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(+1)

I tried to get it working on a weak-spec computer, which did not work. But it runs really well on a decent-spec computer.

The main menu UI is beautiful, and I like the simultaneous-transition fading. In general, the graphics are very nice and pretty.

The game seems incredibly polished. Is this a commercial project? It really feels like it.

I do not really like experience systems too much, but many players like them, so that is just a personal preference.

Is there any tutorial? I have just selected the game mode that is not a work in progress according to the description, and I have a bunch of cards in front of me (I picked the first class, the warrior). Will you add a tutorial, maybe with hits? I do not see any "question mark button" that I can click on, or similar, which might have been nice. I think I messed up and accidentally pressed a key on the keyboard to advance to "Main2", but I am also using two computers at the moment.

I like the explanation when you hover over a card. In Magic: The Gathering, the printed cards, the explanations have to be included in the whole card, but here you can instead just read the explanation to the left. A tutorial with the explanation of the basics would still have been nice. Then again, the battle rules are fairly straight-forward, especially if you already know M:TG. So a tutorial might not be necessary.

Nit: Description of "High-quality Crafting Gem": "requiered" -> "required". Do you plan to run an automated spell checker on your texts? I know that Linux has programs like "aspell": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Aspell

In the first battle I had, I believe I had something like 4 "action"/"mana" points. In the second battle, I started with 1, and got to 2 somehow. I do not understand how or why. Oh, now I am at 3. Does it increase every turn? So, instead of playing lands like in M:TG, it just goes up automatically? Seems like a decent approach. Oh, it is called "Mana". For the first few battles, could you use the pop-up for the mana orb to show a text like "Mana: Mana is used to summon minions or cast spells. Mana is replenished at the start of each turn. Each turn, the maximum amount of mana increases." ?

Nit: Could it also make sense to have the mana symbol in the mana orb be the same as the mana costs on the cards? Just to make it more consistent and let the player visually identify it as the same resource? Though this might be superfluous or very minor.

Will this support multiplayer? I have no idea about the business model, market, competing games in this genre, or the depth or longevity and balance of the gameplay, for this game. I am not really into these types of games, and I do not think I would play M:TG-likes in multiplayer, though I do not mind playing a bit of M:TG-likes. Card games like this can be very popular in multiplayer, I think. A major streamer streamed quite a bit of a computer game version of a major card game a few weeks ago (he might still be doing it), and there seemed to be lots of players involved.

The music is good, I think, but can get a bit repetitive over time. Will you add more tracks?

When the level up screen comes, it tells me to press 'C'. Most of the game can be played with a mouse, I would guess. Will you support touch input? Controllers? Mobile platforms? I do not know how much screen real estate there is on mobile or tablets, so may or may not be a good idea, though I imagine you have already looked into it or have plans to look into it.

Nit: When a minion is exhausted, its portrait becomes grayscale. This is probably good enough as-is, but I feel like a slightly more visually distinctive indication might be good as well. I feel a bit like I have to look more closely than a quick glance to see if a minion is exhausted (in M:TG, cards (in the physical tabletop game, at least) are turned 90 degrees to signify exhaustion). Though, it may just be me that has not gotten used to the game yet.

The first few combats were more or less trivial and a bit boring, but good for learning the game.

The first boss was more or less straight-forward and easy.

Crafting seems bugged. Unless I am misunderstanding something. I can only select for "Active Effect 1". If I click the green buttons with two arrows, I can instead only select for "Passive Effect 1". I tried to increase the number of gems I am spending, but that did not help. I do not understand what I am doing wrong, or if it is bugged. Or is it just not implemented yet? It seems nice and advanced, I must admit. Can I craft non-minion spells? Oh, it is just me that did not understand the UI. I had to select one of the items before pressing the green button. I do not think it is major, but I think it might be useful to improve this UI a bit. Maybe "indent"/"move slight to the right" 'Active Effect 1 Timing' and 'Active Effect 2', such that they visually look to be hierarchically under 'Active Effect 1'? And do the same with the passive sub-items with 'Passive Effect 1' at the top of the "hierarchy"? I am not certain. I apparently cannot "rewind" when selecting effects, just reset it all, however, I believe implementing rewinding would be algorithmically complex. I have implemented something similar in a non-game application once successfully, and while it can be done, a previous programmer failed at doing it, and I cleaned up and fixed it and implemented a slightly involved algorithm for it in his place. Is probably alright as is.

Crafting, continued: Oh, I have to click the white arrows at the portrait to change whether it is a minion or a spell. Is there any way to change the type to something different than "Beast"? Can I change the portrait?

I spent 10 high-quality crafting gems to craft a minion that had 10/10, and which dealt piercing damage (damage beyond the blocker's health goes to the opposing player). The crafting said the card would end up with a mana cost of 3-4 mana, and I lucked out and got a mana cost of 3 mana. Should there be a maximum on how many high-quality crafting gems you can use? Or is the potential OP-ness and brokenness part of the game?

Bug (I think): In the broken card I crafted, it kept its 10/10, but it does not include its "piercing" ability. I could be wrong, but I think a "raw" 10/10 card without that passive ability cost less than the estimated 3-4 mana, maybe 2-3 mana.

I wonder if in-game healing-focused decks is OP for any long dungeon-run, for if you have a lot of healing, healing potions do not seem necessary.

The AI after the first boss is afraid to attack me after I got my 10/10 minion out on the field. Even without its special ability. Of course, I am also not attacking with it currently.

It seems like it would be nice with a lot over actions that happened, like some online board games have. For instance Board Game Arena has a log in the sidebar with player actions and events: https://en.boardgamearena.com/ . But, that is also a multiplayer game.

I think I encountered a significant UI issue (and maybe a battle-gets-stuck bug). I might have run into a bug, where the opponent should have been making a move, but did not. And the "end turn" button was red, and pressing it did nothing, and none of my cards were highlighted. That might mean that the game is stuck there. But, further than that, I went into the "Settings" during the combat, and selected "return to menu", and I ended up at the menu. And I then thought that I could continue the game. But, clicking "Load adventure" shows nothing. I cannot see anywhere to "Continue" my run. And clicking "Castle Raid" again only seems like it wants to start a new run. Did my run get deleted?? Or not saved? I have attached a screenshot of the possibly "stuck-during-battle" state. I tried to search for logs, see below.


Overall, the game seems like a really well-polished and high-quality commercial game. Though, I try to stay clear of these sort of genres of games, since they seem slightly addiction-inducing to me, which I personally dislike. Though there are much worse kinds of games out there. I have no idea about the game's gameplay balance, since I did not get far enough into it. The first really long-lasting battle ended in the above possibly-stuck state. Forging seems really interesting.

Where do I find the logs for the game if I want to send you any logs the game might have generated? I tried looking in AppData/LocalLow, since it is a Unity game, but did not find your game there.

(+1)

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to play and write an in-depth comment!

Regarding the lower spec computer, yeah, there might be some limitations and/or performance issues on weaker machines, I didn't get to test on a weak computer. I might need to optimize a lot in the future to solve that.

Thanks for the comments about the UI, it still needs work but it is getting there.

I'm a solodev, so while I do plan on releasing it commercially if I get the game to a passable enough state, I don't know if it could be considered a "commercial project" just yet.

Tutorials will be coming at some point, and I know it is very necessary, I just haven't gotten around to giving newer players a nice explanation of all the complicated mechanics.

I'm glad you liked the hover to explain keywords mechanic because I kinda just made that from scratch on the same day the demo released so the fact it works as well as it does it's a miracle.

I didn't know about this spell checker, thank you very much for the link I'll look into it!

You start at 1 mana and get 1 mana per turn, so it's simplified from the MTG land system.

Changing the UI for the mana is on the plans, yeah. I'll make it into something more intuitive.

I gave up on implementing multiplayer because this was a learning project and the resulting code is a bit too whack. Sorry :c.

The music will almost completely be replaced and improved on in future iterations.

You don't have to press C you can also click the inventory button on top, so you can play with only the mouse.

I've received this sort of feedback before, so yeah, I'm already working on adding something more obvious to show your card is exhausted.

First couple of combats will be slightly rebalanced to make it less tedious, that's also already in the plans.

The crafting will be replaced with a way more user friendly, the bug with piercing might be a thing or maybe you just didn't click the confirm arrow for that ability, I'll test that out. Also regarding skipping the second active, that's because Minions can only have 1 active, if you create spells you can use both actives. Also it looks a bit overpowered, but the game gets harder as you progress so the idea is that you kinda need the OP cards. And yeah, rewinding would be hard to implement, and since I'm eventually going to replace the way you craft entirely, I just didn't spend time doing that.

You can't change the type of card or image you are creating, but I'll keep your comment in mind!

Healing potions are great for other classes or for saving your ass against hard enemies since you can use them in battle.

The event history might be hard to implement, but I have thought about adding it, yeah.

The last part is in fact a bug, I thought shit had been resolved already but looks like it hasn't, so I'll keep working on it.

Castle raid does have a "save and then pick back up" feature, if you quick or die the run is over. Eventually I'll allow the player to continue the game but there's no saving at the moment. The load button is reserved for the other mode.