Neat entry! Was fun to discover the different loot items, and also check out the variants in parenthesis, while figuring out how to maximize benefits for minimal danger. Although on the easy side overall with relatively low pressure throughout, that's generally a good approach for a 7drl, though it wasn't too hard to win without even using any knives/barricades except to see how they work. Some mechanics weren't very clear, like whether the benefits of your purchases lasted more than one map, or stacked, or were gradually overcome by increasing danger over time... I recorded my stream (timestamp) if you're interested in seeing it played with fresh eyes and plenty of commentary :)
Thanks for playing! It was definitely fun to see you play, and to hear your perspective at the end, especially on some of the planned changes.
System clarity was my key failing here in my opinion. I felt bad watching you reverse engineer the numbers based on the status bars, lol. The purchases do stack, although their effects are diminished by increasing danger as the player progresses.
I originally planned for the softlocks/uncertainty in navigation to be a part of the challenge, however every one of my QA testers complained about them. I think I will lock those features behind a difficulty setting, to allow for both experiences.
With more time, I'd like to increase the complexity of the level generation, like you mentioned, to present the player with more choices. They may sacrifice time or tools, or risk getting trapped, in favor of getting more expensive loot. There are hints of that in the generation, but I think it should be explored more.
Thanks again!
Hehe, the reverse engineering was inevitable xD
I guess it's good to know that the progression is more or less in line with what was observed and predicted (and assumed in some cases, without further testing :P).
I do like the idea of the soft locks, and less favorable mapgen in general, which would start to force more resource use and clever tactics. As is it was mostly a case of brute forcing every map emphasizing the low-danger route to make decent enough progress every time. I kept expecting it to suddenly start to get noticeably harder, but... that challenge never seemed to materialize!
Good work though, enjoyable for a 7drl :)