Is it intended that Red Wine permanently doubles negative power?
311 days ago(+1)
It was useful, yes. I wish you didn't reroll for Darts so much though, it made all those runs Poison themed
Sorry, I thought at the time that it was the easiest approach to winning. I experimented much more later on after the stream (but I still rerolled a lot of the times, even when trying different stuff), and got wins with a variety of runs, including (some of these overlap):
- One or more wins with red or red-mixed decks (the "angry meal" symbol with lots of extra dissolves is really powerful, and a red deck with good power increases is really powerful against most bosses and several enemies).
- One or more wins with yellow or yellow-mixed decks (both with greed, one run I got the money bag symbol (or two of them) as well as two wallet items, though several runs with yellow or yellow-mixed decks failed against the final boss, the "greed" of the final boss can hurt if you do not have defense, and I failed to get that in one run).
- One or more wins with green or green-mixed decks (green has gotten significantly nerfed it feels like, and the game has gotten harder, but symbols that deal damage as a proportion of health can work well against bosses and the final boss if you ensure that you engage the bosses with full health even if you have to avoid any and all fights. Also, the symbol that deals 1/5 to you and 1/2 to the enemy as proportion of health is extremely powerful, but will not guarantee you the win by itself).
- Maybe one or more 3+ color mixed decks. I might have won, or gotten really far, with a deck with bananas (extra damage per dissolved symbol), lots of dissolved symbols (maybe green, maybe yellow, I think at least the darts, maybe red), and the "angry meal" symbol, and maybe some purple.
- In some of the runs above, I mixed in purple symbols with success, but I have generally avoided most purple symbols, which I bet was correct in most cases, they are often interesting traps (which I like). In one run I decided to take a purple symbol, just to get confirmation that it was basically a trap (the eagle symbol), and I was confirmed in it being a trap, though I might have reached the final boss with it, due to mixing in the "blood orange" symbol. In another run, one specific purple symbol might have been the key part of the run, but I do not remember its name or its function, sorry.
I do not believe that I ever succeeded with a blue deck, one time I might have gone far, but messed up and attacked the wrong non-boss enemy in room 2 or 3. The first bosses, and many enemies in general, require strong offense, their attacks will get stronger and stronger (which they have to, otherwise you can farm them with yellow decks), and will eventually outscale your defenses. The key may be blue symbols like the one that converts defense into power, but that I never really experimented with that (and it might become risky, since with a blue deck, you might be relying on defense for protection instead of items). Mixing in money shield works, but money shield works really well in a pure-yellow deck.
The game can be very frustrating, and the last boss in particular is daunting, even if you have a strong deck. The "deflation" ability can quickly destroy the offensive potential of a deck, and then it is all but over. Even power-increasing symbols can be wrecked by deflation. The "greed" of the boss can be lethal for yellow decks, at least if they do not have sufficient defense. I began prioritizing symbols that were "resistant", like dealing damage proportionally, or dealing huge damage without relying on power. The "ace-type" symbols are also attractive for this, the red ace is automatically resistant and only slowed down by deflation, the yellow ace (a proportion of earned money dealt as damage?) deals enormous damage quickly as long as your money generation, the green ace dealing damage equal to half of health lost in current battle makes it for most decks excellent, at least if you ensure that you go into battle at full health. But how frustrating the game can be, including the trial and error, also makes it nicer when you do manage a win, even if getting a win is often up to chance.
Money costing symbols that cost money even when never hurt (the money shield/"Midas touch" symbol is not one of these, since it costs nothing if you do not get hurt), are interesting, even though they are dicey, unless your money generation and efficiency (like if you have the item that decreases cost) is so high that you gain money on any battle. If your money generation and efficiency is not sufficiently high, it may be best to avoid all battles and preserve both money and health, and only pick battles with great care, which is interesting and a kind of challenge.
When rerolling, I often avoided lemons and bones. The lemon symbol is not bad, but it makes it really difficult to get cost-efficient battles unless you pick up a cost-reducing item or get good money generation. I can see it being good against the first room boss however, even without cost reduction or money generation, if you save up, even by scrounging money off the floor. Bones is just weak almost always, both in theory and mostly in practice, but that does not make it bad, it is a nice puzzle for the player to figure out, and rerolling is quick (even if the player has to go into the menu to discover that they have the option of rerolling by restarting). I also often avoided some other symbols, typically the "fifth" symbol. I do not necessarily think these symbols should be removed from the start, it is part of the challenge to figure out what might and might not work.
The money generation of the game makes it harder to balance, but also makes it different and interesting.
The game is difficult to "balance", but it is also interesting.
Should the current mode be "Hard mode" or "New game+", since it is substantially harder than before I believe (not getting a choice of symbols from enemies makes it much more important to pick your battles well, and randomness plays a large factor)?
The boss battles in the first room are rather dangerous, and decreases the viable decks you can build early. Which is not necessarily bad, figuring out which decks are viable, and balancing long term vs. short term is interesting. I dislike the broken machine boss however, it felt too much like a "you get this boss, you lose even when you played well". Unless the purpose is to artificially increase how much of the player's time is wasted, it is frustrating. The only real strategy I found to be effective against it was the "banana" symbol, since "banana" is multi-color and the broken machine boss repeatedly introduces a huge number of "dissolve" temporary symbols, but you cannot easily get the "banana" symbol. I am tempted to suggest that you rework this boss or something, though it may just be a skill issue on my part.
I never timed the reels.
I tried a few mini-games, but the skill-based one, space invaders, was rather difficult and also felt random. But the whole game is about risk and reward and chance, it is fine for the arcade mini-games to be unfair.
The map generation has issues at times, and learning it includes trial and error, but the random nature of it and risk and reward fits the theme of the game.
Is the avocado symbol a pure green symbol? It has a red core in it.
Will a color-blind mode be added to the game, which specifies the "colors" of each symbol before picking or buying?
The game is fun in my opinion, but I remember it being difficult to understand and get into, and another poster here described how they like me in a previous demo day took a lot of time before they grasped the in-combat click-button mechanic. I do not have a good suggestion on how to improve this issue, however, but it might be really helpful if you figure out a good solution to it. My feeling is that a pure UI solution that does not change the gameplay might work.
(do not ask me how much I played this game, I spent more than a few hours off-stream).
310 days ago(+1)
Interesting that you haven't had any luck with Blue. I thought it's the easiest to win with, since you're taking no damage at all, and grind enemies down with Retaliate. You gotta pick your fights though cause enemies that like to set up will end it. I didn't play a lot since the introduction of unlocks however, so it's possible that the Spade symbol is what made it easy, and that being locked now made Blue that much worse.
Bones I think aren't too bad if you get a Power build. They're worse than Fist at the start, but they even out at +1 Power and become better at +2.
The Malfunction boss is meant to be countered by having a large quantity of symbols. Might be too strong however, probably shouldn't give 2 symbols per turn right away.
Avocado is pure green, the core is brown which is not a symbol color. Might make it black or gray to reduce the risk of confusion.
Color-blind mode is absolutely necessary for full release and will be implemented... Somehow. I have no idea how this is going to play out in practice. Reels fly by fast so glance value is important, I don't know if extra symbols or frames will be clear enough unless I slow down the reels. It'll be a headache to implement for sure
To make the game easier to understand, I think just explicitly telling the player in a tutorial that reel timing matters should be enough. I could even do a hand-holdy tutorial that won't progress until the timing is perfect, but I don't like those.
For blue, I also did not try it a lot and did not go for it really, which contributed to not getting a pure blue win or substantially mixed blue win. The removal of rewards of symbols for common enemies made the game harder. For blue, after you wrote this reply, I tried specifically to unlock the Spade symbol, and only succeeded after some time. Most everything else was unlocked before I tried unlocking the Spade symbol. I may have wrongly assumed that one strategy would not work, which I may have employed in a previous demo day some of the time, namely to get to a point where your defenses are strong, your money making is strong, and then just go to weak enemies and have the battles last for a long time and get lots of money. It is not easy, but you can actually get to a point where you can grind the bouncers for money without taking any damage in return. At that point in time, you have probably already almost guaranteed a win, of course, but I feel like the bouncers should get more powerful every time you defeat them in a room, even if they only get a bit more powerful each time you defeat them. But this is mainly yellow decks that may have some blue mixed in.
I did not succeed in finding a good combination of blue using the Spade up and running, though I have only played a smidgen after unlocking the Spade symbol. I can see it being powerful, since it does not consume Block, and there are blue symbols that either builds up a lot of Block or persists block between rounds. And the Ace of Spades symbol only get stronger over time, even when facing the final boss.
Bones can be powerful if you get a very large amount of Power, but that is difficult to get in the first room, and defeating enemies effectively is helpful in getting money in the first room to try to clap together a viable game-winning deck, or at least one that can defeat the boss of the first room and then try to clap together something good in the second room. And even if you have a mediocre amount of Power, bones may not be worth it. For the early game, if you have 3 matching Bones, you get 2x2 + 1x2 + 0x2 = 6 damage. Not bad, but not amazing either. If you compare it with the Fist symbol, you get 3 + 3 + 3 = 9 damage. Now, if you have both Bones and Fist, and you match 3 Bones and then 3 Fist, you get 6 damage total. Making the Bones worse than useless, apart from matching. Each bone can potentially make every subsequent hit 1 worse. So if you have Bones first and then X hits from subsequent symbols, you maybe deal damage for (2 + Power)*2 - X. If Power is at 2 and X is at 10, you potentially lose out on 2 damage compared to if you did not have Bones. And you can have multiple Bones match early. On the other hand, if you have huge Power, like 15, the multiple hits of Bones are worth it. But that is often in the late game and when you likely have a powerful build already, not in the early or mid game.
But I do not mind Bones being weak or a drawback early, it is a part of the challenge to figure out whether and how to use Bones. Just please enable rerolling at the start or some other way of avoiding or dealing with Bones.
The map generation for some levels can be very punishing, with long vertical walls ending in dead ends or mini-boss enemies before the passage, and other issues with the map generation.
Avocados having a brown core: My brother in Christ, what in the world are you saying? The RGB code for the brown core of an avocado symbol is 0Xa96521, the RGB code for the core red color of a Chili item is 0Xd74646. These values are not far from each other, in particular when looking at them at a glance. Almost all other symbols are great at avoiding ambiguity in colors. [Imagine an image of a crying, sad and cute cat here]. Please do at least tweak the color to reduce the risk of confusion and ambiguity, thank you.
I personally almost never tried timing the reel, and I would not have cared about colors there if I was color blind, except for the sake of learning and understanding the game and what is going on. But I do care about the color of the symbols when I am picking and selecting them, and which color(s) a symbol is when picking or buying is in my playtester-role-opinion (which is basically worthless, I have no stake in the game, always be careful with the opinions of others) significantly more important than matching them on the reels. Though being able to see which color(s) a symbol has, is helpful for learning the game at the start, and people have already had problems with understanding the game. Maybe let the player have an icon in the hover UI that shows the color(s) of a symbol, maybe right below the “SYMBOL” text in the top-right corner, both in the shop, when picking in the room, and when viewing the symbols in the UI? You could honestly get inspired by the color icons from Magic: The Gathering. To me, as long as the color-blind player can learn which colors a symbol has, the silhouette of the symbol should help, many of the symbols in the game has more or less mutually-distinct silhouettes. But if you really want color-blind players to see it, maybe add small tiny icons in some corner of each symbol on the reel, each of them having an easy to differentiate silhouette? It would require testing either way.
There are many fun and sometimes surprising combinations. Like the Star symbol with the Brand New Suit item.
A tutorial is a good idea, even a brief one should help. I would personally not care about getting the timing right with the reel spinning, it is perfectly possible to play without timing, and some people may want to play the game without any timing or reflexes at all, like a pure turn-based game. I did not personally pin the game as having timing be important, to me it is all just deck building, predicting and picking fights, exploring strategically, and having the right strategy, and learning the game mechanics and discovering funny and interesting combinations, and stuff.
Also, the trial and error of learning what enemies do can be a bit annoying, it lengthens the duration of the game. This can be solved in-game, or by the game having a (maybe user-made) wiki. Though enemies "not revealing their hands" and not being described up front is a part of many successful games, such as FTL, in particular its final boss.