Alright, I really enjoyed my time with this one!
So, I took a few notes, especially regarding presentation:
- On the initial dialog when the bard asks why the diceholder didn't imprison him, why are some double quotes starting at the bottom position and others at the top? This one was more out of curiosity.
- I liked the dialogue between characters when you freed a new die, but maybe adding some expressions could make it stand out. Like just tweaking their eyes, as in mad or very happy.
- The victory screen could use some sound. It doesn't really feel like you won, a banner just appears and that's it. Maybe a more epic sound on the monster dying and a small victory fanfare.
- I might have not seen the explanation, but I took a few rounds to find out I could level up the characters. I just upgraded my mana for a while.
- The defense sound, when the enemy attacks you, feels really odd. Like someone slurping milkshake.
- There could be more indications of what is actually happening at during the fight sequence, maybe your sword icon shooting something into the monster, then their defense getting into the way. Right now it feels a bit complicated to keep track on what is actually happening.
- Fighting the Lime Slime, I thought I ran into a glitch, because when one of my characters got jellied, it decreased my attack considerably, but then I understood my attack was also reduced considering enemy's defense. Once again, maybe keeping base values in player/enemy areas and then fiddling values somewhere else would make it easier to keep track.
A few things that could add some juice:
- Monsters speaking to the player on the first time you find them, an upgrade to the introductory cutscene.
- Tutorials to explain how level up and fight rounds work (I'm still not sure when does healing happens in the fight, sometimes it seemed at the beginning, sometimes at the end)
- Perhaps after the first encounter, you could see some info about the monster, in some sort of bestiary. This way players could be more prepared when grinding!
- Add some fixed ability to characters, like the cleric always rolls heal plus something else when levelled. On the last fight I lost because all characters would roll attack, and there wasn't much I could do when the diceholder kept on flailing me. It felt like my strategy was working but I lost to unfairness. On my second run I managed to defeat it, but I was lucky to never run into full attack rolls.