receive this error when unlocking difficulty 12. it happens when i win on this run, but i haven't tried to replicate it on another run
another error, when using metronome. i'm sure i've used it in the DD57 build without crashes, but on this run (seed 2465309316, apparently) i picked it up before the final fight, then entering any fight would crash me
also,
horseshoe typo “item boxes offer 1 an additional choice”
i got “softlock!” - seems like copycat gaining gold while i have greed will let me hit them on their turn, but when we both have greed they will attack me regardless of whose turn it is an infinite amount?
i think malfunction cleaned the purple needle’s negative status effects immediately on his turn after i applied them to him on my first turn. but it may be that i'm not paying close enough attention to the time on the status effects and whether they normal expire at the start of the turn
the joker that dissolves your symbols is horribly unfun
i assume it isn't a bug that bosses add an additional item? there's no indication of it until i realize i suddenly have an item i don't remember picking up
i don't really like the "curses", but ascension-style gameplay isn't really my thing
my runs up to difficulty 8 or so were basically a flowchart of walking around the map, visiting the store, fighting any fights that were guaranteed damageless wins, then fighting the boss. i don't think i fought an enemy in the final zone a single time
my runs above that difficulty were the same except now rerolling at the start for item & symbol combos that were likely to win
About the Softlock thing - did you have Piggy Bank? That causes an easy infinite against enemies with Greed. I should probably do something about that because it literally locks you out of fighting the Leprechaun
Buffs do expire at the start, but I'm not sure if that's aligned with the player's expectation so might change it
Bosses don't add an extra item, it's probably the "start with free item" thing triggering when it shouldn't
i played and lost quite a lot (and got the HoS glitch on a run i thought would have won) but just won with a poison + poison ivy + healing/regenerating build. i was lucky the last boss was the joker because the manager would have made my symbols useless after one use, then cleansed the poison and made my whole run useless like he does to a lot of builds
the best moment i had was in another run where i had the automon, the generic poison symbol (cactus?), and lots of shields versus the chieftain and it was a drawn out fight to see who would out damage the other. i lost OAB seems uniquely like the kind of game where you can lean into that sort of inactive, automatic gameplay and balance the fights around setting up a scaling build then letting it run to see if it outpaces the opponent. as i understand, fights in the game are designed to punish the player for staying in fights too long, but after that experience i think that might be the opposite of how fights should go. either way, i still really think that timing the slot machine is only a detriment to the game
i still feel that playing optimally means having foreknowledge of how enemies fight and whether you should fight them or not, which often means just avoiding fights altogether and walking around the board to collect health, cash, and shop, which is lame
in recent builds it seems like every color is more capable of doing nearly every thing, i notice that greens now can add block/retaliate when healing. in a way this makes the "why shouldn't i just use one color" problem worse, meanwhile if i were on a build that was built around retaliate i probably wouldn't be able to build into the kiwi (or whichever green symbol has it) because my whole board would probably be a different color
stolen wallet is a cool item. i'm not sure if i like the reversion to the shop sponge's reusability
in DD56 i purchased two discount artifacts, then the shop sponge's cost became a float with two decimal points. purchasing the sponge then turned my held money into a float with two decimal points. i'm unlikely to encounter the artifacts again to test this on the current version so i may as well report it now
Fights are indeed meant to get harder as they go on. I feel this is necessary due to an abundance of way to get meta-benefits like money or health during combat. You could in theory set up an infinite fight with Money Shield and some other items and symbols, so enemies need to scale in power
If timing the machine is a detriment, do you suggest to let it just automon it all the way? That turns the game into an autobattler completely and takes player agency down from 33% to 0%.
Or maybe that's appropriate in a gambling-themed game. At the very least, I'll add it as an option in the settings
I agree that not knowing enemies ahead of time makes them dangerous, but this feels unavoidable. I don't know what I can do besides expanding enemy descriptions, or tightening the map to force the player to learn the enemy patterns
Yes, I tried to widen the options for each color. Main motivation for this was the fact that blue was always necessary as the only damage-prevention color. Trying a build without blue would just cause you to rawdog all incoming damage. Green has its damage prevention on dissolving symbols now, so blue is still THE block color
I reversed sponge because when it was one-time use, each new symbol in the build was kind of locked in for good. With reusable sponge, I found myself pivoting into a different color more often, or getting symbols for a specific boss or enemy, knowing that I'll remove them later.
You shouldn't be able to get 2 discount items anymore. Or 2 of any item in fact - I've made them all unique after having some odd runs with triple vest or whatnot
Thanks for playing this game consistently on the demo days, it's been very helpful. Next version that will be available will probably be the Steam release. I'll send you a Steam code for the game when it comes out. Thanks for everything and see you next game!
you're welcome, good luck on the release! i really do play it because it's fun, despite how critical i might seem of the game. i wouldn't have complained so much about things you won't realistically be able to change before release if i knew it was coming out so soon
If timing the machine is a detriment, do you suggest to let it just automon it all the way?
well, maybe. if you were to add it i would suggest copying how digital slot machines have the option to spin manually by pressing the spin button or switching to an automatic mode by holding the button for a few seconds, then stopping automatic spinning on the next button press. the automon item might still be interesting/useful if you added this as an option because players will lose the option to spin manually if there ever was a case they wanted to. but if you have any doubts about it you should probably ignore me on this one since AFAIK i'm the only one saying this
It's fun! The slot machine stuff hits well, and it feels good! Right until it doesn't... Which for me was right around the 1.5th level marker. Not sure if I was doing something wrong, but I would get my ass kicked by a queen or king, much less challenge a second level boss. I thought I was getting the hang of it, but was maybe just getting carried by good items (The all dmg = 8 was very good!).
Anyways, some bullet point thoughts.
- Good art style! Everything flows and works well. - Some time rolls can get tedious. Regular slot machines have a function to "auto resolve", and it wouldn't be missing here, even though that loses some of the "skill" benefit - Like I said, the game is really hard! Maybe ease up a bit, or ideally make icons a bit more powerful IMO - Some enemies can just be 100% round over, which kind of sucks. With my limited control over dmg output, it makes approaching some of the mini bosses too daunting. - With the money gun was more viable. It and most of the healing icons felt almost like detriments. All my best runs were dmg focused.
Anyways, really like the game, think with a few balance tweaks it'd be ready for steam. I'd buy it at least.
I'm really struggling with balancing this game, so thanks for the feedback. As the dev I'm quite experienced with button timing and getting the most out of the minigames and I know what the enemies do exactly, so I can't reasonably balance the game based on my own thoughts. I'll tweak the game to be easier with some gut-feeling changes, but I will also implement player data tracking for post-release balancing. First 10 runs being all losses without even reaching chapter 3 is going to be a refund
Money Gun I think is viable as a build-around, but I will concede that healing-based builds and green in general needs some help
I absolutely loved this. I was kinda put-off by the MS Paint style graphics at first, but they grew on me. The music is fitting, pinball is fun, and even though the gameplay is almost entirely luck-based, for some reason I just could not get enough.
Definitely looking forward to seeing more of this.
Comments
i was going for full completion, but...
receive this error when unlocking difficulty 12. it happens when i win on this run, but i haven't tried to replicate it on another run
another error, when using metronome. i'm sure i've used it in the DD57 build without crashes, but on this run (seed 2465309316, apparently) i picked it up before the final fight, then entering any fight would crash me
also,
About the Softlock thing - did you have Piggy Bank? That causes an easy infinite against enemies with Greed. I should probably do something about that because it literally locks you out of fighting the Leprechaun
Buffs do expire at the start, but I'm not sure if that's aligned with the player's expectation so might change it
Bosses don't add an extra item, it's probably the "start with free item" thing triggering when it shouldn't
i don't think i would have had Piggy Bank just because i don't recall ever picking it up
that sounds about right, because i only started noticing it on later difficulties
i played and lost quite a lot (and got the HoS glitch on a run i thought would have won) but just won with a poison + poison ivy + healing/regenerating build. i was lucky the last boss was the joker because the manager would have made my symbols useless after one use, then cleansed the poison and made my whole run useless like he does to a lot of builds
the best moment i had was in another run where i had the automon, the generic poison symbol (cactus?), and lots of shields versus the chieftain and it was a drawn out fight to see who would out damage the other. i lost
OAB seems uniquely like the kind of game where you can lean into that sort of inactive, automatic gameplay and balance the fights around setting up a scaling build then letting it run to see if it outpaces the opponent. as i understand, fights in the game are designed to punish the player for staying in fights too long, but after that experience i think that might be the opposite of how fights should go. either way, i still really think that timing the slot machine is only a detriment to the game
i still feel that playing optimally means having foreknowledge of how enemies fight and whether you should fight them or not, which often means just avoiding fights altogether and walking around the board to collect health, cash, and shop, which is lame
in recent builds it seems like every color is more capable of doing nearly every thing, i notice that greens now can add block/retaliate when healing. in a way this makes the "why shouldn't i just use one color" problem worse, meanwhile if i were on a build that was built around retaliate i probably wouldn't be able to build into the kiwi (or whichever green symbol has it) because my whole board would probably be a different color
stolen wallet is a cool item. i'm not sure if i like the reversion to the shop sponge's reusability
in DD56 i purchased two discount artifacts, then the shop sponge's cost became a float with two decimal points. purchasing the sponge then turned my held money into a float with two decimal points. i'm unlikely to encounter the artifacts again to test this on the current version so i may as well report it now
Thanks for playing again!
Fights are indeed meant to get harder as they go on. I feel this is necessary due to an abundance of way to get meta-benefits like money or health during combat. You could in theory set up an infinite fight with Money Shield and some other items and symbols, so enemies need to scale in power
If timing the machine is a detriment, do you suggest to let it just automon it all the way? That turns the game into an autobattler completely and takes player agency down from 33% to 0%.
Or maybe that's appropriate in a gambling-themed game. At the very least, I'll add it as an option in the settings
I agree that not knowing enemies ahead of time makes them dangerous, but this feels unavoidable. I don't know what I can do besides expanding enemy descriptions, or tightening the map to force the player to learn the enemy patterns
Yes, I tried to widen the options for each color. Main motivation for this was the fact that blue was always necessary as the only damage-prevention color. Trying a build without blue would just cause you to rawdog all incoming damage. Green has its damage prevention on dissolving symbols now, so blue is still THE block color
I reversed sponge because when it was one-time use, each new symbol in the build was kind of locked in for good. With reusable sponge, I found myself pivoting into a different color more often, or getting symbols for a specific boss or enemy, knowing that I'll remove them later.
You shouldn't be able to get 2 discount items anymore. Or 2 of any item in fact - I've made them all unique after having some odd runs with triple vest or whatnot
Thanks for playing this game consistently on the demo days, it's been very helpful. Next version that will be available will probably be the Steam release. I'll send you a Steam code for the game when it comes out. Thanks for everything and see you next game!
you're welcome, good luck on the release! i really do play it because it's fun, despite how critical i might seem of the game. i wouldn't have complained so much about things you won't realistically be able to change before release if i knew it was coming out so soon
well, maybe. if you were to add it i would suggest copying how digital slot machines have the option to spin manually by pressing the spin button or switching to an automatic mode by holding the button for a few seconds, then stopping automatic spinning on the next button press. the automon item might still be interesting/useful if you added this as an option because players will lose the option to spin manually if there ever was a case they wanted to. but if you have any doubts about it you should probably ignore me on this one since AFAIK i'm the only one saying this
Hit an error while playing some more. Consistently happens on the 2nd boss (The head of security).
Happens on his 3rd attack
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Other Event: User Defined 1
for object o_enemyHeadOfSecurity:
Push :: Execution Error - Variable Index [0] out of range [0] - -7.otherActions(100860,0)
at gml_Object_o_enemyHeadOfSecurity_Other_11
############################################################################################
gml_Object_o_enemyHeadOfSecurity_Other_11 (line -1)
gml_Script_startPlayerTurn (line -1)
gml_Object_o_turnText_Step_0
shit
Will fix
I played a good amount of this.
It's fun! The slot machine stuff hits well, and it feels good! Right until it doesn't... Which for me was right around the 1.5th level marker. Not sure if I was doing something wrong, but I would get my ass kicked by a queen or king, much less challenge a second level boss. I thought I was getting the hang of it, but was maybe just getting carried by good items (The all dmg = 8 was very good!).
Anyways, some bullet point thoughts.
- Good art style! Everything flows and works well.
- Some time rolls can get tedious. Regular slot machines have a function to "auto resolve", and it wouldn't be missing here, even though that loses some of the "skill" benefit
- Like I said, the game is really hard! Maybe ease up a bit, or ideally make icons a bit more powerful IMO
- Some enemies can just be 100% round over, which kind of sucks. With my limited control over dmg output, it makes approaching some of the mini bosses too daunting.
- With the money gun was more viable. It and most of the healing icons felt almost like detriments. All my best runs were dmg focused.
Anyways, really like the game, think with a few balance tweaks it'd be ready for steam. I'd buy it at least.
Thanks for playing! Glad you have fun
I'm really struggling with balancing this game, so thanks for the feedback. As the dev I'm quite experienced with button timing and getting the most out of the minigames and I know what the enemies do exactly, so I can't reasonably balance the game based on my own thoughts. I'll tweak the game to be easier with some gut-feeling changes, but I will also implement player data tracking for post-release balancing. First 10 runs being all losses without even reaching chapter 3 is going to be a refund
Money Gun I think is viable as a build-around, but I will concede that healing-based builds and green in general needs some help
Had another thought after playing some more. Some post round stats would help a ton. Things like
>total score
>Number symbol rolled
>Total dmg/heal/money
>Hexes moved
etc. etc. This would also help take the sting away from a sudden loss.
I absolutely loved this. I was kinda put-off by the MS Paint style graphics at first, but they grew on me. The music is fitting, pinball is fun, and even though the gameplay is almost entirely luck-based, for some reason I just could not get enough.
Definitely looking forward to seeing more of this.