Split or Steal

Read the reviews and so a lot of people claming hotdog always splits.
Made it to my first high stakes game against a hogdog feller and he stole...
The lies and deceit 5/5 never trusting hoddog gang again

Ignoring the bad UI and matchmaking glitches (as I think others have covered it thoroughly) I'd like to mention something I don't think HAS been covered. And that is that there are core problems with the gameplay that nobody brings up

As you might have guessed you choose to split or steal. Splitting splits the cash among both parties allowing both to win, Stealing takes a slight bit more and causes one party lose if they split. If both parties steal, they both lose. There's a karma system that gives you a bit more information on the opposing party - are they good or bad? So you can't just continuously steal cause the other person will just see that negative rep and most likely choose to take you down with them.

NOW: The problem I have yet to see other people mention. There is no REWARD to the deduction element. Only the karma grind. And if you think the other person will steal, what do you get? Nothing. You're still going to lose. You can take them down with you, sure. But... is that really fun? Well, the answer is for the first hour - yes. For anything after? No. Not at all.

People say there is a social element to this - and I would like them to explain how what you say to other party has any ACTUAL bearing on the game. Because every interaction I've had goes one of two ways.

"Let's split."
"Yup."
We win.

OR

"You have bad karma. You should split with me to raise it."
"I will do that."
He doesn't do that, but I've stolen from him to compensate. Then we both lose.

On the surface this game sounds FUN. Like really fun. Unfortunately once you play it... it just isn't. It's too simple. There needs to be a slight more complexity to the social element.

The negative review is constructive and is meant to encourage the devs to tweak and improve the game more.

I recommend this game as a ‘demo’ to those who love conflict-oriented games. But the game-play it offers has some large pocks to fix.

What's it about?

Split or Steal is a social deduction game in which you are pitted against an opponent - let’s say, me - for money. For two minutes, we talk it out and arrive at a conclusion. You can choose between splitting the money between ourselves and parting ways amicably, or stealing the whole pot for yourself.

And you only have 10 seconds to make that decision!

The catch is that splitting gets you your share of the money and karma, while stealing gets you my money but you lose karma.

If one of us makes a decision after those 10 seconds, then the game timer goes down to 30 seconds, within which the other player has to make a decision! You lose money and tier streaks if you lose a match.

On paper, the game-play sounds like fun, and I’m sure as a board game it works perfectly. But this ain’t a board game, son.

So, let me put on my PG-rated Gordon Ramsay and make a few points on it.

No penalty for mutes...

If you were pitted against me, I could give you the silent treatment throughout the whole match. This ruins the experience of the ‘social’ aspect in the game, and you’re left with deducing my decisions based on my tier and my karma, which can be misleading.

For the most part, your deductions are made blindly because you can’t expect to accurately deduce what choice I made based on my stats… but you’re forced to. And that’s not good. It’s like judging a VAC-banned player; there’s probably a good reason for it… right? RIGHT??

In essence, the Shrödinger moment is simulated throughout the match, with no way to say how it will turn out – so you just make your own choice with random probabilities.

I see a simple solution to this: if the player doesn’t speak, then apply a ‘Silent Treatment’ penalty multiplier to that player. The more number of matches they don’t speak in, the more the penalty increases. What resource is deducted with this multiplier, I have no idea, but that ain’t my job to figure out, so there you go.

Silent treatments in a communication-based game is inevitable, so it’s crucial to think about what you can do to discourage that, if not prevent it.

10-second decision-making...

I could choose whatever choice I make right when those 10 seconds are up! You are then left with making your choice in 30 seconds without properly deducing my choice. This renders the whole idea of the game timer being useless. We might as well shorten the game timer to 40 seconds and it would still be the same thing.

So even if I was talking to you, there is no point because I already locked in my choice and you are forced to make a good decision within those 30 seconds (unless I stupidly tell you that I chose X). You don’t have time to talk or figure it out.

Instead, what I would do is take 1 minute to make the players talk to each other. After 1 minute, open the opportunity to make the decisions. So they still have 1 more minute remaining, and they can still hash things out like civilized folks. But if they don’t want to, they can just arrive at a conclusion themselves anytime during then.

This not only solves the problem of ‘spammy decision-makers’, but it also enforces the Silent Treatment solution, and you get to attract more people who love to engage on the social aspect more.

If needed, a skip button can also be added to skip that initial minute of breaking the ice, and just get to the final minute of us getting real sweaty... with tension.

Lack of game-play depth...

Unless the devs work on the current system, the core loop is what it is currently.

While I was queuing, I saw a random player in the chatroom going ‘I wish X played the game more, they gave me riddles to solve in exchange for a split’. That hit me like a truck!

There was no additional engagement to the game-play. All you do is hash stuff out (which I already explained you rarely do) and make a decision (which I already explained is a shot in the dark). With the current system, it doesn’t feel like I’m accomplishing that. So I put out pop quizzes for my opponents to solve, and if they got it right, I’d split. This got me thinking...

The adversity towards other players in terms of winning money is bolstered by the game being labelled a ‘social deduction’ game, which I personally find to be selling the idea that your opponent needs to lose. But that's a mechanic, and winning against your opponent is an optional goal, not a primary one.

Your primary goal, if not to steal and get more money, is to reach a fair compromise with your opponent because that is the secondary positive outcome. You want to win; deduction is one way while diplomacy is the other.

And the game is hugely lacking in options that support diplomacy!

Before you ask – No. Messaging ‘SPLIT PLZ’ is not a way to be diplomatic because I could just assume you will do the opposite and we’d be back to square one. It also brings us back to the point about not accomplishing anything. You’re also giving away free wins, which is borderline boosting and trolling. Those who do this were probably never breastfed.

If the above ideas don’t work, then maybe calling your opponent’s bluff could work. Basically, you call it, and depending on whether you get it right or not, you either lose all your money or you win it. This is an idea I’m taking from another negative review I read.

These ideas are pretty engaging, at least on paper for now. But so far, these are the only critiques I have about the game, aside from the visuals.

Beats and graphics...

Understandably, the devs used Synty’s low-poly assets for the art and stock music for the audio. But each game has or needs its own personality and style. They probably already have it as a low priority on their list (if not, then psst, hey devs, NOTE IT DOWN), but I do hope the art and the audio content changes, if development continues.

There are too many games with similar assets. This can be off-putting for many. Regarding the art style, I imagine that you would have more flexibility with it if the project was set to 2D, but it’s unfortunately too late to do that now.

Final thoughts...

Overall, the potential is high for the game. I really hope this isn’t the final version as the game-play is currently too basic. There are other aspects that I haven't covered, but my focus is on the core game-play, and it is underwhelming as far as I've played it.

The problem I see now is that the game is not Early Access, so I'm sceptical about the possibility of change occurring to the game, and must believe that what we have right now is all we get. This brings me to my next issue: micro-transactions.

As much as I like the idea of supporting the devs, if it isn't EA, then I have to assume that the game will not get major updates or overhauls. Which means that, assuming the current game is the final version, I haven't found it compelling enough to support them.

But I'll go out on a limb and beg my fellow fishies to do their dirty jobs. Where our whales and dolphins at??

If there was a way to play with friends, then that would be cool. Currently, it's like I’m just playing with mutes and boosters, and that comes off as despondent to me.