The game is really fun! Even now while writing this review, I still have the game open and am trying to get more swords. It is one of the more complete games I have tested so far, I will start off with the good stuff, before moving on to what’s bad and some ideas.
What I liked
Firstly, I really liked the relaxing BGM as well as the sound effects for many things, such as button clicks, the dice rolling etc. Only thing I would change is exchanging the Upgrade Sword sound effect with the money gained sound effect after a battle. The sound effect played when the coins fly off the screen sounds a lot like hammers on an anvil, which I feel would fit the Smithy more.
I really loved the variety of swords and the fact that you can combine different parts of it to make different swords. This adds endless content, as you simply need to add more parts and you’ll have a larger and larger variety each time. The enchanted and unique variations only serve to add even more variety to the already huge variety.
The general art style of the game is really nice, I love how detailed the rocks at the bottom of the game looks. I love the background moving slowly, and the swords dancing around while you sit at the menu (especially the baguette). I also liked how the sky colour matches the itch page’s background so it blends in at some parts. The UI also looks really clean. For the most part, the art seems like something I would expect from a fully completed game, not a 2 week prototype.
The core gameplay loop is really fun, the ability to expand your army, fight different enemies, test different sword combinations makes the game fun for quite awhile. Though there are definitely areas to expand on here, which undoubtedly would have taken longer than 2 weeks.
Bugs and what could be improved
Let’s start with a minor one first, opening the settings menu while in the initial starting dialogue causes the chat box to be half covering the Settings menu.
At the quest board, when I accept a quest, it simply disappears. There is no clear way to re-view the quest I accepted. A quest list, or a “Accepted quest” popup would be helpful in telling me I have the quest. Also something which I don’t know is intended or not, but the dancing swords are hidden behind the quest board. I feel it would look better being in front of it, considering it would only cover the bottom-most part, and with how the quest board doesn’t have any updated visuals upon accepting a quest, it seems like it would be fine being in front.
When battling, I initially didn’t know what the dice roll meant, but understood that it was the turn order pretty soon after. When the sword attacked, there was no visual or audio feedback for how much damage is dealt or which sword got hit. A damage indicator and an animation on the sword that got hit would be a good way to display this. I also don’t understand the chest I have to click on at the end, as all it currently does is make the “Back to town” button show up. Is the sword piece supposed to come out of it instead of already being displayed above it?
For the Smith area, when I first started the game, I was very confused on what each part actually does, when clicking on the parts, or even upgrading the swords, it does not display what stats it gives and whether it was an upgrade or downgrade. A tooltip or stat display would really help. Initially, I actually thought the “None” sword was a type of sword and replaced parts of a sword with it to test if it would give better stats. I’m not sure if this is intended, but the sword dancing in the menu does not update if a weapon is upgraded in the Smith area, it only updates if I return from a battle.
Similarly, for the Army area, there is also no way to see each sword’s stats. I can’t tell which sword is better or worse without swapping it into my army, going in battle to test it out and potentially losing. Also, I can’t tell if the placement of the sword affects anything, if it does, a hint would help. If it does not, it might be worth removing the option of swapping sword order around.
The swords have different upgrades like Pierce, Heavy, Cleaving, Reckless, Vicious. But I have no idea what it actually does. Some of them I can kind of guess, like cleaving might hit multiple enemies, heavy might roll a lower die but do more damage etc. But I feel a way to display these stats would be good.
Lastly the shop, for some odd reason, I could not sell any item at all if my inventory was full. I also realised later on that this was the only place I could see the stats of individual parts of the sword, but I still couldn’t see the stats of a fully completed one.
Earning coins feels a bit too easy currently, making powerful items like the Katana upgrade almost trivial to buy early on.
Some ideas and suggestions
Considering you had inspiration from Tinker’s construct and Super Auto Pets, both of which I have played and experienced before, I feel that you could split the sword more. Currently, the sword is split into the hilt and blade, but I feel you could do it like in Tinker’s construct, whereby you split it into handle, guard and blade. This gives your game more variety, and you can split the current hilt assets into two parts.
In super auto pets, position matters because each pet has a unique ability to affect neighboring pets. If sword order matters here (for buffs or combos), consider showing when these abilities might trigger.
A way to gauge the quest difficulty would be great. As the more I play the game, the easier it gets for me to recognise the silhouettes of the different swords and gauge how hard the battle will be. But when first starting out, I feel it’s pretty hard to tell when you’re going against a tough battle, as you simply see “Hunt 1 Sword”, but it could easily be a 20/20 sword. Either a way to display that the enemy is too hard for you, or a general difficulty of the enemy would be good.
A way to use up the extra sword souls you have after you get a full inventory would be good, maybe to exchange for coins. The shop would also do well with a way to refresh the current stock, maybe for a cost of coins.
Last but not least, I’m obligated to ask for more Bread swords. Please also buff the baguette.