Post by Kevin Hutchins in Seasonal Dead comments

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This was an interesting strategy game! I will admit, I'm pretty bad at this type of game, so I couldn't beat the whole game by myself, but I did appreciate how the defeat became part of the cycle. I was going to say that the skeletons felt more powerful than the phalanx, but then I thought of a scenario where the phalanx would be more useful, so it generally felt pretty well balanced. I'm sure you're aware of this and it was due to game jam constraints, but it would have been nice to get a better indicator of the mechanics of each unit within the game, even if it was just the text inside the text box. I think the simple graphics worked in this case, although having slight alterations to the directional triangle for each different unit could be fun.

It's always nice to see games that require strategy, even if I am terrible as them.

Pyrian5 years ago

Thanks for trying it out! Sorry you couldn't win. One thing I'm thinking about doing is having the player continue to accumulate units when they lose, so eventually if they keep playing they'll win by sheer mass. This would be in addition to having more randomness in the level generation and a really simple "RPG" phase where you can "re-equip" one of your units between each battle.

I agree that skeletons are better than phalanxes overall. It's hard to get really good balance with such high granularity. Almost any one-full-point nerf would make the skeletons too weak.

Yeah, in-game help was always on the to-do list, but in the end having a functional game took precedence. The plan is to have a more-or-less complete help screen, and also to have the side bar show the specific help for the unit currently moused over or selected. I'd even like to have little per-unit videos, like Into the Breach has.

...Never thought I'd get complimented on the graphics, lol. Another thing on the to-do list...

Here's my question, though: Do you think this has legs, per se? Should I keep working on this, or should I just call this done and work on something else?

Kevin Hutchins5 years ago

I tend to like a clean graphical style, so I was a fan. No promises as to how most people would feel. I would had a better shot if you gave me more units, but I also probably could have thought my gameplan through more. I thought the phalanxes acted better as support units (since they just deal more damage per turn), but the skeletons are probably a better unit all-around.

I can't say what I would do in your place. I haven't really been making anything with an eye towards monetization, so I'm probably not the best person to ask on that front. I do think with a bit more polish (unit descriptions in-game, maybe some terrain to work around) it would be something that would get the interest of people who like strategy games.

Pyrian5 years ago

Thanks again for the feedback. :)

itch.io

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