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I think you've got some excellent card game mechanics here!

In particular I really like that timeline, it's super satisfying to see what your opponent is going to do and countering them perfectly (not to mention how satisfying it is to stagger them over and over again). The horizontal positioning didn't seem as relevant in any of my games though, whenever I played as Daybreak I just ended up directly next to Cadence, and when I played as Cadence I just ended up in the corner

My thoughts for what I'd like changed kind of depend on what you want to do with this game in the future. If the goal is for this to become an in-person board game played between two actual people, then I don't have a ton of notes, but I'd definitely nerf staggering for both players.

If your goal is for this to be a singleplayer deckbuilder type game though (which I am thoroughly in favor of, this would make an excellent deckbuilder), then I definitely have some notes -- for one, I think that the opponent should always have priority. It's way more fun to respond to your opponent than to have to just guess at what's in their hand and hope that they don't just pop off out of nowhere. For another thing, I'd make it so the opponent can't stagger. Stagger is the kind of game mechanic that's really cool and fun for the person doing it, and really frustrating for the person being staggered. To make up for it, you'd have to way turn up how much damage the enemies will do, but I think it'd absolutely be worth it for gameplay. I might also simplify the enemies overall, too. When playing as Daybreak against Cadence, it's weird to see Cadence building up and managing Appeal when I don't really care about that (what does it mean for me if Cadence has 3 appeal? Sure, they might play a big card, but it isn't something like "when Cadence has 5 appeal they'll do a super powerful attack", it isn't concrete enough for me to really care)

Did also have some technical issues. All 3 of the matches I played froze at one point or another. One of them froze pretty randomly (maybe after looking in the rulebook?), one of them froze at the start of round 2 (specifically, it let me mouse over and click to play cards, at which point they'd despawn and I'd be given a new card, but none of the cards would actually resolve any effects, and there wasn't actually a Timeline in play, just a pointer), and one of them froze after I right-clicked to discard a card

I really hope I see more of this game in the future though, beyond this jam -- I'd love it if in a few years I saw a Slay the Spire-esque Tempo Battle deckbuilder (or if you'd prefer, a Tempo Battle boardgame or TCG)

Thanks for the review!

Yes the freezing/crashing issue seems to be a common one. I personally could not reproduce that consistently in my local environment, but I would try some measures like preloading assets instead of loading them on the fly for better performance.

A slay the spire-like was not part of my vision. The end goal (if the game ends up being "completed") was to add multiplayer. I would need at least four fighters available for that to happen, so each player would get two random fighters to pick from in the beginning. I do plan to have a "story mode" and make a story line for each fighter to characterize them a bit more.

Staggering is pretty powerful. I added the staggering cap of 5 to nerf it. Maybe it could be lowered more or the resistances could be higher. But most moves that are good at staggering require high stamina or a long time to finish, so you're not likely going to lose from just being hit by a single staggering spree (two or more would definitely do it though). I'm also planning to add a draw pile and discard pile view for both the opponent and the player (only draw pile count for the opponent), so it will become more predicable what cards the opponent would have ready in their hand (if you're familiar with their deck, which is ultimately how the player's expected to get better at this game).