"I recognize that hip shake..."
I played this as someone who has no contact with "Darkest X" games; saw this on the first day, played it, have no idea what I am doing, but it's fun!
My main feedback is that there is no intuitive way to get lewds; the game is difficult to win at, but equally difficult to purposely lose at.
Comments from First Run
- I have no idea what I am doing and got stuck trying to deploy adventurers because I didn't know you needed at least 4 people in a team. (because first stage only had 2)
-- I figured it out in the second try.Which shows the game is good because I came back for a second round.
- Being able to customize your adventurer is a big plus. Maybe something to change hairstyles/cosmetics in the future?
Second Run
- Building upgrades are quite non-intuitive because you need to pull it down to get it shown. Why not move Mami to the other side and let the pulldown be shown by default? This way you don't block the image and players intuitively know there are upgrades to buildings.
- Game became really hard after winning a run, I am not sure how to remove gags/ rest adventurers etc, am I suppossed to fire people and keep getting new ones in the guild?
- Unless you poke around, you would never know that you can add more skills to your adventurer. It took me a while to figure it out.
Third Run
- GAMEPLAY: I started trying out the consumables at the start of the dungeon, aside from the morale-boosting bread none of them seem very attractive; I am mostly afraid that I buy them but they never see use in the dungeon.
-- It doesn't help that the inventory is cleared at the end of each run so even if you invested coin into buying a key, you might not even see a chest/ fail at opening a chest. It deters from buying consumables.
- GAMEPLAY: I started looking at morale/ other stats, seems very overwhelming! Even looking at the lock and gags glossary I think it will be better served with some sort of flowchart visual of what overwrites what.
- I tried my hardest to do a MAXXlewd run by stripping Tomo and her friends. It turns out the MAXXlewd run is EASIER than a normal run because Ratkin have the brains of Skaven and start putting locks on you, effectively lowering their DPS and skipping their turn.
On some turns there are so many locks and gags on Tomo and gang that a "null" status pops up because they can't equip anymore.
I still won the MAXXlewd run, which I don't think is intentional.
Main feedback: The most efficient way to get lewds is very non-intuitive (i.e strip yourself three fingers style) and does not mesh into the gameplay, I suggest having more non-combat/non-debhiliating debuffs so that lewd visibility is higher (i.e as-fan is higher as the card game players say).
This way even if (Minor Ballgag) doesn't affect your stats much, players still know this thing exists. I never got a single parasite because I never got that far to see it. The fun of the game should mesh with the natural way people play the game, which is that they try their best to clear the dungeon and not lose on purpose.
Overall, it's pretty fun!