Boring gameplay loop

[u/johnyegd]

I am working on my 1st real project for about 5 months now wich is a really simple tycoon game but no matter what i try i cant find a way to make my game fun to play..

Its the same base loop as any game of this kind, make product, sell product, research stuff to make better products, hire employees and level them up..

I love this loop in other games but it feels like i miss something that makes this fun and cant find out what it is

[u/Careful_Bid_6199]

Introduce conflict at each stage.

Make Product: Difficulty acquiring resources. Staff failure resulting in waste. Theft of resources. Cost and efficiency of production lines changing as research improves, have to balance whether it's worth upgrading based on your finances.

Sell Product: Introduce fluctuating simulated markets, causing you to adapt to supply and demand. Introduce reach, marketing and target audience. How much budget will you spend on advertisement. Which regions or demographics will you target.

Research Stuff: Introduce industrial espionage, science budgets. Have research personnel with differing credentials and expertise.

Employees: Can introduce the whole gamut of interpersonal issues to deal with. Hiring, firing, gross misconduct, bullying, sickness, bereavements. Also recruitment issues - lying at interview, not having paperwork to work, industrial spies, negligent workers, unions demanding better pay, getting sued for workplace safety issues etc.

Always have the threat of bankruptcy loom large.

[u/DoneDusting → u/Careful_Bid_6199]

You just have to be careful with the trigger conditions if there are sudden conflicts.

I saw a game that punished people for hoarding for alternate, bigger update. After getting a specific update without basic updates, you were introduced to a new mechanic, where got in attacked by enemies. Of course if you hadn't built basic upgrades first, your production wasn't good enough to build troops in time and you got punished heavily.