Having no idea how to play solitaire, I found myself a little bit overwhelmed during the first few stages of the game. The upgrade system seems pretty in-depth, but in my first playthrough I didn't understand most of what was happening with items and upgrades and spent more time just clicking all of the available cards trying to figure out what I was supposed to do.
Despite being mostly unprepared I finished Jack difficulty in around 20 minutes and overall I thought that the art presentation for the game was solid. Music could use some work to add more tension to what feels like a battle sequence.
Ended up unlocking 5 stamps for the first run, which was a neat touch. I like the layout of the collectibles screen.
Has promise! Looking forward to seeing this one next demo day.
thanks for playing and for the stream! unfortunate that i missed it live
you did well getting as far as you did! the current music is a placeholder and definitely not a suitable battle theme, i plan to update it a bit closer to release
A very calm, very chill game. I like pretty much everything about it, and everything is there to help you get into this "zen" zone - from animations to sfx and music. It's a very simple concept, but it's done beautifully, and it works. I absolutely love it.
If I were to complain about something - I guess it would be about items taking some time to get used to. But then again - it's pretty much a non-issue, and the tutorial definitely helps.
It's a great game, and an insta-buy for me when it releases.
playtest mode extends the game past what the demo would allow, so you can fight one more boss and enter the infinitely looping postgame. you'll also be able to play as more characters than the demo once you have you've unlocked them
if, for whatever reason, you want to skip unlocking the characters and difficulties, just press 'U' on the title screen and it will say 'unlock all playtest' on the title screen
I tried really hard this time to understand what was going on and I think I got most of it. Only there is some cards that say like "6 SP to use" but they don’t have a use-effect and don’t go on cooldown either, most notable the "R-Shield," I really did not understand what that meant and also the R-Shield generally seemed to do nothing.
I tried out some of the more combo-y chars, they worked well enough. In the end there appears quite some depth and even interactivity in the game, like taking more cards to minimise options on the board, even if your attack is already on CD. But of course a lot of times it comes down to RNG. I feel it’s very brain-y to play and often grindy as well, like it can be correct to just keep passing the turn a half dozen times in a row.
The background music could be way more exciting and varied.
"Draw SP" is a weird term. How about "Draw Points" or just "Draws"?
"Equipment activates left to right" I played SB before and only now I realised that this is relevant only to situations where multiple equipments would activate at the same time; and that otherwise all equipment are fed with SP in parallel. (I used to think only the left was gaining SP.) So now I stopped thinking about it and just didn’t try to optimise the order, since it’s seems rarely to be relevant. But I guess I should have put all those "+STR this turn" cards to the left of my attack... I wonder if it’s interesting for the player to do this kind of micro-optimisation. I will see next time.
hey, thanks for the feedback, and i'm very grateful for the VOD! sorry that i wasn't there to see this live
R-Shield adds a shield every 6 SP as its use-effect. i'm a little undecided if it's too weak as it is in its C-rank state, but when it upgrades it adds shields quite a bit more often
i know what you mean when you say the game feels RNG. my aim is to make it feel like the different skills offset the inherent RNG of the draw in some way (by making it easier to pick up cards/do longer chains/gain bonuses when inactive) so players don't feel punished when they don't draw a card they need. i think there is some kind of tutorialization that i'm missing for teaching players that not expanding into different "skill colors" will leave them with a weakness in the "skill color"'s related area
i think 'Draw SP' is kind of a clunky term too, but haven't figured out a better phrasing yet. currently the rogue character adds 'free draws', so calling them 'draws' would be confusing. 'draw points' probably wouldn't imply the link between gaining SP and getting Draw SP that i want
i'm glad you noticed the "left to right" concept even though its a minor part of the tutorial! it's not as big a part of the game yet as it could be, so i currently only mention it the one time in the tutorial
Comments
Having no idea how to play solitaire, I found myself a little bit overwhelmed during the first few stages of the game. The upgrade system seems pretty in-depth, but in my first playthrough I didn't understand most of what was happening with items and upgrades and spent more time just clicking all of the available cards trying to figure out what I was supposed to do.
Despite being mostly unprepared I finished Jack difficulty in around 20 minutes and overall I thought that the art presentation for the game was solid. Music could use some work to add more tension to what feels like a battle sequence.
Ended up unlocking 5 stamps for the first run, which was a neat touch. I like the layout of the collectibles screen.
Has promise! Looking forward to seeing this one next demo day.
Solitaire Battle starts at 1hr 2 mins:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2250376964
thanks for playing and for the stream! unfortunate that i missed it live
you did well getting as far as you did! the current music is a placeholder and definitely not a suitable battle theme, i plan to update it a bit closer to release
A very calm, very chill game. I like pretty much everything about it, and everything is there to help you get into this "zen" zone - from animations to sfx and music. It's a very simple concept, but it's done beautifully, and it works. I absolutely love it.
If I were to complain about something - I guess it would be about items taking some time to get used to. But then again - it's pretty much a non-issue, and the tutorial definitely helps.
It's a great game, and an insta-buy for me when it releases.
thanks so much for saying so! and thanks for the stream!
I hit space and it says "playtest mode" but still no characters and no stamps are unlocked.
thanks for playing!
playtest mode extends the game past what the demo would allow, so you can fight one more boss and enter the infinitely looping postgame. you'll also be able to play as more characters than the demo once you have you've unlocked them
if, for whatever reason, you want to skip unlocking the characters and difficulties, just press 'U' on the title screen and it will say 'unlock all playtest' on the title screen
Played a bunch! https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2246702931
I tried really hard this time to understand what was going on and I think I got most of it. Only there is some cards that say like "6 SP to use" but they don’t have a use-effect and don’t go on cooldown either, most notable the "R-Shield," I really did not understand what that meant and also the R-Shield generally seemed to do nothing.
I tried out some of the more combo-y chars, they worked well enough. In the end there appears quite some depth and even interactivity in the game, like taking more cards to minimise options on the board, even if your attack is already on CD. But of course a lot of times it comes down to RNG. I feel it’s very brain-y to play and often grindy as well, like it can be correct to just keep passing the turn a half dozen times in a row.
The background music could be way more exciting and varied.
"Draw SP" is a weird term. How about "Draw Points" or just "Draws"?
"Equipment activates left to right" I played SB before and only now I realised that this is relevant only to situations where multiple equipments would activate at the same time; and that otherwise all equipment are fed with SP in parallel. (I used to think only the left was gaining SP.) So now I stopped thinking about it and just didn’t try to optimise the order, since it’s seems rarely to be relevant. But I guess I should have put all those "+STR this turn" cards to the left of my attack... I wonder if it’s interesting for the player to do this kind of micro-optimisation. I will see next time.
hey, thanks for the feedback, and i'm very grateful for the VOD! sorry that i wasn't there to see this live
R-Shield adds a shield every 6 SP as its use-effect. i'm a little undecided if it's too weak as it is in its C-rank state, but when it upgrades it adds shields quite a bit more often
i know what you mean when you say the game feels RNG. my aim is to make it feel like the different skills offset the inherent RNG of the draw in some way (by making it easier to pick up cards/do longer chains/gain bonuses when inactive) so players don't feel punished when they don't draw a card they need.
i think there is some kind of tutorialization that i'm missing for teaching players that not expanding into different "skill colors" will leave them with a weakness in the "skill color"'s related area
i think 'Draw SP' is kind of a clunky term too, but haven't figured out a better phrasing yet. currently the rogue character adds 'free draws', so calling them 'draws' would be confusing. 'draw points' probably wouldn't imply the link between gaining SP and getting Draw SP that i want
i'm glad you noticed the "left to right" concept even though its a minor part of the tutorial! it's not as big a part of the game yet as it could be, so i currently only mention it the one time in the tutorial
⚠ PRESS SPACEBAR ON THE TITLE SCREEN TO ACTIVATE PLAYTEST MODE ⚠
playtest mode is the “full” game in its current state
Changes since DD57: