itch.io

Great work, as always!

I did come across one little paradox though. If you pick up the ornamental sword after Polly leaves for the day care, Polly will still talk to you about the sword even though he's already left the building.

Could you hook it up to a proximity sensor that just toggles the visibility of the icons if the character is, say, ~2 feet or less away from the interactable? Or would that still make it too easy?

One solution that I've seen some more 'traditional' point-n-click games use is to make a little periodic twinkle, just a little subtle one, on stuff that can be interacted with. I'm not sure that that solution would work as well for 5DD though, if only because of the art style. But perhaps something along those lines could be workable, a tiny animation, or even a fly circling around an item you can pick up, idk, it's your game and I'm just spitballing here lol.

I like where the game is going definitely. I do have a few critiques though:

-One of the biggest, and hopefully easiest to address, is that 'interact' icons only appear while the character is stationary. I feel like I have to come to a full stop next to every piece of scenery to see if it's interactable or not. Which leads on to the next thing,

-Movement feels a little bit clunky. I think that what's happening is that the entire 'walk' animation needs to finish before the character stops moving, which means there's a significant delay after releasing the movement key before I actually halt.

-Inventory navigation is a bit slow. I think that you could make the entire game work with only WASD/arrows, no QE needed actually. One of the things that could be changed easily is that if I try to combine items, after I select one pairing I have to select the initial item again before I can try another. So to clarify, instead I could select item A, then select item B. If the two don't match, I can immediately try item A and item C, without having to select item A again.

-As a more overarching item, it would be nice if I could skip some interactions if they obviously aren't going to be helpful. I had some ideas of what I was going to have to accomplish, but I was forced to talk to the perp about every new piece of evidence before proceeding. That makes scripting a lot more complicated I know, but I think overall that will make the game feel a lot smoother and more intuitive.

-Oh yes, I did encounter one bug. Sometimes after interacting with bad 'un the game locked up and I couldn't move or open my inventory. I was able to open the settings and quit to menu, then continue, and that fixed the problem. At least one time was showing him the handbag after already talking to him about it.

There are a couple other rough edges, but those are the biggest issues. Don't get my critiques wrong, I really like where the game is going, there are just some things that can be improved. Keep it up!

Before I get into more conceptual ideas, if you're expanding the game a few little QoL things would be nice. Perhaps:

-Skip tutorial button

-Mute button

-Turn counter from the management screen

As for new content, here are a bunch of random ideas off the top of my head:

-You could have 'chapters', campaign style, starting with fighting the humans (what you have currently), then moving on to elves, dwarves, orcs/goblins, maybe dragons for a big finale. That would be a ton of work, especially art-wise, but as long as we're just brainstorming :p

-A vampiric unit seems like a pretty obvious choice, something like (2/3)(2/4)(3/4) Heals 1/2/3 health to self on attack.

-For an high-level option, you could make a unit that has an extra-high amount of health, but takes up two adjacent unit spaces. Maybe a giant snake? I'm not sure how exactly you have your code laid out, that could end up being to complicated to try to implement.

-Another pretty basic idea would be a spear-wielder that damages the first two units in front of it instead of just the first. If you want a flashier version, swap the spear for a flamethrower. Something like (2/1)(2/2)(3/4)

-I notice you have a werewolf sketched out up there, maybe it could do something like double its own health and attack after the first time it takes damage? Or after it attacks the first time. Either way, you don't have a unit with a once-per-round buff yet I believe.

-The necromancer's familiar, the hat dude, could show up as a unit under special conditions for a little bonus :3

-Especially once the game starts getting longer, a means of regenerating the player's own health would probably be a good idea. That, or increasing the maximum. In the latter case, you could have some kind of 'bulwark' building to provide the buff.

-For entire other decks, goblins seem like a fun theme. I bet they would look great in your art style too. The underlying idea of 'breeds too fast' would make a nice counterpoint to the undead of the base deck. A theme for a deck with maybe more unlock requirements could be elemental spirits. That would afford a whole lot of freedom with designs too.

-Since not every unit from the 'base' deck is a skeleton, maybe the outliers such as the lizardman and pigman (being high-level units anyway) could be 'mercenaries' that show up in every deck.

-A neat spellbook would be one that can swap two units while in battle. Level 1: Do it once, to your own units. Level 2: Do it twice. Level 3: Do it three times, and you can do it to opponents too.

-I really like how your mechanics for purchasing and upgrading units are designed. I think the weakest aspect is the spellbook slots though. I'm not sure what the best way to fix that would be without swinging too far and making spells overpowered. Maybe spell slots could be their own unique thing separate from unit slots, but the slots unlock at the same time that your cauldron upgrades? I'm not sure.

This is actually a lot of stuff now, so I should probably stop typing lol.

Wow, that was a prompt reply. Makes sense! Writing code logic is difficult :)

There's a really minor bug I came across, I'm having difficulty figuring out the exact conditions, but here's my best guess: If I defeat all enemies extremely quickly while in fast-forward mode (eg: first two rounds, using a Bowie or Stoner) my units will take a couple more steps forward after 'winning', before they jump all the way to the end. It doesn't actually have any effect whatsoever on gameplay and it's not even all that irritating, but I thought I may as well call it to your attention. (and yes, being able to fast-forward is awesome!)

Cool, the 3D-ish art is an interesting direction to take it. If you do a sequel with the same mechanics of possessing objects, a brief description of what exactly the criteria is of what objects I can and can't possess would be nice. I mean, it's pretty obvious what's interactable by mousing over objects and seeing what does and doesn't light up, but which objects are and aren't possessable seems pretty random. Why can I possess a statue but not a crate? A metal beam but not the iron maiden? A doll but not one of the thugs?