Hi, got access to alpha, spent some time on it, and wanted to share my experience.
I play many games, big fan of tactical, turn based, card games, like FTL, Into the Breach or Slay the Spire, so I probably am part of the targeted demography.
I'm aware that game dev is A LOT of work, and am not challenging the work already done, nor attacking the people behind it.
This feedback is meant to bring a user viewpoint to the team, because I want this game to be a success, not enough feedback is usually what makes projects fail, and only critics can better products.
I know this is an early version and it's taken into account in my feedback.
I have been testing games for quite some years now (Crying Suns recently), but this is still a personnal experience, feel free to discuss my points.
So without further ado, have some feedback:
- First of all, the pixelart is truly amazing. Congrats for the artist. You rock.
- The texts are kinda hard to read though. I get it brings a lot of atmosphere, but: character font's lisibility is quite low, all the text are bright on a dark background, and all this creates an effect quite hard and straining for the eyes. Better colors, contrasts (darker text on lighter BG) and fonts would really be amazing for the readability.
- The music is really and groovy nice. A bit repetitive after a while though.
- Music off/on in the option menue during game doesn't do anything. A volume tuner option would be nice too.
- The game could use a bit more communication and community building. A discord server (and subreddit?) for your studio's projects Massive Galaxy and For the Warp might be a good idea.
- Mouse pointer gets all tiny when hovering our ship in the map screen
- Equipment popup window could be a bit nicer and more developped.
- Prices don't always turn red when you have not enough money in stations. Some do, other don't.
- Being able to see the text of all cards in one glance in their default state in your hand would be a very nice touch.
- Card rarity is a bit hard to identify. The color changes are a bit subtle, and you hardly see the differences in ornaments when they are in your hand and need to hover to compare them, if available. Some clearer symbol/shape/texture/color could help with that. Minidiscs, holo datacards for different rarities?
- Energy is limited to 6 it seems (Saw that after using the equipment that give +1 energy and two of the "+2 energy next turn" card, is that intentional?
- Also, once you use an energy boost (+2 for example), the next turn you are shown 3 green and two grey empty energy bars.
- If you are out of energy and only have 3 costs or rare cards (not sure) in your hand, the autoend of turn won't trigger, gotta do it manually.
- The "hitbox" to select smaller ships when a boss is here is a bit wonky. Big ship takes most of the space, its "hitbox" is way bigger than its model.
- Markets go away when looked at once. You leave then can't come back.
- What are the draw rules? First round is 3 cards, then more, how and why?
- More highlight when a card is selected would be cool, an effect on the mouse cursor (crosshair for attack, green wrench for repairs, small shield, etc) and highlights of allowed targets.
- It would be lovely if we could be told the number on conditionnal cards. Multiplied by the number of cards the same rarity, +N for each card Z in your hand, your energy (total or current by the way?) multiplied by 6, etc...
- No way to unselect cards? I selected one, clicked on background to unselect it and it triggered (shields).
- Information needs to be conveyed better during combat. Sometimes the stats change first and then the projectile arrives, this kind of things. It gives a "what the hell happened here" feeling quite often. I know there are logs but it's not ideal.
- We need icons for status effect, that stay and can be hovered. icons for credits & fuel could be a good idea as well.
- In combat screen, the (awesome) background should be disjoined at the diagonal separation line, to really show the ships are far apart.
- I really like what you have done with the cards and their effects. Some rounds are simple but others bring interesting choices, combinaisons, and tactics. The ennemies are a bit too basics though in terms of what they do, and their difficulty varies wildly. Also some higher rarities cards are broken, once you have them, you just play waiting for them to show up and end the fight. Even some common cards are broken, you can easily farm and cheese ennemies and get MASSIVE amounts of fuel, credits and life, destroying the game's balance in the process.
- Some animations are a bit "floaty" (buttons in main screen feel wierd), a bit more polish on that and better transitions, clearer feedback and conveying what screen is what would be nice.
- The "FTW" animation when we win is strange. Hands show up in victory screen.
- More events are needed (hopefully that's already on the roadmap) with interesting choices, effects, risks & rewards (and an illustration of some sort?).
- The map: Not super interesting in terms of choices. No pressure, nor hard choices. We don't feel in a vast and dangerous unknown space: this is a small static square grid with blockers here and there. I get it goes with the retro aesthetic, but it's really not super exiting.
- Foes & random tiles look like huge physical objects,
- More depth and variations, stuff to interact with, changes in the environment would be great. A better sense of scale too. Bigger distances, smaller objets, to show we really are out there, in a merciless infinite void.
- Lisibility on the map could be better too, some kind of fog of war would help to know where we've been or not.
- We spend most of the playtime in combat, and they start to quickly feel really repetitive. More differences and variations in combat (more win conditions for example), as well as more stuff to do on the map would bring a better rythm.
- Replayability. In order to respect player time, some kind of metagame progression (even in case of failure) would be nice. Unlocking stuff, ships, quests, foes, cards, equipments, difficulty, game modes, challenges, trophies, etc, like Slay the Spire or Dead Cells do.
That's it, for now. If anything's unclear feel free to ask fore more details.
Good luck and have a good week!