very cool game ! the clues really make sense for this jam's theme, though the notes being in chests kept me hoping there might be some loot like a new spell in one.
I liked defeating all but one enemy and then keeping them around while I get back to full health and mana before clearing the room.
really fun Binding-of-Isaac type of exploration and level generation, the static positioning of the characters encourages strategic use of the AOE spells, and the free fireball and mana regen spells mean the player will never get beached during a fight, but they may have to take some free hits if they don't manage their resources.
if you ask me, the game would benefit from another spell or two to collect in the level, or perhaps occasional choices e.g. between +20 mana or +40 health or something, or maybe buff/upgrade a specific spell? I think this kind of thing would let the player build the character differently per run, adjusting their stats to suit their playstyle.
good visuals, cute crunchy pixel art, perhaps you could switch out the particle sprites from gradients to something in this style too.
I like how the health and mana bars are on either side of the screen, making them both large but obscuring very little of the stage, good design.
the different enemy types add a lot of variety and strategy to the gameplay too, though leaving a healer alive allows the player to fully regenerate health and mana since the healer couldn't attack me.
if this sounds like an exploit to you, perhaps the mana could regenerate when you kill an enemy, or maybe the mana regen spell could siphon it from another character or something? It didn't make the game less fun though, just a slightly cheesy strat
i got a little confused by the turn system at times when a character would get 2 consecutive turns, and I wasn't sure why or when it would happen next, but the combat is very engaging and fun, I like how enemies can sometimes miss and hurt each other accidentally
the game left me stoked to see what's through the portals :)
feel free to check out our game if you'd like, it's a bit of a strange one though lol,
if you do, I wanna let you know that in one of the menus, before clicking the "feed" button you must click the items from the hotbar to select them, we've had a lot of players get confused by that menu design 😅