A real hidden gem on itch and honestly possibly one of the best games available to play on the site. I've sunk dozens of hours into this already. I feel like I've gotten to the end (or at least what feels an intentional impossible wall) a number of times. I do have a few comments
After you finish the first map of areas and move onto the star map is it supposed to be such a massive spike in power for the enemies? I usually get killed on the first screen by demons that just pound me into dust no matter my build.
The fact that you can't change equipment in combat feels like you can end up in an inescapable trap, especially for elemental characters. After the first map, the demons you run into can have 100% damage resistance and if you can't switch equipment to change up damage types you're SOL.
Minion builds I've found really seem to struggle in this game. I've played a bunch of them but the minions die incredibly quickly and depending on the map they'll all get clogged up in rooms especially if ranged minions manage to be in front.
Most healing abilities feel like a joke, outside of the odd item that heals you #*will when you pray which can feel pretty powerful. Useful early game but late game cannot keep up with even the occasional chip damage from enemies.
The game heavily rewards single stat builds but so many things rely on will in the build that if you aren't playing a build that dumps a lot into it then most trees aren't worth dipping into.
I know this is a very early build (this applies to all criticisms of course) and a very good one at that, but I wish there was something to spend my glory on after I've unlocked everything. A glory shop would be nice, though that's a whole other thing and really just a suggestion.
Sorry if this is a bit much, don't get disheartened. I'm going to have my eye on this game and the moment it hits steam (or you finish it) I'll be buying it.
Thank you, and really glad you've enjoyed it. This is the kind of feedback that helps me a lot - it is received with gratitude.
In regards to character builds, I agree with all the things you've mentioned, and they've been bothering me as well. A couple build archetypes I'm immediately trying to make work are:
- mixed attributes - not just all in one stat. Make this rewarding and unique. Being able to think of your hero as a "strength willpower guy" offers a ton of flavor but it's not heavily enough rewarded. I think this has to be addressed in some of the powers and also the glory-up rewards (which are probably the biggest culprit here for encouraging a stat-dump). In the short term it may be enough to include some things that scale off of STR * DEX etc
- mass minions that fight --- currently, the only mass minion builds that really work are based on sacrificing them in some way, such as with Eresh and the fire / death priests. Minions as ammo. It would be nice to have a big fighting army and a LOT of players seem to want this. The game is still missing a lot of the minion power ups that I had intended to add, so stay tuned for that. I've accepted that an important option is to be able to play an autobattler where you get to watch your army fight lol
Thank you for your comments on the other stuff. Healing and the balance of it is in a constant state of flux. Equipment swapping is something I'd like to revisit - it is forbidden to prevent abuse of certain items that I haven't even made yet
The Void area with the demons was never really supposed to be beaten, although some people have, which has forced me to add more content to it, and now it's sort of the "true ending" but it has far less enemy diversity or thoughtful construction than the previous land of Achra. Hopefully, in time, it will get there
As for glory, I'll just have to add more things to unlock!
I would agree that the glory up mechanic discourages you from raising other stats. Funnily enough though the minion build I've had the most success with is usually one I run when I'm starting over the glory grind on a new computer with a Stran Amir Ashem.
Start with life and grab Piercing vines, they do incredible damage and scale incredibly well while also punishing anything moving into melee. Grab life cultists afterwards as soon as possible as they're some of the best summons for both damage and healing and are in fact the best mid battle healing power you can buy.
Next move into death and grab necromancy to get another front line fighter to go with your tugar, move back into life and grab invigoration to give your minions some survivability. Then grab the last power you're going to buy: nekrokinesis for a bit of extra damage (grab earlier if you haven't been able to get something that will deal more consistent damage off of will). After this all skill levels go into invigoration to make your summons as tanky as possible.
As for stat points, everything goes into will, wear whatever armor gives you the most benefits, don't worry about weight, you'll ideally be fighting within range of piercing vines and a high speed would actually get in the way of that.
I've entered maps and had every monster die before I got a chance to do anything as my minions spawn in and wipe everything. This usually takes me through to the second map and gets me a bunch of unlocks really quickly. Not my favorite build, it can drag if you run into a group with healers and god help you if you can't avoid a golgoranth till you get strong enough, they'll roll your entire team and then one shot you.
I'm simply glad to hear, in a flavor sense, that "life and death" minions is such a solid strategy.
I'm kind of playing catch up with summons as there was very little for them to begin with (a lot planned), but players seemed to immediately gravitate towards them. So I hope to design some more powers that make strategies like this more dynamic.
For example, there should be a death summon that gets stat boosted whenever an ally dies. Maybe a Skeleton Golganth...