itch.io

In deckbuilding games, limitation tends to help yeah.

If you have access to everything right away without any sort of grouping ("hard" grouping forcing you to play cards together, or "soft" grouping which just hints at synergy), it can become overwhelming.

Hi, thanks!

The randomness isn't frame dependant.

Right now, it changes 16 times per seconds, but you also have an auto-correction if you're off by a at most 2 frames so the precision you need to have is 5/16 of a second (so about 0.31 seconds).

Though if you have difficulties, there is an option in the"escape" menu to increase this auto-correction (the "Encounter Assist" option).

You can increase it up to "8" which means you can be up to 8 frames off. This way, you have about a second of leeway (0.5 seconds before and after the correct timing), which should be hopefully enough for everyone.
If you still have difficulties, I would assume you're doing something incorrectly... If you want I can give help if you can provide a video of what you're doing.

Played the game. Fun mechanics, even though I got stuck on the screen with the totem x)

I managed to get on the right arm, but I didn't understand that the "Kleene" was grabable and that I needed the key to reach it. The position of the key to get to the second arm of the totem feels a bit too precise as well.

Anyway, nice little demo

Ok, loved that game.

Positives first : 

• The controls feels really good. No problems at all to move around, nice coyote time, nice responsiveness.
• Level design (even if I assume this is more of a test level) is pretty cool. Simple enough , but still with somewhat challenging platforming and small secrets to collect all bones.
• Like the music, was bobbing my head in rhythm while playing.
• Animation feels great and polished. Maybe the jump is a bit too "squishy"? It surprised me at first, but you get used to it.
• Good doggo.

Some small negatives : 

• I didn't know the control (could have probably checked the game page to be honest) so I discovered the "dash in mid-air" option VERY late. So yeah, know that you can obtain every single bones in your game without that option beside the 2 small bones and 1 big bone which are only accessible by hitting the big red button (maybe my "challenging" platforming wasn't so challenging actually...). So yeah, a control scheme explained somewhere would be nice... I think if it was part of the UI while playing it could be nice.
• Obviously, a sound effect when collecting bones and big bones would also be really nice, but that's a given.
• When I was close to the end of the demo, my fingers hurt a bit from maintaining the Right Trigger on my controller, as well as spamming combinations of A+X to move around, or A+B to jump high (XBOX controller). Not sure how to fix that to be honest... Maybe move the "dash in mid-air" to one of the bumpers and add an option to not have to hold the sprint button?

Anyway, got every bones, nice demo, would play again.

I'll start with the positive.

• Love the soundtrack, very catchy.
• Really like the animations and the black and white artstyle. Feels really unique (even if obviously this style of game make you think of Drakest Dungeon)
• The combat, even if kinda simple for now, works well. Once you understand the different characters, you do make some strategic decisions (like taunting with your armour guy to then apply a defensive buff with the cleric, etc.)

And for some points of improvement

• I really don't mind the static pose for the animations. The camera movements do the heavy lifting to make it look dynamic and it mostly works great, but you still need to have very cool/impactful frames for the different characters and enemies, and some feel a bit dull. The skeleton for examples kinda look like they are weirdly slashing their sword on you with their unbent arms.
• I think knowing the max HP and MP of your characters in the UI could be useful. I wasn't sure if I had to heal the fighter girl on my first combat because I didn't remember how many HP she started with.
• Obviously it's a work in progress, but the game starting with the very unpolished overworld map and weird inventory with the godots icons confused me at first. I struggled a bit to get to the first encounter to then see the main part of the game. Maybe leading with the more polished part (a first combat) and then getting into the less polished stuff (moving around what I assume to be a dungeon) would probably give a better first impression.

Hi,

I played the game a bit (finished the first 4 fights you can teleport to using the stele).

First of all, thanks for the gamepad support, always appreciated (even if it seems to not work perfectly well in the menus especially to remap the controls, but I didn't encounter any issues during gameplay).

I kinda like that there is abilities you can use in combat. When you're first learning the game, they kinda act as a crutch you can rely on to still have fun and manage to do things.
At the end of the day though, the combat system still seems to be centred around parries and counters, which I think is one of the aspect that lacks a bit of polishing.

I think I managed to do some parries and counter attacks? But to be honest, I couldn't tell. I think there isn't enough visual or audio feedback for when you do those... Or at least, they aren't different enough from regular blocks/attacks.

Like, having some kind of freeze frame, or clear visual cue to tell you "right there, you did a cool move" would be nice.

For example, I knew I attacked into an enemy attack correctly not really because of the audio/visual cue, but because of my "stun" meter reseting, which doesn't really feel as nice as a cool "SWOMP" with a freeze frame x).

Like, weird comparison, but this old Naruto fighting game comes to mind. At 15 seconds, the kind of negative circle appearing when two attacks counter each other was the coolest thing when I was a kid.

Not saying that it needs to be that, but that's the kind of impact that I think could add to your game to make it more obvious when you're doing things correctly, and in the end help you learn.

I will not talk about the jiggle physics and the headpats, but live your dream boss 👍.

Hey,

I've played a bit of the campaign mode, and I have to agree with other comments : this feels really hearthstone-like.

• The main mechanics are mostly the same (heros, weapons, hero power, mana system with a +1 each turn, taunt, battlecry, etc.)
• Some cards are carbon copies (3 damage for 2 that freezes, "fireball" 6 damage for 4 mana, a troll looking guy which is a 4/5 for 4 mana, etc.)

Right now, the card game itself seems to not be doing a lot of original things (mind you, I didn't play that much).

Also, some UI elements feels a bit weird. For example, the hero power of your character requires you to hold the mouse click to then select the target. If you just click it (as I did, expecting a "click to activate --> click to select target"), then it default to hitting yourself. I had similar kind of issues with battlecry cards.

I'll also add a small comment on the art which I assume to be AI generated. I understand that the game is in an early development stage and that you can't necessarily get cool looking cards without a huge time or money investment, but I think it does go with the lack of identity the card game currently has. The different cards lack a coherent theme which kinda makes it a bit hard to get attached to the cards you obtain, or to get inspirations for deck building. Having a clear theme for different kinds of archetypes really helps to make a card game more interesting. Even something as simple as visually looking alike could be enough (like, all the blue-looking cards kinda working together for example). I would even say that having less details can make cards easier to identify. You can look at a game like Quantum protocol to see how a very simple art style when it comes to card design goes a long way to make it distinctive and easy to want to build with.

So yeah, the base is here for a card game, and it seems there is enough content currently in the game to play and have fun, but it lacks distinctiveness making it hard to really want to play more.

Kinda, but kinda not that much x)

The real "time to cheat" hint should be the trainer preventing you to get into the beach.

Huh... I'm not sure how you did that...
If that's with a saving glitch then I guess I can't really do anything about it, but if it was through an other mean it probably deserves some fixing x)

As for the "How to encourage the player to do glitches", my current best idea is to replace the game manual with a forum of some sort. Like, you can find posts about how to perform things, but more importantly, you can ask questions to get specific answers.
Like, the first time you fail to get a chromatic Primavolt you unlock the "what is Primavolt offset in the encounter tool?" question or something.

This way, you could still search normally for answer, but you could also be a bit more proactive in getting them.
Also, it would allow me to handle pacing better and introduce mechanics one after the other, instead of the current "50 pages manual to read".

As for the secrets, I'll keep them mostly for myself but know that I got inspired by games like Blue Prince or Animal Well, so some of them are just not told at all xD.

Though I see you managed to get one of the "secret" stamps, which I would count as "hidden content" (as, it's not explicitly told that you can do that, and it is not strictly necessary to beat the game)

Thanks!

For the Primavolt timing, there is multiple ways to find the correct timing, but the most consistent one is in the "Tips to help with the encounter tool timing" part of the Game Manual.
This tip doesn't require you to know when the battle starts (and when the encounter is decided), but if you want to know it's right when the flashing animation of the battle begins

As for what you can be getting from breaking the game, their is a lot of hidden content currently already implemented. Primavolt is still kind of the early game, just so you finish to understand how to get chromatic creatures. And I definitely plan to add more (for example, with the current game you can use a glitch to get out of the starting house without getting your Tortolodon. For now it does nothing, but I do plan on building upon that idea of roaming around in the game without a valid team, though there definitely are glitches currently in the game that do do something and gives cool rewards)

Finally, for the real life aesthetic, my original goal was to have a hand hovering and touching the different elements where you click, as well as having a kind of "Desk" aesthetic with random furniture you could move around.
Though in the end I didn't go with it yet, as it wasn't the easiest thing to do and didn't add that much to a first demo version. I put priority on the gameplay and game systems.

Thanks for playing!

For now, their isn't really a clear objective. It's more of a melting pot of the different concepts... Filling the stamp card maybe ? There is also a tough trainer at the end of the current game.

I thought about letting the player play the game normally first, but their was two issues... The first was that I think people wouldn't really want to redo the game they just did with glitches (not an easy transition), and the second was that their isn't any reasons to do glitches anyway if you can beat the game without them. I kinda want cheating to be mandatory (that's why there is no level up system, so you can't just farm your way out of your problems).

Though I do agree that it lacks some incentives right now... The main problem people point out is that the game manual is a big read to ask from the player right away.

If I make this into a full game, I'll probably entirely change the game manual for something more incremental.

Edit: Also, I just watched your video. God, I never really fought against Shroomoth with a low stat Tortolodon, this looks painful xD.
I already nerfed it before this release, but I should probably nerf it even more...