understand

• Finding upgrades by what they do. "If I want economy upgrades (gold per second, toys, meat, etc) I have to dig to find them." The gold ones are "split into two and buried." He asked for a way to filter or search.

Spells

• "Okay." He doesn't feel like casting them: they last about 2 hours, and he checks in about once a day.

Guilds

• They seem to be "augment choices between gold missions, breeding for gold, etc."

Reputation (deeds)

• "Okay." He hasn't seen enough of it yet.

What feels missing

• "It does feel like it's missing something, but I'm not sure what." The core is there, but it "doesn't really scream come back and check up on me because dopamine!"
• "It isn't deep." The loop he sees: send dragons on supply or gold missions, use supplies to refuel the dragons, use gold to upgrade buildings.
• "There aren't any sub systems to deepen it and make choices."
• IdleOn as the example: each map's monsters drop parts that upgrade progress; characters train for skilling or fighting; classes make one kind better.
• "Maybe dragons should be able to be trained for classes and add in more loop grinds per depth that work off one another."
• "Most good idle games are basically a progress loop tied to another progress loop."
• "Collect X to fuel Y which does Z, providing bonuses to X or something else. But it needs to be decision based."

WHAT I MAKE OF IT

1. Finding upgrades: fixed (see below).

Gold per second came from a Lair building (Vault) and a shop item under it (Rich Feed). Night Watch, Bondstone and the Grimoire's gold rites were elsewhere again. Nothing grouped them by what they do.

2. Spells: the timers don't fit how he plays.

Kindle lasts 4 hours at rank 1 and 12 at rank 5. Most spells are 4-18 hours. Someone who checks in once a day gets a few hours of use out of every 24. The idle-game rule is that timers should be at least as long as the gap between check-ins. The Arcanum recasts spells for you, but only once it is built, so before then spells are a chore.

3. "Nothing makes me want to come back."

I think this is about what coming back feels like. Right now it is collect, spend, send out again: admin, then leave. The games that pull you back make the return the reward: something to open, a reveal, a chance that something rare happened while you were gone. Emberroost has those things (wild eggs, relics, new genes, Homecoming), but they are quiet. They arrive as lines in a log, not as moments.

4. "Not deep," even though the game has a dozen linked systems.

The flowchart shows Breeding, Care, Exploring, Deeds, Magic, Building, Crafting, Guild, the Great Work and Prestige, all feeding each other. So he either hasn't reached them, or they don't feel like choices. Probably both:

• Pacing: most systems open in week two or later. The pacing bot's median for the Great Work is about day 30. If week one is "send, spend, leave," he judges the whole game by week one.
• Choices: nearly every upgrade is something you will eventually buy all of, so the only question is order. Depth comes from commitments: a dragon trained for one thing can't do another, a path picked over another. His IdleOn example is about that, not just about having more loops.

5. He contradicts himself in a useful way.

"Mid-term decisions would get messy," then "it needs to be decision based." Together they make a clear target: a few weighty decisions each time he checks in, not more to manage. Decisions you make at check-in and live with until the next one.

6. Emberroost runs on several currencies, not one.

On the comparison page, Cookie Clicker, AdVenture Capitalist and Egg, Inc. run everything through one currency. Emberroost is closer to Kittens, Melvor and IdleOn: dragons in the middle, with gold, vigor, essence, Lore and supplies around them. That is richer, but one short currency stalls the rest. The pacing bot's slow runs sit with almost no Lore for weeks at the Regalia.

DONE BEFORE YOU LEFT

Upgrade filter (v99, if you say go)

• Chips at the top of the Lair: All, Gold, Supplies, Care, Breeding, Growth and vigor, Trips, Essence and Lore, Automation. They sort the buildings and the keeper's supplies under them together.
• The same chips over the Grimoire, for the rites and spells.
• A screen only offers the chips that have something under them.
• Under Gold, the Lair shows Vault, Rich Feed, Night Watch and Bondstone together.

IDEAS

Quick fixes

• Spells that outlast a check-in: Kindle and the other buffs at 12 hours at rank 1, rising to 24. Or charges: a spell stores up to 3 casts and you spend them when you're there.
• The Arcanum earlier or cheaper, so auto-casting arrives in the first days rather than late.
• A search box on the Lair and Grimoire, if the chips aren't enough.

Make coming back the reward

• A "while you were away" moment when you open the game: eggs that hatched, with their genes shown one by one; trips that came home, each with a bag to open; one rare thing at most per absence, made a fuss of.
• Hatching as a reveal, not a line in the log: crack, look, rarity, new to the Codex or not.
• Something that ripens best at about a day: a hoard, a clutch or a forage haul that is worth more if left 20 hours than 2. Coming back once a day then feels right, not neglectful.

Dragon classes (his IdleOn idea, built on what exists)

• Today a veteran can take one of three roles: Scout, Anchor, Guard. They are small and late. Temperaments and stations already lean dragons toward jobs.
• A proper class per dragon, picked when it grows up: Forager, Delver, Hoarder, Warden, Scholar, Nursemaid. Each one levels by doing its job and gets better at it.
• A class shapes where the dragon is best: Foragers on supply trips and at the Larder, Delvers on far expeditions, Hoarders at home making gold, Scholars making Lore, Nursemaids raising the young.
• Changing class costs something (time or Lore), so picking one is a real decision.
• Breeding then has a second goal beyond looks: parents who make good Delvers.

Loops that feed each other ("collect X to fuel Y, which boosts X")

• Each region has its own material: Foothills give one, the Far Reaches another, the Edge another. A building or gear tree uses them, and that tree makes the next region easier. That is IdleOn's monster-parts loop, mapped onto the expedition regions.
• Lore as the hinge: Scholars make Lore; Lore buys studies; studies make Scholars better. That also fixes the Lore shortage at the Regalia.

Choices you live with

• Pick one of two at a few points each roost: one Lair wing or the other, one patron or another, one school specialised. They reset when you refound, so the next roost can go another way.
• Pick which region your roost is known for: better yields there, worse elsewhere.

Get to the depth sooner

• One real decision on day one, not week two. The first class pick, the first exclusive choice, or the first regional material.
• Let him see what's coming: locked systems shown with what opens them, so "it isn't deep" becomes "it's getting deeper."

QUESTIONS FOR BOTH OF YOU

• How far in is he? Which Lair buildings, how many dragons, has he been to the Far Reaches?
• Which matters most: the pull back (3), the depth (4), or the early pace?
• Classes: one per dragon for life, or changeable at a cost?
• Should the new loops lean on expeditions (missions, as he likes) or on the roost at home?