A Post-Mortem of Gloopalaxy's 1st Demo Version

Last weekend, we had the chance to present a playable demo of Gloopalaxy to the public for the very first time at a festival — and received a ton of useful feedback!

Quick (old) pitch of the game: Gloopalaxy is a chill little management game where you build and run your own space aquarium. Collect weird aquatic creatures called gloops, expand and decorate your aquarium, and make sure your gloops — and your visitors — are happy so you can complete missions!

The good news is that the core gameplay totally clicked with people, and even though we already knew there were things to polish (thanks to earlier playtests), this round of feedback helped us narrow down a few important questions that needed real answers.

Do we really need all those features ? (spoiler: no)

To be honest, the whole “business with visitors” side of the game started as a way to give structure to our original idea — which was more about figuring out what these strange alien creatures like.

What we really wanted was to give players the feeling of being a curious researcher, experimenting and learning. But at the time, we weren’t sure how to slow down the player’s progression in a satisfying way without adding some kind of in-game economy. We also thought the game wouldn’t have “enough content” — a bad habit that’s hard to break..!

So we added things like ticket pricing. When you opened your aquarium to the public, you could adjust ticket prices, and visitors would come to check out your creatures. At the end of the day, you’d get reviews — sometimes even refunds — depending on whether they thought the price was fair for what they saw. Visitor reviews were based on three factors: ticket price, creature well-being, and how nicely you’d set up your space. These gave players clues on what to improve for the next opening.

(Old version) Recap Panel

But here’s the thing: during the festival, a lot of those “business” features weren’t in the demo yet… and no one missed them! Players simply enjoyed figuring out what each gloop liked, which was exactly the experience we wanted to create from the start.

That’s when we realized: maybe we don’t need that whole “business sim” structure at all.

How can we align the fantasy with the gameplay?

By reshaping the gameplay around the fantasy we actually care about!

🔬 Your Job

You’re not a manager running a profitable aquarium anymore — you’re a researcher. (I know, shocker!) Your missions now come from the Galactic Research Council (something like that), and each day, your base welcomes visiting scientists eager to see what you’ve discovered.

Uncovering something new about a creature earns you research points — these have now become the game’s main resource. They’ve replaced money entirely and serve as the core progression system. This shift strengthens both the gameplay loop and the narrative: you’re doing science, and you’re moving forward by contributing to research.

🎥 Showcase Time

We decided to keep a light touch of that showcase element — but it’s no longer about optimizing for visitor satisfaction like in classic management sims. The core focus is your scientific progress. That said, a fellow dev friend (👋 Hookaria) pointed out how rewarding it is to see people “react” to your space, even briefly. It reinforces that feeling of, “I built something that matters.”

So we’re reworking the silhouettes you see during lab openings to make them feel more alive. They’ll now have little reactions or emojis — vague enough to leave room for interpretation. It’s a small detail, but one that allows for some fun emergent storytelling and silly moments players might even want to screenshot and share.

How do we make space feel cozy?

The game took initially place in a kind of aquarium-spaceship, where players could build tanks and house the creatures they caught. While we always knew things like lighting and decor still needed work (it was too sterile and empty), something else was bugging us: the vibe just wasn’t cozy.

(Old version) Spaceship overview

Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of “space” as a setting — it can feel cold and hard to make warm or inviting. But narratively, being in space gives us tons of creative freedom. We can invent fantastical creatures and make up fun sci-fi rules. So the big question became: how do we make all that feel cozy?

📍 The Setting

Now that the game focuses on being a researcher in a dedicated research base, the space isn’t just an exhibition area anymore — it’s a workplace. Unlike a museum or aquarium, which might have some decorative elements but are mostly designed to showcase what’s on display (and therefore tend to feel quite empty), a workplace is lived-in. It means there’s activity, some mess, and signs of life — and that’s what makes the space feel warm and alive.

🐜 Close-up

While sharing screenshots of the game on social media, I also noticed our camera was pulled too far back. The wide framing made the empty space even more noticeable — putting too much distance between the player and the things that actually matter. It lacked intimacy, and the scene felt colder because of it. That’s something we definitely want to fix.

How to make the game less slow ?

📱 User Experience

Even though it’s a casual and relaxing game at heart, the experience was still feeling too slow — and not in a good, cozy way. The UX had a few friction points that made the game more tiring than it needed to be, and transitions between actions took longer than they should.

So, we’re taking another pass at the overall UX. Based on player feedback, we’re updating how things flow, making interactions smoother, and increasing the size of the UI elements to make them easier (and more pleasant) to use. We’re also planning to make the interface more attractive — right now, it’s pretty minimal and lacks those rewarding little touches, like animations or effects when you make a discovery.

🪴 Decoration

We also got some very fair feedback: decorating takes too long. Players want to jump into making their tanks pretty, but the way fishing worked made that harder than it needed to be — forcing a choice between catching a creature or grabbing a decoration.

We’re working on a new version of the fishing loot system that better balances randomness and player choice. I’ll share more about how that design has evolved in an upcoming post.

(Old version) Fishing loot

What’s next?

We’re now tweaking the demo based on all the feedback and observations we gathered — and we’ll be releasing a new version for the Steam Creature Collector Festival starting May 12! Of course, we won’t have time to fix everything before then, so we’ll have to prioritize. But we’re super excited to share this updated version!

Also, now that the game’s scope has narrowed a bit, we’ll be able to focus more on polish and (hopefully!) add some cute little interactions and surprises for players to discover in their space base.

The new pitch could be something like: Collect and study strange aquatic creatures in Gloopalaxy! Discover new life forms called Gloops, build the perfect ecosystem to keep them happy, and learn fun facts about each species as you complete a variety of scientific missions.

If you want to support us you can wishlist the game on Steam! 💫