itch.io

Thanks for playing. Sorry if my reply is going to sound very defensive, there are just specific reasons for many things you had problems with.

Why the pause screen on tutorial start? Seems unnecessary.

The idea was that showing players the pause menu would make them aware of it, especially the options (There was still one person who missed it), but I think you are right. It is probably not necessary for the tutorial.

The Fiend Slayer smugness level thingy when entering the dungeon would work better as a stepped slider than a row of radio buttons.

The dungeon button at the bottom sticks around when you're already on the dungeon screen and  when you click it it just takes you to the same screen but without the button.

I assume that happened when you closed the game when in on that screen and then loaded the save later. The button appears when your action points are 0, and I just don't check if you are already on that screen.

Crates

I have camera offset sliders in case you would like to see crates more in front of you when you land on them, which maybe would help.

They break momentum and that just isn't much fun.

I assume you mean they break momentum because you miss them. The momentum from bouncing and sprinting is better than just running.

When picking them up I found myself often just slightly out of range

Telekinesis range can be improved by both using Action cards, and using Blessing Seals (one of them is given to you after unlocking the Sealing Chamber). I guess you would still want me to increase the base range, huh?

Levers

Those should also be more visible, larger and more contrasting against the walls ideally.

Since levers outside of the tutorial mostly open shortcuts, them being more hidden and not visible is intentional.

Maybe have portal-style lines on the ground and walls.

Talking about levers, just let me use left click to interact with them, same with milk. I don't see a reason to have left click to pick up stuff an E to interact separate inputs.

Default Seals

I found myself soft-locked in the dungeon without any mana regeneration several times before I realized it's the mana regen -1 seal. I thought it would just slow it down, but there was just none. At least that one should not be default.

I guess when it comes to height, my best tip is; crouch jump into ledge grab is as good as using mana for an air jump. The difference is you might not always have your hands free.

I think players also forget crouch landing on e.g. mushroom caps boost them more. Many far jumps are actually possible without mana thanks to lenient coyote time.

If you could tell me which room/part of the dungeon you think you got soft-locked that would be great.

Baby Steps++

It is not the first time I hear people getting filtered by that template, which is a shame because after that multiple different dungeon templates get unlocked. Do you think the difficulty spike is due to the room types that appear there, or the layout (it introduces just one side path between two heart rooms)?

How do you even lose money?

Getting hit by traps, lava, failing main objectives, and having more gold than your gold cap. Running out of time has the worst penalty, which is why going back to the entrance is much better, than risking completing everything when you know you don't have much time left. You click on the gold tab in summary after dungeon run to see the breakdown in more details.

just started a new save.

Oh? I think you explained your reasons pretty well, but I don't think that was a good idea. Action Cards allow you to improve your character, and you also unlock new seals, so I think sticking to one save would be more beneficial - you don't start a new save after a failed roguelite run, but you rely on gradually improving both in-game and out of it, no?

Oh yeah, make flower pots shatter when I throw them.

The main idea behind them is so you can place them anywhere to use them as "bread crumbs" for easier backtracking (probably not that apparent on early templates). There are also Blessings involving them.