here are some thoughts that came to mind while playing UI:
-in the character selection screen why do I need to undo the selection before I can click on another character?
-the quit to main menu button is difficult to find
-you could grey out unclickable cards, and highlight the end turn/draw buttons when no card is clickable
-the constant highlight on some UI elements is a bit misleading. to indicate the turn player I think it would be enough to only highlight the character icon
GAMEPLAY:
my biggest problem with the overall experience was that the suitable (heh) amount of game actions and decisions you take doesn't translate well to actual player agency. for example I was playing against a slime, and after a reshuffle all that changed compared to the start of the battle was that I lost some hp. this retroactively makes the player feel bad about his input not having weigh, and makes the battle feel very slow and sluggish because there's no strong sense of having made progress after a reshuffle. on the bright side I don't think that this is something you can only fix through revisiting the game mechanics, you can probably just tweak some numbers (like buffing damage and hp while keeping the heal constant) and add some more difficult to recover from skills. maybe, to really make sure that there's no matchup where neither player can progress, you can make an alternative wincon in this manner:
- every shuffle starts a round
- after a reshuffle the player that lost less hp wins that round
you're right about UI, i'm now trying out highlighting the avatar more and the HUD bars less, except
-you could grey out unclickable cards, and highlight the end turn/draw buttons when no card is clickable
while more polished effects are nice, i think this would turn the game into something less skilled than regular solitaire
my biggest problem with the overall experience was that the suitable (heh) amount of game actions and decisions you take doesn't translate well to actual player agency. for example I was playing against a slime, and after a reshuffle all that changed compared to the start of the battle was that I lost some hp.
let me know if there are any other situations that feel like this, because i think it might just be that slime is a little OP right now
add some more difficult to recover from skills
i'm curious what you meant by this
to really make sure that there's no matchup where neither player can progress, you can make an alternative wincon in this manner:
i don't like it because i think it would be taking the game in another direction. i also don't feel that there are impossible matchups in the game that would require something like this
The game looks a lot better than last time, great job. It also feels more balanced and the addition of purchasable items is amazing for replay value. No idea why you can buy negative items though, I guess they could be good for self imposed challenge or niche builds.
I think it's a little hard to follow what's going on sometimes and the tooltips are a bit small, but besides that the game seems pretty good. Here are my results in case they are useful for something.
thanks for playing, i appreciate your feedback again. nice barbarian win!
No idea why you can buy negative items though
since shop items only appear once per run, my thinking was that a player who can't afford one they really want would have to choose between not getting it or adding a negative equip for more gold. it's a strange design decision that i might think about more
it's a little hard to follow what's going on sometimes
for sure, i hope to clarify what equipment is being used visually
the tooltips are a bit small
something i wouldn't have thought about, but it makes sense
Here are my results in case they are useful for something
yep, i had wanted the results screen to feel screenshot-able and apparently they are
Windows thinks this is malware and auto-deletes it. You should add sound settings. Character selection should have a page counter. That menu as a whole is confusing, should be overhauled to for example list equipped items under the selected character instead of middle of the screen. The battle interface is also confusing, as it's hard to tell what is clickable and what isn't. It's too easy to accidentally quit the battle. I don't play solitaire, and you shouldn't assume the player knows how to. A proper tutorial should be integrated into the game.
Windows thinks this is malware and auto-deletes it
has this happened with any other games? i assume you got around it by making an exception
i looked into it and some machine learning algorithm has decided it is 'anomalous'. hoping to get it fixed, thanks for mentioning it (edit: it's no longer detected as a false positive now)
That menu as a whole is confusing, should be overhauled to for example list equipped items under the selected character instead of middle of the screen.
i assume you mean to select characters by sliding left and right while the character in the middle will show their equips? i'm against it since it would become hard to navigate as i add more characters
You should add sound settings. Character selection should have a page counter.
it's hard to tell what is clickable and what isn't. It's too easy to accidentally quit the battle.
A proper tutorial should be integrated into the game.
Neat game, reminds me a bit of the old mobile game Sword and Poker. The rules were a bit hard for me to understand (still not sure what SCR does except for certain characters like Samurai that explicitly mention it) but I got the basics of how to pick cards in sequence and how SP works. There seemed to be a lot of dead turns when the cards on the board got low and neither me or the opponent could match any cards. Also when I used the shield ability for the knight, it didn't seem to have any visual indication, perhaps a shield icon next to the HP could help. The graphics and card animations are done well.
it's explained in the advanced 'how to' (which i don't blame you for not noticing) - at 5 or above it slows your SP gain
Also when I used the shield ability for the knight, it didn't seem to have any visual indication, perhaps a shield icon next to the HP could help
that's a good point in two ways. shield alters two cards on the board to have a shield attached, but if you didn't know that then it wouldn't be obvious that it's trying to add a shield to a card. it also isn't clear at a glance how many shields are applying to a character
I'm a sucker for solitaire and solitaire variants. First thing's first, the art and presentation are cute and charming. Looks and feels really polished. Nice sound effects. The class/character art is all cute. I really like the samurai, barbarian and ent in particular. It took me a minute to grasp the basics of how to play, but it's a lot of fun once it clicks. It gets surprisingly tense at times with some close victories. Cute little game.
I think im just bad but I got demolished in Arcade mode. Had the AI get like 18 scr or something crazy in a turn and wiped me tf out. I think the shields mean if you take that card you take 1 dmg? Alot of the mechanics weren't super intuitive and reading them each time isn't exactly fun todo. its cool that the card layout if different for what I assume is each character, and by sheer dumb luck I made it past 1 enemy so I saw the shop which I think is pretty cool. Making the AI dumber might make it more accessible to idiots like myself. Otherwise I think its a neat idea, presentation is nice (I really like the coin flip at the start of each match, it having a shadow really make it look cool). Maybe a more visual tutorial and highlighting activatable abilities and separating passive abilities and color coding text (Like dmg, healing, and other effects) might make it easier for people to understand. Since most players aren't going to be reading most of the text unless they're really invested into the game.
thanks for playing and glad you liked the presentation
I think the shields mean if you take that card you take 1 dmg? Alot of the mechanics weren't super intuitive and reading them each time isn't exactly fun todo.
shields reduce DMG by one, you can see what a modifier does by right clicking a card with one on it
its cool that the card layout if different for what I assume is each character
it's a random chance where more normal levels are more likely to be picked
Maybe a more visual tutorial and highlighting activatable abilities and separating passive abilities and color coding text (Like dmg, healing, and other effects)
all hopefully in the future. i only say hopefully because i think making a real tutorial will be a pain
The presentation is great, it's got a very charming style.
I haven't quite figured out how to reliably play any class, it seems like it comes down to luck most of the times. Also idk if it's intentional but ending a turn while the enemy is stunned doesn't reset your SCR.
It's fun as a solitaire game but it seems like the deckbuilding is secondary to just drawing the right card.
Also idk if it's intentional but ending a turn while the enemy is stunned doesn't reset your SCR.
yep, the idea is that i don't want a player to earn much more than 5 SP in a turn and that would reward stunning too much for how easy it is to get a stun
Comments
here are some thoughts that came to mind while playing
UI:
-in the character selection screen why do I need to undo the selection before I can click on another character?
-the quit to main menu button is difficult to find
-you could grey out unclickable cards, and highlight the end turn/draw buttons when no card is clickable
-the constant highlight on some UI elements is a bit misleading. to indicate the turn player I think it would be enough to only highlight the character icon
GAMEPLAY:
my biggest problem with the overall experience was that the suitable (heh) amount of game actions and decisions you take doesn't translate well to actual player agency. for example I was playing against a slime, and after a reshuffle all that changed compared to the start of the battle was that I lost some hp. this retroactively makes the player feel bad about his input not having weigh, and makes the battle feel very slow and sluggish because there's no strong sense of having made progress after a reshuffle. on the bright side I don't think that this is something you can only fix through revisiting the game mechanics, you can probably just tweak some numbers (like buffing damage and hp while keeping the heal constant) and add some more difficult to recover from skills. maybe, to really make sure that there's no matchup where neither player can progress, you can make an alternative wincon in this manner:
- every shuffle starts a round
- after a reshuffle the player that lost less hp wins that round
- the battle can also end if one wins 2 rounds
thanks for playing and the feedback
you're right about UI, i'm now trying out highlighting the avatar more and the HUD bars less, except
while more polished effects are nice, i think this would turn the game into something less skilled than regular solitaire
let me know if there are any other situations that feel like this, because i think it might just be that slime is a little OP right now
i'm curious what you meant by this
i don't like it because i think it would be taking the game in another direction. i also don't feel that there are impossible matchups in the game that would require something like this
The game looks a lot better than last time, great job. It also feels more balanced and the addition of purchasable items is amazing for replay value. No idea why you can buy negative items though, I guess they could be good for self imposed challenge or niche builds.
I think it's a little hard to follow what's going on sometimes and the tooltips are a bit small, but besides that the game seems pretty good. Here are my results in case they are useful for something.
thanks for playing, i appreciate your feedback again. nice barbarian win!
since shop items only appear once per run, my thinking was that a player who can't afford one they really want would have to choose between not getting it or adding a negative equip for more gold. it's a strange design decision that i might think about more
for sure, i hope to clarify what equipment is being used visually
something i wouldn't have thought about, but it makes sense
yep, i had wanted the results screen to feel screenshot-able and apparently they are
Windows thinks this is malware and auto-deletes it. You should add sound settings. Character selection should have a page counter. That menu as a whole is confusing, should be overhauled to for example list equipped items under the selected character instead of middle of the screen. The battle interface is also confusing, as it's hard to tell what is clickable and what isn't. It's too easy to accidentally quit the battle. I don't play solitaire, and you shouldn't assume the player knows how to. A proper tutorial should be integrated into the game.
thanks for the feedback, lots to think about
has this happened with any other games? i assume you got around it by making an exceptioni looked into it and some machine learning algorithm has decided it is 'anomalous'. hoping to get it fixed, thanks for mentioning it (edit: it's no longer detected as a false positive now)
i assume you mean to select characters by sliding left and right while the character in the middle will show their equips? i'm against it since it would become hard to navigate as i add more characters
thanks, on my radar
Neat game, reminds me a bit of the old mobile game Sword and Poker. The rules were a bit hard for me to understand (still not sure what SCR does except for certain characters like Samurai that explicitly mention it) but I got the basics of how to pick cards in sequence and how SP works. There seemed to be a lot of dead turns when the cards on the board got low and neither me or the opponent could match any cards. Also when I used the shield ability for the knight, it didn't seem to have any visual indication, perhaps a shield icon next to the HP could help. The graphics and card animations are done well.
thanks for playing and for the feedback
it's explained in the advanced 'how to' (which i don't blame you for not noticing) - at 5 or above it slows your SP gain
that's a good point in two ways. shield alters two cards on the board to have a shield attached, but if you didn't know that then it wouldn't be obvious that it's trying to add a shield to a card. it also isn't clear at a glance how many shields are applying to a character
I'm a sucker for solitaire and solitaire variants. First thing's first, the art and presentation are cute and charming. Looks and feels really polished. Nice sound effects. The class/character art is all cute. I really like the samurai, barbarian and ent in particular. It took me a minute to grasp the basics of how to play, but it's a lot of fun once it clicks. It gets surprisingly tense at times with some close victories. Cute little game.
thanks for playing!
I think im just bad but I got demolished in Arcade mode. Had the AI get like 18 scr or something crazy in a turn and wiped me tf out. I think the shields mean if you take that card you take 1 dmg? Alot of the mechanics weren't super intuitive and reading them each time isn't exactly fun todo. its cool that the card layout if different for what I assume is each character, and by sheer dumb luck I made it past 1 enemy so I saw the shop which I think is pretty cool. Making the AI dumber might make it more accessible to idiots like myself. Otherwise I think its a neat idea, presentation is nice (I really like the coin flip at the start of each match, it having a shadow really make it look cool). Maybe a more visual tutorial and highlighting activatable abilities and separating passive abilities and color coding text (Like dmg, healing, and other effects) might make it easier for people to understand. Since most players aren't going to be reading most of the text unless they're really invested into the game.
thanks for playing and glad you liked the presentation
shields reduce DMG by one, you can see what a modifier does by right clicking a card with one on it
it's a random chance where more normal levels are more likely to be picked
all hopefully in the future. i only say hopefully because i think making a real tutorial will be a pain
The presentation is great, it's got a very charming style.
I haven't quite figured out how to reliably play any class, it seems like it comes down to luck most of the times.
Also idk if it's intentional but ending a turn while the enemy is stunned doesn't reset your SCR.
It's fun as a solitaire game but it seems like the deckbuilding is secondary to just drawing the right card.
thanks for playing and for the feedback
yep, the idea is that i don't want a player to earn much more than 5 SP in a turn and that would reward stunning too much for how easy it is to get a stun
let me know if you think arcade mode feels fun, balanced, and if there's a variety of play styles
i'd also be willing to hear if anyone thought they had a better name for the game