itch.io

You already know some of the issues I had like the brazier graphical glitch. Thought I'd try out the despair, ironman mode this time. Also with a wand and spell character as I don't think I've done one before. There's a good amount of different spells although I pretty much only used damage spells. First Shocking Discharge and later Thunderdisk. Stacking a lot of armor usually works out well.

• All the new enemies are great. The mauler model fits better for the start of the game. Will you  reuse the old one for later levels? Love the mimic.
• Seems to be more on hit effects on enemies, although I would probably want even more. At least for some enemies like skeletons and cult apprentices that don't animate much on hit. But I think you were taking out that apprentice model anyway.
• Some enemies, like cult apprentice and faceless, have their movement animations not really in sync with their movespeed. Looks like they're gliding around a bit.
• The stairs you came from go up now? I guess you went down into the dungeon and then go back up again.
• The skull enemies should bob up and down a bit in the air.
• Sometimes it takes a few seconds for the loading background animation to show up.
• Not necessary maybe but alternate keybinds would be nice. You should definitely be able to remap things to mouse buttons though.
• Could be fun if reading a book gave you a small amount of mana (like in Diablo).
• Wands need some sound effects, attack, on hit, etc.
• The music is cool and fits perfectly.
• Very slow loading for the skeleton area but I think you fixed that already.
• Really hard to see if some enemies are poisoned, some effect every time they take damage from poison would be nice too. I had no idea if my poison spells actually did anything.
• Slow spell doesn't seem worth to use, costs too much mana for the very short duration it has. I used a cold wand most of the game which is just so much better in comparison for example.
• Spitters (and versions) don't have any outlines, they got really annoying because of it hehe. Also had (two I think) cases of some bug enemies which had their outlines remain on death. Although this was while item drops were bugged so many it had something to do with it:
• Mimics have stronger outlines for some  reason, maybe its intended?
• Venus demons' don't get any outline if they charge you from outside outline-range.
• Would be some nice QoL to have a spellbook say exactly what it will change on level up. You might not want to level a spell at the moment if it'll cost too much mana for example.
• Maybe this could be a setting but it got really annoying if you had a ranged weapon in hand, holding down the mouse button to run around and herd enemies into clumps so I could blast them with the shocking discharge and accidentally hovered over an enemy (or barrel) the character attacks instead and you get stuck. So a setting to turn off auto-attack while holding down the button after you've started moving  or something would be really nice.
• Would be nice if the tooltip while hovering over the selected spell with your mouse also said the spell's name.
• Right-clicking a potion on your pot-bar also changes the bar's type (health-mana-neutral) as well as drink it, but not every time either.
• Thunderdisk was extremely good (and fun to use) so I didn't feel any real need to spend my mana on any other spell. Is it too good? I don't know, didn't use other spells enough to really gauge it... But maybe have it's lifetime duration a bit lower on low levels, its just so very versatile.
• The first shop I found was empty which was kinda disappointing. I'm pretty sure its not supposed to be, it could have something to do with me going back down to the previous level and coming back up:
• I noticed that the second shop (the blacksmith) can be refreshed for free by going up and back down a level.
• Mimics do not display kill count.
• If you started to get some stats after killing X amount of an enemy on their tooltip it would be cool. And more accurate the more you kill, like HP, dmg, resistances, etc. I thought about some lore bit too but I guess you won't really have time to read it...
• I'm really not sure about the rally point, having infinite health and mana regen like that invites a lot of trouble. I get why you added it but I feel like it should at least have charges or something. Idiots like me will just keep running back there because why waste a potion? It trivialized the level after for me because I'd just lure a pack of monsters back to the stairs and blast them with spells, going down the stairs and refilling mana and doing it all over again. I know from other times I've played I've had to use quite a lot of resources on that level but now I didn't use anything at all. I think it made the rest a lot easier. I had so many potions all the time after that point though that I didn't run all the way back down there through several levels to heal but if I had less I would have. 
• Some items stretch strangely in the inventory, example:
• Some items have pretty bad "hitboxes":
• I didn't use it for this run but you can get infinite mana by switching between items that you give you mana, I think this vid should explain it: https://files.catbox.moe/t67tql.webm
• Skelegolems are some real bastards draining your mana. Wondering if it would be better if they did it as some sort of AoE effect on the floor instead that's pretty hard to dodge but still give you the chance to. It just feels kind of janky the way it is now I think.
• Death animations are great, love em. The venus demons' have some sort of weird blood spray that follows the model though.
• Sometimes it's hard to see if the snails have their shield up or not, not really sure why.
• Alchemikal tables are neat, their spawn chances should probably be looked over a bit though (no real reason to have two be able to spawn on the same level for example). I got two to spawn on the first (or was it second?) level and then again on the level after. Then I'm not sure if I ever saw one again. Maybe they should have charges too? Its probably fine without. Maybe make the bottles on the table a bit easier to see so its obvious what you should put in there, filled with glowing liquid or something.
• Level 12 requires SO MUCH XP, maybe its different on despair too but clearing the entire Lost Corridors and Treasure Hoard, bosses, and the last enemies was only enough for about 3/4ths. 
• Almost killed myself with the unstable pressure orb pretty early, whoops.
• Some more feedback / dialogue on turning in the tome, felt pretty odd the way it happens now. Not sure what it did either, gave me some int I think?
• The later areas are a bit too samey, I get they're not finished yet so I hope you will add more different enemies with different abilities too. Maybe some eggs or something that can hatch and have enemies come out in the breeding grounds.
• I like the times enemies spawn around you and you get ambushed. More stuff like that would be great, like a secret wall opening when you walk past and monsters come pouring out of a closet. The "twist" was great. Didn't expect it. Almost died to the conqueror too, was a bitch to fight and I had to bring up the inventory and chug all those stranger pots while trying to remember which one does what.
• I hope the lich boss will get a unique model. Enemies at the end looked great.
• My only real complaint though is about item permanency. The issue got a lot clearer on ironman despair where you have to be really careful about your resources. It gets really annoying when you can't go back down a level to get an item or potion you left, especially when you need items for the goblins. Same with them disappearing from the ground on a reload. I know you've had a lot of struggles with saving already, but I really hope its something you will be able to change.

I really like the game though and it gets better every update. More enemies is what I would want the most I think, but I know its a lot of work.