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(12 edits)

I've been playing a lot and it's real fun. I've never been able to get past 13, but even still it's fun to stack up runics and go wild. 

Like others have said, the UI gets in the way but it's pretty easy to get rid of it by zooming. Something that annoys me is how sometimes there will be a particularly deadly enemy behind a door and I get killed immediately; it's almost like I have to be scared of doors to not be killed by a death mage or a dragon waiting behind. Also, apparently rats seem to know where you are at all times, and that's nonsensical. It's also really annoying, as they waste my time and chip away at my health, Another weird thing is how loot tends to peter out after the first few floors—I'd think it'd be more common the deeper you go. Though, it does reinforce the fact that you need to get a good build and stick to it. Another thing is how Force damage when crashing into something is with distance, and not the power of the Force runic. I'd think that, as more powerful Force runics can push something farther, that must mean that the thing is going faster, and therefore should have more damage be done. 

I've found that, occasionally, using a teleport spell will clip you into an enemy and render you weirdly invulnerable while you control the enemy, and sometimes after coming out of water the enemies stop making any moves of any kind. Also, you can push barrels into enemies. Additionally, pressing 'q' at the starting screen makes every button black. Also, the runic system would really benefit from a rework into a more balanced relationship between spell and item runics. The ranged properties of the spells, the fact that they always proc, and that they are usually more powerful than item runics makes them a bit more useful than item runics. 

Regardless, the game is very fun and I'll be playing this for a while.

Thanks for the detailed comment Numbers! It's the kind of comment that would make me go back to my code editor and continue developing Dungeon Mercenary ^^

Doors... yeah doors are tricky, to mitigate the issue you can burn doors down using (if I recall correctly) all fire-based spells (dragon breath, firebolt). Regardings rats, they don't have super powers, it's weird you witness a difference between rats and other monsters.

Regarding the loot, the game is intentionally giving a bit more loot in the beginning, to be "more" noob-friendly. Later on the game makes sure you'll get sufficient loot (if the random generation is too scarce for a few levels, it'll get corrected deep down the dungeon).

Regarding the Force runic, what you're expecting is correct. The more powerful the Force runic, the longer the distance you can push things with, and damage is correlated with the distance; so you should observe that a more powerful Force runic should do more damage. If not there's a bug.

Regarding teleport, thanks for the report; I've never heard this bug before.

Regarding spells being a bit too powerful, that's true. It's really difficult to balance correctly a game like Dungeon Mercenary. Given that I did not do that many iterations, I'm quite happy with the balance. You can think of the spells builds being the "easy" mode while closed-combat builds being more difficult.

Once again, thank you very for your thorough analysis! That's comments like yours that keep small indie devs like me going.

Re: burning the door down, it doesn't actually work: the game only registers the door not being there when something walks through the doorway. Additionally, I have to wait 8 turns for my spell to recharge, which is a big risk.

Also, there is loot later in the game, however at times i can't use it because i've already put a bunch of runics in one weapon or shield so using those items would be a downgrade. A bit more forges would be nice.

You're experiencing the game's true balance here! The point of runics is that you should try to go as deep as possible without using them, so that you can use them on a powerful item that will make you reach the endgame. The point of this mechanic is that new players can burn their runics early on, so that they go a little bit further that they would do without runics. Experienced players, on the other hand, should try to keep the runics as deep as possible.

Regarding forges, there's a 1/8 chance to have a forge at a given level; except for the first level where there's always a forge. I believe it's the past it was 1/6.