Have you made progress on both characters? Both characters benefit each other, and that should help you get over the part where getting more than 5k gold is difficult. Then you'll be into the end game where you're making 20k - 40k per run.
There are 6 PNGs that were created using AI and then edited by me. They will all be removed and replaced by real commissioned art. I hope you'll come back and give the game a try once I remove all of the AI art from the game!
I really enjoyed this! There's a lot of content, and the autobattling system is pretty satisfying.
I haven't actually played anything like this before so maybe take this with a pinch of salt, but I have some feedback :)
there's a LOT of information here, and the vast majority of it is displayed with text. It's a lot to take in, particularly for new players. I can't really offer many solutions here, but it's something to consider!
the art style is super inconsistent. There's pixel art mixed with vector art, and it's not even consistent with where each one is used. A lot of the art is genuinely gorgeous, but is most of it asset packs? It certainly feels like most of it is asset packs - and that's because of the inconsistency.
I'd like to see some sort of cloud save system so I can switch between devices. This is something I can see myself playing on my phone for a bit on a long journey, then loading up in a browser on my laptop when I get home!
took me a few attempts to realise that when I was clicking things to level up, I was only changing distribution not the skill points themselves. That's a little bit of user error, but there's a disconnect there that I think is wholly unnecessary. It's more satisfying to click the thing and have number go up, rather than click around a bit to set the distribution and have things go up automatically.
menus need juice! I want things to jiggle when I click them 😂 in Unity that sort of thing is really easy
Overall, it's a really solid loop you've got here. I'm really impressed! Looking forward to seeing more 😁
there's a LOT of information here, and the vast majority of it is displayed with text. the art style is super inconsistent.
I agree with both of these. The solution isn't simple though. I would like to display information with icons that convey the same message, but in a less "nerdy" format. There would of course be a setting for those looking for all the numbers, but at least initially, a iconographic style could help ease players into the game. The problem is that I don't have an artist. I am one person whose skillset is mostly limited to programming.
And yes, the art is mostly from asset packs. If you click on the Info button on the Main Menu, you'll be able to see where I got everything from. I agree it could be better with a more consistent art style. But I am a single indie developer with no funding/resources. Maybe in the future I can implement these changes, but not right now.
I'd like to see some sort of cloud save system so I can switch between devices.
Cloud saving will happen! I want every platform to support this feature.
It's more satisfying to click the thing and have number go up
What do you propose I change it to? You get hundreds of stat points, and clicking for each one would take forever. I could implement something like "hold to allocate quickly", but still imagine you want to allocate 100 stat points to each of the 5 stats equally. It would take forever compared to the current system.
Still, I agree it can be confusing initially. I might add an animation or something of the sort that demonstrates how it works.
menus need juice! I want things to jiggle when I click them 😂 in Unity that sort of thing is really easy
I will experiment with this! I do need to add these little things that make a huge difference. As I am a programmer, UI things haven't been easy for me to develop. Take a look at what the game looked like 3 or so months ago:
It's almost comical... While it is a lot better now, I'll keep on working to improve it!
Thanks for your feedback! It doesn't matter to me if you've never played this type of game, I want you to find this game fun!
I have been thoroughly enjoying playing through this and discovering more effective ways to get farther. Glad that it looks like you're pretty on top of things here, and I think any complaint I could've had has probably already been mentioned by others. I look forward to seeing what else you do with it, and can't wait to play it on Steam too.
Edit: Oh, I suppose one question I could ask - do you happen to have any idea if the save from the browser version will be ported to Steam? I'm not sure if the way it works is any different or not, but it was something I was curious about. I'd understand if it is not possible, but.. I do have hope.
It is likely possible. Unfortunately I don't entirely know yet. But I would think that once I implement cloud saving, you should be able to save to the cloud, and then continue on Steam with no problems.
This does require for you to wait for cloud save though... I'll try to get that out as soon as possible!
Yeah no worries, I'm good either way, as it is such a fun experience that I wouldn't mind starting over if I had to. But hey, if it's possible to keep what I've got, then great. Cheers!
I hate the style of progression in this game so much. I know the devs either made or were inspired by that inflation rpg game. I've played them all so I always know what/where any game comes from (root wise) but, just like that one, you hit annoying walls here.
DIGGING THROUGH THE SHOP TO FIND SOME ITEM THAT MAKES ME WEAKER IN SOME WAYS BUT ENOUGH STRONGER IN SOME WAYS TO POSSIBLY MAKE ME A LITTLE MORE EFFECTIVE ASSUMING I'VE UNLOCKED THE ITEM ASSUMING I'VE EARNED ENOUGH MONEY THAT RUN TO AFFORD IT IS NOT F*CKING FUN.
The idea of having equipment with opportunity costs that makes you stronger in some ways and weaker in others provides an avenue for strategical decisions in an otherwise simple game. This game takes the IRPG concept and adds a layer of skill expression that people like myself enjoy.
I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the game! But this is a core mechanic of the game that I don't think I can feasibly change.
If you go fullscreen, you have to click the screen once and the game will show as normal. This doesn't affect anything but it can be annoying. I will see if I can fix it for future updates.
Beat it once, I think (it said I would continue with the current character sans gold, but I didn't actually get to do that).
I like the current Log-scale health bar system. If there was a numeric version I would probably use that instead because of the tactical advantage, but I prefer the current system because learning to guess the remaining health based on the shown bars is fun. It would also be cool if the base for the log graph itself increased each bar so that higher bars are increasingly unresponsive, so then you could have an enemy where fully half its health is hidden is a sliver of a health bar and it looks like you aren't making progress until you push through and then you only have another 50% hp to deal or so. I wouldn't want a sliver of health to be more than 50% of max hp, though, or it would be less fun, so maybe base should asymptotically approach some finite limit?
I like the routing aspect of the game, and I hope that remains a focus in future versions. Stat allocation and equipment selection is okay, but routing is the main strategic element I enjoy.
It's a little weird that you can keep playing if you switch to an equipment set with more encounters after using the last one fast enough, but will die if you take too long clicking. I see that a pop-up dialogue like when in the equipment menu might feel bad, but what if you automatically switched to a loadout with more ep left if one exists when you run out?
The continuing feature will be implemented in the future! There will be more Zones to explore in addition to the Glades, and this is where you'll be able to use everything you've gained.
It would also be cool if the base for the log graph itself increased each bar so that higher bars are increasingly unresponsive
It's an interesting idea, but I'm afraid very few people would use it. I'm glad you like what the game currently has though!
I like the routing aspect of the game, and I hope that remains a focus in future versions.
It will! In fact, I'd like to make it more complex. The reason that it is fairly simple in this first Zone is because I didn't want to overwhelm the player with too many choices. But once they understand how things work, as they will in future Zones, I can adopt a more exploratory "open world adventure" approach to map design.
It's a little weird that you can keep playing if you switch to an equipment set with more encounters after using the last one fast enough, but will die if you take too long clicking.
I'm not sure what the quoted text means. Where would you die if you take too long to click? If you end an encounter and have no EP remaining, the run should end with no option to swap loadouts. I think I am misunderstanding something.
Although I don't understand that, I understand the solution, and I think that is a cool idea! I will add it.
Maybe I am misremembering but I thought I went to 0 EP and before the animation played I switched loadouts so I had more than 0 ep (possibly I opened the inventory and manually equipped an item, though) and then I could keep playing just fine, and I did that a couple times but I also failed to do it several times so I gave up on it as a plan.
When you swap to a loadout that would put your EP at 0 or below while on the Overworld, a warning shows up telling you to swap loadouts . If you then swap loadouts to something with more than 0 EP, that warning disappears.
If swap to a loadout that would put your EP at 0 or below while a menu is open, your Remaining EP will flash and say you have 0 EP. If you try to close the menu at this point, it will show you the warning. If you swap before trying to close the menu, everything will play as normal.
In every use case, the game is designed to make sure you don't accidentally end your run by swapping to the wrong loadout. Of course, there could be a bug, but I haven't heard of any problems with this feature until now. Let me know if you run into something like that again, and you think it's a bug. I'll be sure to fix it!
So I finished the current game (all bosses with both characters) and I have a couple of suggestions-
I'm not sure I like the multiple health bars. They make it difficult to tell how close I am to killing an enemy. It's a cool visual so I think it can be made to work, but it might be worth adding an option for a % health indicator or a single health bar.
Have you considered using abbreviations for large numbers (ex. 100k instead of 100000)? It's not a problem now, but if the numbers grow exponentially as the progression continues it could become one.
I know this comment is getting long, but one more suggestion I have is having the character skill screen and character select default to the character last played, instead of defaulting to the first character. When I played the second character it got a bit annoying having to manually change to him every time I finished a run.
I hope the feedback is helpful, feel free to ignore if you disagree, you are clearly better at this than me. Regardless, the game is awesome and I'm definitely looking forward to playing the final product.
This has been requested by multiple people, and so I will be adding a setting for variations on the health bar including making it linear and showing the exact numerical health of the enemy.
Have you considered using abbreviations for large numbers
I assume you're not on the latest version ;) That feature has been in the game since the A.1.0 update. Even getting to 5 figures could make the formatting weird in the Stats Allocation menu.
having the character skill screen and character select default to the character last played
This will be available in the next update! Many people have also requested this feature.
I hope the feedback is helpful, feel free to ignore if you disagree, you are clearly better at this than me.
It is helpful, thank you! I don't care how crazy or unqualified your ideas might be. I am designing this game for you, and all ideas are good as they help me understand what I should be working on. I will push back on those ideas if I don't think they fit well, but if enough people in the community demand it, I will create it.
This game feels amazing to play and I finished both stories, but I was a bit annoyed at the presets: basically I mostly have the same main equipment most of the time and only change rings and when I buy new equipment I have to update all of my presets (of which I usually use 2 or 3). It would be cool if you could share slots between presets, here are some ways in which you could do that:
1. Preset 1 would define what equipment "empty" slots are in other presets
2. Add a new pseudo-item which would copy equipment from a given preset
3. Have a "base" for a preset, which would replace empty slots with items from a different, selected preset
4. Add an "equip on all presets" button next to the regular "equip" button
In all cases I think the "copied" item should be a ghost and not at full opacity so the player knows its a copied item, and if it chooses from a specific preset maybe add a "number badge" to it.
I am working on making loadouts much less tedious to use! I think in the first iteration of this I'll have two settings. Copy/pasting entire loadouts and equipping a certain equipment to all loadouts. I'm already struggling to find the space to do this, but I will add more customizability in the future if needed!
Our Ascent is an interesting game built around repetition; you run out of encounters, it's time to reset, keep your equipment and perform better than before. If I had to tell what are the problems; it's the fact how slow it is to go through many menus, windows and sometimes through conversations. I think it's slowing gameplay a bit. Other than that, it's a good concept and it can be an interesting game - if it is going to be developed into a full game with decent mechanics.
I am working on adding a setting that drastically speeds up animations!
I do wonder what your concern is with conversations is though. There is a setting that lets dialogue instantly appear, as well as the fact you can click to instantly finish a select dialogue. Additionally, there is a button to entirely skip the dialogue. What would you like to see added to this to make things flow smoother?
Oh, if that's the case, then I apologize. I might've missed the part where it is possible with speeding up the convos. As for the speeding up animations; please do!
If the game is built around repetitions, make sure that the player can jump back into the game relatively quickly. Right now, every time EP runs out, the player has to go through multiple menus before they get back into the game. It's especially annoying when there is nothing to upgrade and the player is forced to spam-click through menus and animations before he can play again.
It is also an issue that playing with other characters makes this even slower as the player has to repeatedly choose the non-Apolonia character over and over again after each run. The game should remember which character the player has chosen.
I am working on making it remember your last Augmented Character and last Story played! Also, Adambob is right. There is a reset button there as well as in the Settings menu though -> Other -> Reset Run.
I see, but I'm not sure what the solution is. To get to the EXP Progress screen, you have to click on the "Save & Continue" button. With this saving, it is implied that you won't lose progress if you pass that point.
A through explaination for how resetting works is given in the Settings Menu. There isn't room to do the same here.
If I were to replace the reset icon with text like "Reset Run" or "Try Again", it would lead to the same confusion in your conclusion. A "Play" button would be out of place. What do you propose I show instead of the reset icon?
Loving the game so far, but started on browser, and didn't realize the game would be so fun and long, and since I've lost saves on browser games often, I'm wondering if you know any way to download a save from the browser version? Either way, awesome game!
As far as I know, you can't download the save off of the browser version. Eventually, I'd like to have Cloud Save so you can play on any device and carry over your progress. Sorry about that!
I've played the game for quite some time now (like 4 or 5 hours) and the game is very fun. The only problem i have is that the progress seems to slow down very fast after around level 1200. It just becomes too repetivie, getting one equipment every run and a run takes like 10 min (5-10)
Have you been playing both characters? Playing one character benefits the other one, making it much easier to progress. If you swap between the characters often, you should be able to afford more than just one equipment per run.
All of the AI art will be gone before the game is published and out of the playtesting phase, I promise. And the real art I commission an artist to make will be better than the AI art, but it will take time.
I've completed the first area and it's fantastic so far. The only complaint I have is that sometimes you can't see the bonuses of nearby when you're in a large area. Sometimes it's worth it to do an earlier section if it has a gold or exp multiplier, or you can move to a higher section if it has an enemy debuff, but you have to hike back and forth to check. It's particularly bad in the second to last part of the first zone, where there are a lot of sections with similar levels, and I want to check if any of the zones has a bonus. Some solutions I can think of are adding the ability to zoom out further and/or adding an effect to the borders of a zone when it has a bonus.
You just accidentedly built one of the most addicting gameplay loops ever. I cannot believe this is an alpha test. I literally love this no end.
I like how boss points encourage you to switch characters. I was intially opposed to the second character, but then realized I could build my attack extremely high for him. High risk, high reward. I love it.
What does EP in the top right mean? I see it go up as the remaining encounters goes down. It confused for me for a while, I though EP meant the remaining encounters, which lead to a couple unexpected deaths.
For a early alpha, this has a lot of charm to it. I'm excited for a full build of the game!
The EP in the top right is shown after you unlock Achievements. It stands for "Encounter Points" and represents how many Encounter Points you've used during that run. This, along with the timer, help you know how close you are to completing an Achievement. Your Remaining Encounters can be seen with the red bar in the top left.
I'm really happy you like the game! It's amazing knowing that my hard work is paying off.
I'm glad you like it! The reason I'm not on all the platforms is because I am very new to the scene. I am most certainly not a millionaire haha, I'm just a kid fresh out of college. Everything here has only existed for 5 days or so. I applied to be a developer on Steam on 7/11 and this is what the page says right now.
Your tax and identity information is pending verification from the third party service. This process may take 2-7 days and you may be asked to provide additional documentation. Please keep an eye out for an e-mail requesting additional documents.
So it will be there soon, although I'm not sure if I want to make it a paid game. I had always thought this was going to be a free game, at least for the first couple of stories/zones. I would like for there to be paid content through DLC/extra stories eventually though.
The game already has a wonderful community over on the Discord! It is awesome having so much help when it comes to ideas for features, bug fixing, or just general strategy discussion.
I am working on replacing it! In the About Page inside the game, you can see my stance on this as well.
> There will not be any AI art in the final release of the game.
> This is a free game with no ads, and was initially made for educational purposes.
I am currently looking for a real artist to redo all of the AI art that is in the game. All of the AI art will eventually be gone, I promise. I dislike the idea of artists not getting compensated for their work as much as you do.
However, I do want to retain the quality, and that is why it's not a quick fix.
If any large studio with hundreds, thousands of employees uses hackneyed presets, AI art or anything in this category, it's bad, in my opinion.
But for guys who decide to create their own project without any funding, based on personal enthusiasm, using only one, two, three people. AI, presets, whatever - this is a lifeline!
Nowadays, the price of a tiny model reaches half a year’s salary in poor regions... Maybe it’s not the AI problem, but someone overvaluing their work?
This game is going places. I have tried all "Inflationlike" games, my favorite being Resolute hero for his really good item drop system.
It would be really cool to add something similar, like before starting a battle there is a little "?" square letting you know that peon has an item drop you have still not collected, when you already collected it, it shows the item drop in the same box for next fights. This way it feels more transparent and there isnt a need to constantly be looking for guides for the good drops.
The exp system is genious and really like it, there is alwais a feeling of improve after every run thanks to it.
Being able to play on different character with different stats and items feels refreshing and the addition of the skill tree, despite being too simple, can give a lot of depth. I really hope you improve it in favor of developing builds and variety of playstyles. A lot of times, inflationlike games feels like there is only a viable build that you must follow in order to advance. This is my opinion, but im sure that even if this isnt your plan for this game you will make it in a way that i will love. This game have a lot of potential!
It used to be like this! But I had a few problems with that idea so I changed it:
It doesn't make sense logically for you to be able to allocate stats once you've lost all of your encounter points (and presumably died).
It would be a very underutilized part of the game. Not only is the equipment unlocking phase is a very small part of the game (it is less than 5% now, and will likely be 0% in future Zones), it would require the player to swap to the stats screen on game over.
I do want the screen that shows up on game over to be the equipment screen. That reinforces one of the core metaprogression aspects of the game. If I show the stats screen, it would lead to confusion on why it is being shown, especially if the player hasn't fully internalized the unlocking equipment mechanic.
I agree that what you're saying would lead to a more strategic experience early on, but I believe the danger of confusing new players is greater than the benefit granted to those looking to minmax.
I don't think this game needs enemies getting a damage multiplier if the battle drags on. The first character's tanking strategy is already penalized by the fact that fights taking longer = less progress per hour for the player.
Agreed. It should probably still exist as an anti-softlock measure, but i personally think it should only happen after like... 100 or so rounds of combat, not the 10 or so it seems like currently. That way the battle of attrition the first character seems built for is actually viable.
I am working on implementing these suggestions! I agree, with dodging, Apolonia's special can feel useless.
Although, if an encounter is to go past 10 turns, I don't think it should be as it is with no 2x per turn damage multiplier. Maybe there should be something like a shared damage multiplier (both you and the enemy get it) or maybe the battle rapidly speeds up (a sort of "frenzy" occurs).
I really don't like the idea of a new player allocating a lot of health and defense, and then fighting an enemy in a level 25+ area. They might be in that encounter for 30 seconds if they don't have enough attack. I don't think that is a good introduction to the game.
But I hear these concerns, and I will update the game to address them.
Believe me, 30 seconds is almost nothing. How about 20 minutes per encounter? In one of the games I intentionally gone into one, although I didn't expected it to last THAT long.
A fatigue mechanic makes sense, but I think it ramps up too fast. If it kicks in as 2x at round 12 (or whatever it's set to now), it should maybe double every 5 rounds afterwards, or increase by 1x every round, but doubling so quickly means the fight just instantly ends as soon as it kicks in. Apolonia's DPS is so lacking that I found myself having to dump 100% of my points into attack when I was first reaching the level 2000-3000 range in order to kill anything.
This is actually amazing. It does feel a bit grindy, and with some characters having a ton of depth (pixel-wise) and the environment not being too fleshed out, it does feel a bit odd, but otherwise this game looks absolutely incredible
Unfortunately for now, there is only one zone. I will be working on making more content (The free story mode is planned to be 8 characters over 7 zones), but I've got a few bug fixes and small features to add that the community requested first. I'll try to rotate between bug fixes, features, and more content so that everybody benefits.
Thank you for playing!
(The text that shows when you hold/hover on the Oasis tooltip is initially "Complete Glades to Unlock!". Now that you've beaten the final boss, it should say "Available in the next* update!")
Ah, that's a bug then. Multiple people have asked this question, and I guess this is why. In the next update I'll have that fixed. I think I'll just say it's not available upfront.
Hi, just wanted to give some quick feedback: it would be nice if the stat allocation screen automatically closes after applying the points. Since you've already made your choice at that point, there's nothing to see in the screen anymore. Having to close the window every time before you can start a new fight is a bit tedious.
I see now, after the first reset you get automatic stat point allocation. So the whole point is to defeat as high level areas as possible because you get only limited encounters per reset. It might be a good idea to communicate this better the first time your character dies or collapses from exhaustion. Right now the character just collapses and says "I must get further" or something and I had no clue what was going on. Maybe give a lore reason for why you can only fight a limited amount of encounters. And some story for what happens to the character and why you go back to the start.
I think the mechanic of choosing an area to fight in based on the bonus you want is really cool. You can streamline the game a lot more with these tips:
Remove the % chance for an encounter. It feels a bit clunky and having a random chance to encounter a monster makes the game really inconsistent. The gameplay loop is to be as efficient as possible with your turns, making the amount of turns random in this way feels a bit unfair.
Have the player choose the next area by clicking it instead of walking around. Then animate the character walking there.
Instead of showing multiplier bonusses on areas, show how much of each resource you get for defeating an area, and the monster you have to fight. This adds even more clarity to the game. For instance, one area gives 1 gold and 5 levels, the other area 5 gold and 1 level.
Instead of experience and levels, simply show how much stat points an area will give. You already level up multiple times per area, this will make the choice of area much clearer again.
When entering the boss area, it is a bit confusing that you can get random encounters as well. I clicked the fight icon because I thought I would get the boss, used my ability, and then found it was not the boss at all.
I hope the feedback is useful. Personally I feel like if the main gameplay loop is more streamlined, I can focus more on what I want to achieve for my next reset.
Some small feedback on the dialog in the first area: the main character does the same thing in every dialog. Complain about not knowing what is going on. Then the knight ignores it. It's not very interesting to have this same kind of dialog multiple times. Think about what you want to achieve with the dialog. If you want to communicate that the MC feels lost, this was already clear after the first time.
One more thing: maybe rename the "Peons Defeated" run statistic to "Monsters Defeated". Calling them Peons doesn't make much sense here.
Overall a great game, and it feels very unique. This feedback was all based on playing the first area up to the first boss.
It might be a good idea to communicate this better the first time your character dies or collapses from exhaustion.
Having some dialogue relating to how the encounter point system works is a good idea. I'll add that to my todo list.
The fact that the character resets is discussed on your second playthrough, but it is not yet explained why everything is happening. This is intentional as I don't want to give all the mysterious details right away.
Remove the % chance for an encounter.
Doing this would change a lot of things. It would mean Distance/Encounter is not applicable as a stat. Many EP related achievements would also not make sense. It is an interesting idea, and I think it can work! But I don't think it's something I want for this game. Instead, I will be making the base distance/encounter considerably larger.
Have the player choose the next area by clicking it instead of walking around.
Instead of showing multiplier bonusses on areas, show how much of each resource you get for defeating an area, and the monster you have to fight.
Instead of experience and levels, simply show how much stat points an area will give.
Making these changes would oversimplify the game. It would add more clarity, but part of the game is getting a feel for how good things are, and making uninformed decisions. Over time, these uninformed decisions turn into informed decisions. Implementing these changes removes a lot of the skill expression of the game. I don't want the game to become one of those shovelware game where you start with 10 points and the only options are "multiply by 2" or "add 7". If the choice becomes too obvious then it feels like the game is playing itself. And this might be what people want. Your ideas could be the most optimal for reaching the widest audience possible! But I, and many others, don't like playing that type of game, so I couldn't bring myself to implement it.
When entering the boss area, it is a bit confusing that you can get random encounters as well.
What do you think I should do to make it more clear? The boss doesn't show up as the enemy if you were to start a fight in a zone where there is a boss. Additionally, I was under the impression that many players wouldn't even see the boss, or recognize it as such until they were already in the level 100 area.
Some small feedback on the dialog in the first area: the main character does the same thing in every dialog.
The dialogue between the main character and ??? where the main character is exasperated with ???'s antics is only 10 lines or so long. It's meant to be a bit of story building and a bit of comedic relief. The ways in which ??? responds to the main characters questions is varied, even if they do all boil down to willful ignorance. More elaborate details are available later on in the game. Given the brevity of the content that you get early on, I think I'll stick to what I have (for now at least).
One more thing: maybe rename the "Peons Defeated" run statistic to "Monsters Defeated". Calling them Peons doesn't make much sense here.
It is a weird word. I use it because it was a word used in the wiki for a game I played when I was young (The Battle Cats). But I like the word because it distinguishes itself from bosses, whereas a word like "monsters" does not. Many of the definitions that you find for the word online are archaic, see Dictionary.com's explanation:
Today, peon is used more generally to refer to poor people or those who perform menial labor—work that is often considered lowly and degrading. The word peon often implies that such a person receives poor treatment or is being exploited.
I know I disagreed with a lot of what you said, but I truly appreciate the feedback! There are a few issues that I think exacerbated the problems you had with the early game, and I'm working on fixing those.
When you guess wrong on a stat distribution and move into an area and lose a fight you have to get back out of that area to fix your build, but you frequently lose another fight along the way. Then you have to do a fight or two to try to correct your mistake, and you've used up a big chunk of your fight allocation.
It feels like it's punishing experimenting with builds or trying to push your stats to hit the equipment unlocks, which feels bad. Maybe some kind of hints on some 'builds' that are useful?
So far it feels like the only thing that gets me any progress is some kind of even distribution. Which is boring.
Also, the progress feels glacial so far. I'm only getting a few percentage points on each run. I might be doing it all wrong, but I have no idea because there's no guidance or feedback.
Some guidance on how stats should be allocated is planned! But I do want to encourage and make it easy to experiment without worrying too much about that stuff.
I think the overarching problem here is that the early game has very little leeway in making any mistakes. Progress isn't meant to be slow (in fact, that's the opposite of what I set out to do). But you're right it will be slow unless you play things unreasonably well.
I actually intended for the first boss to be beaten with only three equipment. I see now that most people get too frustrated with this, and grind for more equipment slots (which is not a good experience, especially so early on!)
I am working on fixing these issues so the progression feels a lot more smooth. Thanks for your feedback!
I'm not sure I understand your feedback though. What does "drop tables from stages" mean? Also, restarting a run quickly is possible by opening the Settings Menu -> Other -> Reset Run.
Also, the game is coming to Steam soon! Steam just needs to verify my identity then we should be good to go.
zone 1 drops 1 apple but i dont know that zone one drop that, so a gray icon give me the hint that there is something i could get out so i can grind that zone ^^
Ah I see, this is a feature that is being worked on. I want there to be a sort of monster log, that lets you see the stats of enemies, where they are, what loot they drop, etc.
If you're willing to use something outside of the game, what you're looking for does exist! (Warning! Spoils loot drop locations.)
Unfortunately Steam needs to do a background check. They say it takes 2 - 7 days for that to go through. Then, I should be able to put my game on Steam.
I do want cloud saving to exist eventually. That way you can play on any platform and pick up where you left off. But I've got to do some work to implement that.
1. Animations are painfully slow. Decrease the duration to the web standard of 0.4s. It takes the whole 20 seconds to start a new run even if I don't do literally anything. Maybe make the quick restart button for when you didn't get extra SP
2. I can't see if the item is equipped, or if I have it, or if I can purchase it. Make it visible, e.g. as text on item E-equipped 1-has one, 2-has two, + - can buy, EE1+ - two equipped, has 1 extra, can buy fourth (for rings)
3. Why can't I move with mouse on PC? Also I would've like to rightclick to move to a point or something
1. I am working on a setting that will increase the animation speeds drastically! Other people have also said similar things.
Also, there is a restart run button! Settings Menu -> Other -> Reset Run. You can select it and it will replay the level without having to go through the main menu.
2. I am also working on that feature as well! I was thinking of making it much more simple with a "B" saying it's been bought for non-accessories, or a "1/3", "2/3", or 3/3" for accessories. I'll experiment with your idea of showing if an item is equipped/purchasable. It's not something I thought of before, but it sounds like a great idea!
3. I will add this! It should be easy given that it already works with touchscreen devices in the same way.
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Very addictive. Pretty good progression flow, there's just a point where it's hard to make more than ~$5k gold that gets tough.
Have you made progress on both characters? Both characters benefit each other, and that should help you get over the part where getting more than 5k gold is difficult. Then you'll be into the end game where you're making 20k - 40k per run.
thank you for being upfront about the usage of AI art in your game! i won't be playing due to this, but it's nice to see someone honest about it
There are 6 PNGs that were created using AI and then edited by me. They will all be removed and replaced by real commissioned art. I hope you'll come back and give the game a try once I remove all of the AI art from the game!
I really enjoyed this! There's a lot of content, and the autobattling system is pretty satisfying.
I haven't actually played anything like this before so maybe take this with a pinch of salt, but I have some feedback :)
Overall, it's a really solid loop you've got here. I'm really impressed! Looking forward to seeing more 😁
there's a LOT of information here, and the vast majority of it is displayed with text.
the art style is super inconsistent.
I agree with both of these. The solution isn't simple though. I would like to display information with icons that convey the same message, but in a less "nerdy" format. There would of course be a setting for those looking for all the numbers, but at least initially, a iconographic style could help ease players into the game. The problem is that I don't have an artist. I am one person whose skillset is mostly limited to programming.
And yes, the art is mostly from asset packs. If you click on the Info button on the Main Menu, you'll be able to see where I got everything from. I agree it could be better with a more consistent art style. But I am a single indie developer with no funding/resources. Maybe in the future I can implement these changes, but not right now.
I'd like to see some sort of cloud save system so I can switch between devices.
Cloud saving will happen! I want every platform to support this feature.
It's more satisfying to click the thing and have number go up
What do you propose I change it to? You get hundreds of stat points, and clicking for each one would take forever. I could implement something like "hold to allocate quickly", but still imagine you want to allocate 100 stat points to each of the 5 stats equally. It would take forever compared to the current system.
Still, I agree it can be confusing initially. I might add an animation or something of the sort that demonstrates how it works.
menus need juice! I want things to jiggle when I click them 😂 in Unity that sort of thing is really easy
I will experiment with this! I do need to add these little things that make a huge difference. As I am a programmer, UI things haven't been easy for me to develop. Take a look at what the game looked like 3 or so months ago:
It's almost comical... While it is a lot better now, I'll keep on working to improve it!
Thanks for your feedback! It doesn't matter to me if you've never played this type of game, I want you to find this game fun!
I have been thoroughly enjoying playing through this and discovering more effective ways to get farther. Glad that it looks like you're pretty on top of things here, and I think any complaint I could've had has probably already been mentioned by others. I look forward to seeing what else you do with it, and can't wait to play it on Steam too.
Edit: Oh, I suppose one question I could ask - do you happen to have any idea if the save from the browser version will be ported to Steam? I'm not sure if the way it works is any different or not, but it was something I was curious about. I'd understand if it is not possible, but.. I do have hope.
It is likely possible. Unfortunately I don't entirely know yet. But I would think that once I implement cloud saving, you should be able to save to the cloud, and then continue on Steam with no problems.
This does require for you to wait for cloud save though... I'll try to get that out as soon as possible!
Yeah no worries, I'm good either way, as it is such a fun experience that I wouldn't mind starting over if I had to. But hey, if it's possible to keep what I've got, then great. Cheers!
I hate the style of progression in this game so much. I know the devs either made or were inspired by that inflation rpg game. I've played them all so I always know what/where any game comes from (root wise) but, just like that one, you hit annoying walls here.
DIGGING THROUGH THE SHOP TO FIND SOME ITEM THAT MAKES ME WEAKER IN SOME WAYS BUT ENOUGH STRONGER IN SOME WAYS TO POSSIBLY MAKE ME A LITTLE MORE EFFECTIVE ASSUMING I'VE UNLOCKED THE ITEM ASSUMING I'VE EARNED ENOUGH MONEY THAT RUN TO AFFORD IT IS NOT F*CKING FUN.
The idea of having equipment with opportunity costs that makes you stronger in some ways and weaker in others provides an avenue for strategical decisions in an otherwise simple game. This game takes the IRPG concept and adds a layer of skill expression that people like myself enjoy.
I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the game! But this is a core mechanic of the game that I don't think I can feasibly change.
This game seems to have died on me when I clicked the fullscreen icon. I guess I'll refresh and try again?
If you go fullscreen, you have to click the screen once and the game will show as normal. This doesn't affect anything but it can be annoying. I will see if I can fix it for future updates.
I did refresh and it seemed to work fine then. Just disappointing at first when it's my initial experience :-)
Beat it once, I think (it said I would continue with the current character sans gold, but I didn't actually get to do that).
I like the current Log-scale health bar system. If there was a numeric version I would probably use that instead because of the tactical advantage, but I prefer the current system because learning to guess the remaining health based on the shown bars is fun. It would also be cool if the base for the log graph itself increased each bar so that higher bars are increasingly unresponsive, so then you could have an enemy where fully half its health is hidden is a sliver of a health bar and it looks like you aren't making progress until you push through and then you only have another 50% hp to deal or so. I wouldn't want a sliver of health to be more than 50% of max hp, though, or it would be less fun, so maybe base should asymptotically approach some finite limit?
I like the routing aspect of the game, and I hope that remains a focus in future versions. Stat allocation and equipment selection is okay, but routing is the main strategic element I enjoy.
It's a little weird that you can keep playing if you switch to an equipment set with more encounters after using the last one fast enough, but will die if you take too long clicking. I see that a pop-up dialogue like when in the equipment menu might feel bad, but what if you automatically switched to a loadout with more ep left if one exists when you run out?
The continuing feature will be implemented in the future! There will be more Zones to explore in addition to the Glades, and this is where you'll be able to use everything you've gained.
It would also be cool if the base for the log graph itself increased each bar so that higher bars are increasingly unresponsive
It's an interesting idea, but I'm afraid very few people would use it. I'm glad you like what the game currently has though!
I like the routing aspect of the game, and I hope that remains a focus in future versions.
It will! In fact, I'd like to make it more complex. The reason that it is fairly simple in this first Zone is because I didn't want to overwhelm the player with too many choices. But once they understand how things work, as they will in future Zones, I can adopt a more exploratory "open world adventure" approach to map design.
It's a little weird that you can keep playing if you switch to an equipment set with more encounters after using the last one fast enough, but will die if you take too long clicking.
I'm not sure what the quoted text means. Where would you die if you take too long to click? If you end an encounter and have no EP remaining, the run should end with no option to swap loadouts. I think I am misunderstanding something.
Although I don't understand that, I understand the solution, and I think that is a cool idea! I will add it.
Maybe I am misremembering but I thought I went to 0 EP and before the animation played I switched loadouts so I had more than 0 ep (possibly I opened the inventory and manually equipped an item, though) and then I could keep playing just fine, and I did that a couple times but I also failed to do it several times so I gave up on it as a plan.
When you swap to a loadout that would put your EP at 0 or below while on the Overworld, a warning shows up telling you to swap loadouts . If you then swap loadouts to something with more than 0 EP, that warning disappears.
If swap to a loadout that would put your EP at 0 or below while a menu is open, your Remaining EP will flash and say you have 0 EP. If you try to close the menu at this point, it will show you the warning. If you swap before trying to close the menu, everything will play as normal.
In every use case, the game is designed to make sure you don't accidentally end your run by swapping to the wrong loadout. Of course, there could be a bug, but I haven't heard of any problems with this feature until now. Let me know if you run into something like that again, and you think it's a bug. I'll be sure to fix it!
So I finished the current game (all bosses with both characters) and I have a couple of suggestions-
I'm not sure I like the multiple health bars. They make it difficult to tell how close I am to killing an enemy. It's a cool visual so I think it can be made to work, but it might be worth adding an option for a % health indicator or a single health bar.
Have you considered using abbreviations for large numbers (ex. 100k instead of 100000)? It's not a problem now, but if the numbers grow exponentially as the progression continues it could become one.
I know this comment is getting long, but one more suggestion I have is having the character skill screen and character select default to the character last played, instead of defaulting to the first character. When I played the second character it got a bit annoying having to manually change to him every time I finished a run.
I hope the feedback is helpful, feel free to ignore if you disagree, you are clearly better at this than me. Regardless, the game is awesome and I'm definitely looking forward to playing the final product.
I'm not sure I like the multiple health bars.
This has been requested by multiple people, and so I will be adding a setting for variations on the health bar including making it linear and showing the exact numerical health of the enemy.
Have you considered using abbreviations for large numbers
I assume you're not on the latest version ;) That feature has been in the game since the A.1.0 update. Even getting to 5 figures could make the formatting weird in the Stats Allocation menu.
having the character skill screen and character select default to the character last played
This will be available in the next update! Many people have also requested this feature.
I hope the feedback is helpful, feel free to ignore if you disagree, you are clearly better at this than me.
It is helpful, thank you! I don't care how crazy or unqualified your ideas might be. I am designing this game for you, and all ideas are good as they help me understand what I should be working on. I will push back on those ideas if I don't think they fit well, but if enough people in the community demand it, I will create it.
Great game. really want to open the second region )
Is there a way to see which regions still have unbeaten enemies?
Not yet, but that feature is at the top of my todo list!
This game feels amazing to play and I finished both stories, but I was a bit annoyed at the presets: basically I mostly have the same main equipment most of the time and only change rings and when I buy new equipment I have to update all of my presets (of which I usually use 2 or 3). It would be cool if you could share slots between presets, here are some ways in which you could do that:
1. Preset 1 would define what equipment "empty" slots are in other presets
2. Add a new pseudo-item which would copy equipment from a given preset
3. Have a "base" for a preset, which would replace empty slots with items from a different, selected preset
4. Add an "equip on all presets" button next to the regular "equip" button
In all cases I think the "copied" item should be a ghost and not at full opacity so the player knows its a copied item, and if it chooses from a specific preset maybe add a "number badge" to it.
I am working on making loadouts much less tedious to use! I think in the first iteration of this I'll have two settings. Copy/pasting entire loadouts and equipping a certain equipment to all loadouts. I'm already struggling to find the space to do this, but I will add more customizability in the future if needed!
I am working on adding a setting that drastically speeds up animations!
I do wonder what your concern is with conversations is though. There is a setting that lets dialogue instantly appear, as well as the fact you can click to instantly finish a select dialogue. Additionally, there is a button to entirely skip the dialogue. What would you like to see added to this to make things flow smoother?
Oh, if that's the case, then I apologize. I might've missed the part where it is possible with speeding up the convos. As for the speeding up animations; please do!
If the game is built around repetitions, make sure that the player can jump back into the game relatively quickly. Right now, every time EP runs out, the player has to go through multiple menus before they get back into the game. It's especially annoying when there is nothing to upgrade and the player is forced to spam-click through menus and animations before he can play again.
It is also an issue that playing with other characters makes this even slower as the player has to repeatedly choose the non-Apolonia character over and over again after each run. The game should remember which character the player has chosen.
In the progress menu, in the top right there's a button to quickly go to the next run. There's still 2 menus, but you can do it quite quickly.
I am working on making it remember your last Augmented Character and last Story played! Also, Adambob is right. There is a reset button there as well as in the Settings menu though -> Other -> Reset Run.
Thanks for the feedback!
The problem here is that it's not clear at all as far as Adambob's comment is concerned.
This button, which resets talents:
Is the same as this button which starts a new run:
This makes me think it resets/restarts the same run rather than starts a new one.
I see, but I'm not sure what the solution is. To get to the EXP Progress screen, you have to click on the "Save & Continue" button. With this saving, it is implied that you won't lose progress if you pass that point.
A through explaination for how resetting works is given in the Settings Menu. There isn't room to do the same here.
If I were to replace the reset icon with text like "Reset Run" or "Try Again", it would lead to the same confusion in your conclusion. A "Play" button would be out of place. What do you propose I show instead of the reset icon?
Loving the game so far, but started on browser, and didn't realize the game would be so fun and long, and since I've lost saves on browser games often, I'm wondering if you know any way to download a save from the browser version? Either way, awesome game!
I'm glad you're enjoying the game!
As far as I know, you can't download the save off of the browser version. Eventually, I'd like to have Cloud Save so you can play on any device and carry over your progress. Sorry about that!
I've played the game for quite some time now (like 4 or 5 hours) and the game is very fun. The only problem i have is that the progress seems to slow down very fast after around level 1200. It just becomes too repetivie, getting one equipment every run and a run takes like 10 min (5-10)
Have you been playing both characters? Playing one character benefits the other one, making it much easier to progress. If you swap between the characters often, you should be able to afford more than just one equipment per run.
Yes i have. Been switching between them to have about the same progress and it is still slow.
There is currently a difficultly spike while playing Stan at around level 600, but other than that the game should be smooth sailing.
Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/WtKweNpdYp! There's a strategy channel you can use to get help with progressing.
Hope to see new updates soon!
I think, AI art is good to use, especially if this is not final version!
Great game in overall, thank you!
Thanks for playing!
All of the AI art will be gone before the game is published and out of the playtesting phase, I promise. And the real art I commission an artist to make will be better than the AI art, but it will take time.
I've completed the first area and it's fantastic so far. The only complaint I have is that sometimes you can't see the bonuses of nearby when you're in a large area. Sometimes it's worth it to do an earlier section if it has a gold or exp multiplier, or you can move to a higher section if it has an enemy debuff, but you have to hike back and forth to check. It's particularly bad in the second to last part of the first zone, where there are a lot of sections with similar levels, and I want to check if any of the zones has a bonus. Some solutions I can think of are adding the ability to zoom out further and/or adding an effect to the borders of a zone when it has a bonus.
That's a great idea! I think I will make zooming out a setting.
I also like the idea of adding effects to the borders, and that should be easier to do. I'll see if I can add that in the next update.
Very nice game. I created a profile here just to say that.. :D
Thanks! :D
You just accidentedly built one of the most addicting gameplay loops ever. I cannot believe this is an alpha test. I literally love this no end.
I like how boss points encourage you to switch characters. I was intially opposed to the second character, but then realized I could build my attack extremely high for him. High risk, high reward. I love it.
What does EP in the top right mean? I see it go up as the remaining encounters goes down. It confused for me for a while, I though EP meant the remaining encounters, which lead to a couple unexpected deaths.
For a early alpha, this has a lot of charm to it. I'm excited for a full build of the game!
The EP in the top right is shown after you unlock Achievements. It stands for "Encounter Points" and represents how many Encounter Points you've used during that run. This, along with the timer, help you know how close you are to completing an Achievement. Your Remaining Encounters can be seen with the red bar in the top left.
I'm really happy you like the game! It's amazing knowing that my hard work is paying off.
Why isn't this game on steam for $2 or so?
The developer is a millionaire and doesn’t need money?
This is a good project, I would WANT to add it to collection.
This will definitely have, if not fans, then an enthusiastic audience =)
I'm glad you like it! The reason I'm not on all the platforms is because I am very new to the scene. I am most certainly not a millionaire haha, I'm just a kid fresh out of college. Everything here has only existed for 5 days or so. I applied to be a developer on Steam on 7/11 and this is what the page says right now.
Your tax and identity information is pending verification from the third party service. This process may take 2-7 days and you may be asked to provide additional documentation. Please keep an eye out for an e-mail requesting additional documents.
So it will be there soon, although I'm not sure if I want to make it a paid game. I had always thought this was going to be a free game, at least for the first couple of stories/zones. I would like for there to be paid content through DLC/extra stories eventually though.
The game already has a wonderful community over on the Discord! It is awesome having so much help when it comes to ideas for features, bug fixing, or just general strategy discussion.
ai art :(
I am working on replacing it! In the About Page inside the game, you can see my stance on this as well.
> There will not be any AI art in the final release of the game.
> This is a free game with no ads, and was initially made for educational purposes.
I am currently looking for a real artist to redo all of the AI art that is in the game. All of the AI art will eventually be gone, I promise. I dislike the idea of artists not getting compensated for their work as much as you do.
However, I do want to retain the quality, and that is why it's not a quick fix.
And that's good =)
Let me explain:
If any large studio with hundreds, thousands of employees uses hackneyed presets, AI art or anything in this category, it's bad, in my opinion.
But for guys who decide to create their own project without any funding, based on personal enthusiasm, using only one, two, three people. AI, presets, whatever - this is a lifeline!
Nowadays, the price of a tiny model reaches half a year’s salary in poor regions... Maybe it’s not the AI problem, but someone overvaluing their work?
This game is going places. I have tried all "Inflationlike" games, my favorite being Resolute hero for his really good item drop system.
It would be really cool to add something similar, like before starting a battle there is a little "?" square letting you know that peon has an item drop you have still not collected, when you already collected it, it shows the item drop in the same box for next fights. This way it feels more transparent and there isnt a need to constantly be looking for guides for the good drops.
The exp system is genious and really like it, there is alwais a feeling of improve after every run thanks to it.
Being able to play on different character with different stats and items feels refreshing and the addition of the skill tree, despite being too simple, can give a lot of depth. I really hope you improve it in favor of developing builds and variety of playstyles. A lot of times, inflationlike games feels like there is only a viable build that you must follow in order to advance. This is my opinion, but im sure that even if this isnt your plan for this game you will make it in a way that i will love. This game have a lot of potential!
It used to be like this! But I had a few problems with that idea so I changed it:
I do want the screen that shows up on game over to be the equipment screen. That reinforces one of the core metaprogression aspects of the game. If I show the stats screen, it would lead to confusion on why it is being shown, especially if the player hasn't fully internalized the unlocking equipment mechanic.
I agree that what you're saying would lead to a more strategic experience early on, but I believe the danger of confusing new players is greater than the benefit granted to those looking to minmax.
Thanks for the suggestion though!
I don't think this game needs enemies getting a damage multiplier if the battle drags on. The first character's tanking strategy is already penalized by the fact that fights taking longer = less progress per hour for the player.
Agreed. It should probably still exist as an anti-softlock measure, but i personally think it should only happen after like... 100 or so rounds of combat, not the 10 or so it seems like currently. That way the battle of attrition the first character seems built for is actually viable.
I am working on implementing these suggestions! I agree, with dodging, Apolonia's special can feel useless.
Although, if an encounter is to go past 10 turns, I don't think it should be as it is with no 2x per turn damage multiplier. Maybe there should be something like a shared damage multiplier (both you and the enemy get it) or maybe the battle rapidly speeds up (a sort of "frenzy" occurs).
I really don't like the idea of a new player allocating a lot of health and defense, and then fighting an enemy in a level 25+ area. They might be in that encounter for 30 seconds if they don't have enough attack. I don't think that is a good introduction to the game.
But I hear these concerns, and I will update the game to address them.
Believe me, 30 seconds is almost nothing. How about 20 minutes per encounter? In one of the games I intentionally gone into one, although I didn't expected it to last THAT long.
A fatigue mechanic makes sense, but I think it ramps up too fast. If it kicks in as 2x at round 12 (or whatever it's set to now), it should maybe double every 5 rounds afterwards, or increase by 1x every round, but doubling so quickly means the fight just instantly ends as soon as it kicks in. Apolonia's DPS is so lacking that I found myself having to dump 100% of my points into attack when I was first reaching the level 2000-3000 range in order to kill anything.
You sir, know how to make a satisfying gameplay loop.
There is plenty of room for polish, but this is a very compelling phase one alpha.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
I couldn't agree more. This is such a nostalgic experience
love the game. looking foreword for the new updates
This is actually amazing. It does feel a bit grindy, and with some characters having a ton of depth (pixel-wise) and the environment not being too fleshed out, it does feel a bit odd, but otherwise this game looks absolutely incredible
this is a masterpiece
Thanks really like the game)
great work ! i like the art !
Thanks! I have the license to use the art, but most of it is not mine. If you want to see who created it, check the info button on the main menu!
ok cool ! thank you so much !
Woah, this is perfect.
And every update will make it even more perfecter.
:D
What is the benefit of leveling both characters? Do the stats/achievements/points/skills from one influence the other somehow?
I don't understand this interaction
i dont think so, its just a change in history
There is a benefit! I know it is a bit convoluted, but I'm working on making this more clear.
Find how many Boss Points you're getting from other characters by clicking on the Info Button on the Augments page.
oooooooooooooooooooooooo that makes sense
I finished map 1 for both characters, but now the second map does not open. The oasis map
Unfortunately for now, there is only one zone. I will be working on making more content (The free story mode is planned to be 8 characters over 7 zones), but I've got a few bug fixes and small features to add that the community requested first. I'll try to rotate between bug fixes, features, and more content so that everybody benefits.
Thank you for playing!
(The text that shows when you hold/hover on the Oasis tooltip is initially "Complete Glades to Unlock!". Now that you've beaten the final boss, it should say "Available in the next* update!")
In that case, I can confirm that it still says "Complete Glades to unlock!" rather than anything about updates.
Ah, that's a bug then. Multiple people have asked this question, and I guess this is why. In the next update I'll have that fixed. I think I'll just say it's not available upfront.
Sorry about that!
Hi, just wanted to give some quick feedback: it would be nice if the stat allocation screen automatically closes after applying the points. Since you've already made your choice at that point, there's nothing to see in the screen anymore. Having to close the window every time before you can start a new fight is a bit tedious.
I see now, after the first reset you get automatic stat point allocation. So the whole point is to defeat as high level areas as possible because you get only limited encounters per reset. It might be a good idea to communicate this better the first time your character dies or collapses from exhaustion. Right now the character just collapses and says "I must get further" or something and I had no clue what was going on. Maybe give a lore reason for why you can only fight a limited amount of encounters. And some story for what happens to the character and why you go back to the start.
I think the mechanic of choosing an area to fight in based on the bonus you want is really cool. You can streamline the game a lot more with these tips:
I hope the feedback is useful. Personally I feel like if the main gameplay loop is more streamlined, I can focus more on what I want to achieve for my next reset.
Some small feedback on the dialog in the first area: the main character does the same thing in every dialog. Complain about not knowing what is going on. Then the knight ignores it. It's not very interesting to have this same kind of dialog multiple times. Think about what you want to achieve with the dialog. If you want to communicate that the MC feels lost, this was already clear after the first time.
One more thing: maybe rename the "Peons Defeated" run statistic to "Monsters Defeated". Calling them Peons doesn't make much sense here.
Overall a great game, and it feels very unique. This feedback was all based on playing the first area up to the first boss.
It might be a good idea to communicate this better the first time your character dies or collapses from exhaustion.
Having some dialogue relating to how the encounter point system works is a good idea. I'll add that to my todo list.
The fact that the character resets is discussed on your second playthrough, but it is not yet explained why everything is happening. This is intentional as I don't want to give all the mysterious details right away.
Remove the % chance for an encounter.
Doing this would change a lot of things. It would mean Distance/Encounter is not applicable as a stat. Many EP related achievements would also not make sense. It is an interesting idea, and I think it can work! But I don't think it's something I want for this game. Instead, I will be making the base distance/encounter considerably larger.
Have the player choose the next area by clicking it instead of walking around.
Instead of showing multiplier bonusses on areas, show how much of each resource you get for defeating an area, and the monster you have to fight.
Instead of experience and levels, simply show how much stat points an area will give.
Making these changes would oversimplify the game. It would add more clarity, but part of the game is getting a feel for how good things are, and making uninformed decisions. Over time, these uninformed decisions turn into informed decisions. Implementing these changes removes a lot of the skill expression of the game. I don't want the game to become one of those shovelware game where you start with 10 points and the only options are "multiply by 2" or "add 7". If the choice becomes too obvious then it feels like the game is playing itself. And this might be what people want. Your ideas could be the most optimal for reaching the widest audience possible! But I, and many others, don't like playing that type of game, so I couldn't bring myself to implement it.
When entering the boss area, it is a bit confusing that you can get random encounters as well.
What do you think I should do to make it more clear? The boss doesn't show up as the enemy if you were to start a fight in a zone where there is a boss. Additionally, I was under the impression that many players wouldn't even see the boss, or recognize it as such until they were already in the level 100 area.
Some small feedback on the dialog in the first area: the main character does the same thing in every dialog.
The dialogue between the main character and ??? where the main character is exasperated with ???'s antics is only 10 lines or so long. It's meant to be a bit of story building and a bit of comedic relief. The ways in which ??? responds to the main characters questions is varied, even if they do all boil down to willful ignorance. More elaborate details are available later on in the game. Given the brevity of the content that you get early on, I think I'll stick to what I have (for now at least).
One more thing: maybe rename the "Peons Defeated" run statistic to "Monsters Defeated". Calling them Peons doesn't make much sense here.
It is a weird word. I use it because it was a word used in the wiki for a game I played when I was young (The Battle Cats). But I like the word because it distinguishes itself from bosses, whereas a word like "monsters" does not. Many of the definitions that you find for the word online are archaic, see Dictionary.com's explanation:
Today, peon is used more generally to refer to poor people or those who perform menial labor—work that is often considered lowly and degrading. The word peon often implies that such a person receives poor treatment or is being exploited.
I know I disagreed with a lot of what you said, but I truly appreciate the feedback! There are a few issues that I think exacerbated the problems you had with the early game, and I'm working on fixing those.
Thanks for playing!
why dont u call the normal monsters "pawns" or "minions" then?
(aslo that was my only objection i agree in everything else, you are a based dev)
Uhhhh... you're right those are way better...
I immediately chose peons, and I have not looked back until now. I think I will change it to minions.
Thanks!
Now make them say "banana" in aprli fools.
When you guess wrong on a stat distribution and move into an area and lose a fight you have to get back out of that area to fix your build, but you frequently lose another fight along the way. Then you have to do a fight or two to try to correct your mistake, and you've used up a big chunk of your fight allocation.
It feels like it's punishing experimenting with builds or trying to push your stats to hit the equipment unlocks, which feels bad. Maybe some kind of hints on some 'builds' that are useful?
So far it feels like the only thing that gets me any progress is some kind of even distribution. Which is boring.
Also, the progress feels glacial so far. I'm only getting a few percentage points on each run. I might be doing it all wrong, but I have no idea because there's no guidance or feedback.
Some guidance on how stats should be allocated is planned! But I do want to encourage and make it easy to experiment without worrying too much about that stuff.
I think the overarching problem here is that the early game has very little leeway in making any mistakes. Progress isn't meant to be slow (in fact, that's the opposite of what I set out to do). But you're right it will be slow unless you play things unreasonably well.
I actually intended for the first boss to be beaten with only three equipment. I see now that most people get too frustrated with this, and grind for more equipment slots (which is not a good experience, especially so early on!)
I am working on fixing these issues so the progression feels a lot more smooth. Thanks for your feedback!
i really love this kind of games, i did play this game kind on my phone for years.
here something i miss
drop tables from stages.
even if it just a gray icon somewhere, just to let the player know
items for each hero ? i love it personalt, but could be frustattit if you need to get it for each new hero ?!
gameplay looks pretty good
speed of battels 8/10
restart of a run, 4/10
gameplay 9/10
monster and hero desing 10/10 for now
i hope this game come to steam.
i know steam cost money, if you need money for steam, make skins for the heros, so you can atleast get your money back :)
I'm glad you like it!
I'm not sure I understand your feedback though. What does "drop tables from stages" mean?
Also, restarting a run quickly is possible by opening the Settings Menu -> Other -> Reset Run.
Also, the game is coming to Steam soon! Steam just needs to verify my identity then we should be good to go.
As in, some sort of "you need to grind X thing for Y item, for those completionists out there that really want one of everything.
Thanks for the clarification :)
zone 1 drops 1 apple but i dont know that zone one drop that, so a gray icon give me the hint that there is something i could get out so i can grind that zone ^^
Ah I see, this is a feature that is being worked on. I want there to be a sort of monster log, that lets you see the stats of enemies, where they are, what loot they drop, etc.
If you're willing to use something outside of the game, what you're looking for does exist! (Warning! Spoils loot drop locations.)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-QynA3ZfWwRtnZU3pIr9Z-ZveClRylYZ-YEo4Az4MiM/edit?usp=sharing
Did you release the game on steam yet?
Unfortunately Steam needs to do a background check. They say it takes 2 - 7 days for that to go through. Then, I should be able to put my game on Steam.
Do you think it would be possible to export saves or would that be too much work from your side?
I do want cloud saving to exist eventually. That way you can play on any platform and pick up where you left off. But I've got to do some work to implement that.
It will happen though!
1. Animations are painfully slow. Decrease the duration to the web standard of 0.4s. It takes the whole 20 seconds to start a new run even if I don't do literally anything. Maybe make the quick restart button for when you didn't get extra SP
2. I can't see if the item is equipped, or if I have it, or if I can purchase it. Make it visible, e.g. as text on item E-equipped 1-has one, 2-has two, + - can buy, EE1+ - two equipped, has 1 extra, can buy fourth (for rings)
3. Why can't I move with mouse on PC? Also I would've like to rightclick to move to a point or something
1. I am working on a setting that will increase the animation speeds drastically! Other people have also said similar things.
Also, there is a restart run button! Settings Menu -> Other -> Reset Run. You can select it and it will replay the level without having to go through the main menu.
2. I am also working on that feature as well! I was thinking of making it much more simple with a "B" saying it's been bought for non-accessories, or a "1/3", "2/3", or 3/3" for accessories. I'll experiment with your idea of showing if an item is equipped/purchasable. It's not something I thought of before, but it sounds like a great idea!
3. I will add this! It should be easy given that it already works with touchscreen devices in the same way.
Thanks for your feedback!