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Great update. The pylons add another level of strategy that needs to be considered. I love it!

Some stuff to point out after a few plays:

  • Nichiren vendor:
    While other vendors allow multiple purchases, here the merchant window closed after the first purchase. Right after the vendor interaction, I placed a tile next to a chest. After reaching the chest the rewards window was not reacting to my hover/clicks, but the tiles in my hand were playable. This happened in 3 separate games. Once it was between levels (merchant was at the end of one level, rewards bug happened on the next level).
  • "Monumental Presence" and "Obelisk Enrichment":
    - Appear to be duplicates with different names.
    - Used as legacy in a new game, they don't have effect on the starting level. I was hoping to start with more than 10 points on level 1 :-)
  • Tile with gem placed between two pylons - enhanced only once:
    Placing a tile with a purple gem between red and blue pylons resulted in blue+purple gem (expected blue+red). I uploaded a public video, and you can see this at 18:00
  • Pylons don't affect non-manually placed tiles (?):
    - I used the "pathfinder's" potion to add some tiles around me. The newly appeared one that was next to a pylon didn't receive a gem.
    - Just a guess, but if a green gem places some blanks, I assume that the pylon would not add gems to those blanks. If then I use 2 of the potion that adds paths to tiles on the board, I will have walkable tiles around the pylons that don't have gems. Imagine the horror!
  • After my last death to a boss the starting tile started to render above all other objects. Both in the menu and during a new game. It fixed itself after reaching level 2.
  • I don't have many impressions about the fragile tiles. I like how they skew a little bit when you step on them once. Didn't have a case to step on them again to break them.
  • I love the gems become anti-heretics barriers upgrades.


In case your backlog of ideas has become too short after your vacation. Here are a few:
- a relic that acts the opposite of a wildcard: prevents combining gems of certain colors. Might be useful to counter some (green) pylons.
- relics or potions whose effect depends on the number of gems currently on the board
- vendors that give delivery quests: You receive some bad potion. You have to carry it a few levels and when delivered to another vendor you get points or a better potion. .... or: You get a package of 5-10 fragile tiles. You get paid XYZ number of points for each delivered tile to another vendor 3 levels later. Maybe subtract points if too few tiles are delivered.

It was intentional that Nichiren offered only single item but now that I think about it, why not allow more. The locking was not intentional but fixed now too.

Yeah those two are dupes so that a daily run could get double the effect. Those two along with one other one in that vendor inventory are actually daily modifiers and not "normal" relics. And yeah, they don't affect the first level as the level is actually generated before the skill is given. Could probably fix that too somehow but doesn't seem like a big priority... :D

Multiple pylons do trigger on a single tile but a tile can't have more than two colors and that's why the red effect didn't trigger.

Good catch about the "created cards" not triggering pylons. Now they do! The depth issue of the starting tile after dying on a boss level is now fixed too.

Heh,  regarding Nchiren - I was initially writing it as a question if it was intentional or not and if it was to give the player some indication that they are allowed only one purchase. But then I deleted it to keep my "essay" shorter. Using the same slogan texts as the other vendors ("shop till you drop") also doesn't help to highlight the difference.

The legacy pylon activation on the tutorial level definitely not a priority.

The multiple pylons thing - to me it would make sense if the pylons overwrite the existing gem. In theory there could be a case where 3 (or more) pylons touch the same tile. It is definitely more simple to just pick 2 of them and ignore the rest but ... on the other hand ... if each of them activates but only 2 remain, it would be more fun 😇. An example: if there are green, red, blue and orange pylons (corner position), if you are lucky, your placement would get you healed, place a blank tile and have blue/orange left on the tile. The order in which pylons activate would play a role in deciding which 2 gems remain at the end.

Two minor comments I forgot:

- I notice a significant delay between the moment I place the last possible tile and the moment when the thunders start. It could be something that you added intentionally, based on previous comments. If that is the case, I recommend including some indication for players that they are having 1-2 seconds to drink a potion. Might not be obvious to newer players and would help to show that it is intentional and not just sluggish. I personally would enjoy the reminder as well.

- Not a sound designer myself, but my first impression from the pylon's sound effect was not pleasant. I am getting used to it, but if more people mention it, maybe you can find a more chill / less jarring variation for that sound.

Yeah there is an added delay (2/5 seconds depending on whether it will kill you) when on unfinished level end and you have a potion that could somehow affect the situation. Kept the timing fairly short so that you'd still kinda need to be aware of what you could do to pull it off. Some kind of indication might not be a bad idea as it still would realistically need to be known first hand even with it.

By the way, there are also undocumented hotkeys now added to potions (number keys) to help with pull off these "grace period" quaffs or even healing mid thundering.

Aight, will keep an ear out more critically on the pylon sounds. Have to admit, I didn't really listen to them enough...