I LOVE THIS GAME! I was just going to play for about 30 minutes so I could rate it, but I accidentally sank 2 hours into it; oops!
This game won me over from the first impression onward. I love the cheery Game-Boy-like visuals. The minimal pixel font matches the aesthetic nicely; I found it hard to read at first, but soon got the hang of it.
The music and sound design are excellent as well; they have the same quirky charm as the music from Nobody's Quest, but made even better: more cohesive, more appealing, more of a jam. They pay homage to Game Boy chiptunes without limiting themselves to that sound set.
While the aesthetics are solid, what really makes Step By Step Hero special is the gameplay. I respect any game that tries out innovative game mechanics; it's rare for a game to do so as successfully as this one.
- Steps as a limited resource = genius. It's easy to understand how it works, but it takes some thinking and experience to get better at weighing this resource against others.
- This game's bizarro shuffled geography = genius. It's another mechanic that a player naturally starts to understand through experience (and through some tips from scholars). You don't know exactly where you'll venture forward (or back) to, but you learn that certain directions lead to certain regions, and that if you plant a Step Seed, your future self will thank you.
- Defeating monsters simply by having more max HP = simple yet effective. It works well in Nobody's Quest, and it works well here. By the way, is it intentional that monsters only ever hurt you when you walk into them? If it is, I think it works well. It has the effect of reinforcing the need to be cautious with steps, and making the mad horseshoe dash feel riskier than normal play. (If you would ever like randomly moving monsters to initiate an attack, let me know; I've made a plugin that does that.)
This game is just generally a joy to play. The different kinds of resources are well balanced, and gathering them and discovering new things is satisfying. PixelSlop, I love what you're making here.