itch.io

Honestly the new sprites aren't bad, and the improvement is very visible (in the same way the sprites in Layer 2 were to layer 1 even without the proportions change). The way Dia's face is drawn make her look a lot older, I always assumed she was maybe a bit older than Adventure Kid. Basically I thought she was 16 with anime colored white hair, but now she looks in her mid 40 with white hair due to old age.

My biggest issue with the change is how the overall pixel density is affected. The previous character sprites and the cards were on a similar level of details, but now the portraits look more dense. Basically you have the overworld sprite (Chibi), the cards and the portraits each on a different level of detail whereas the previous character sprites looked more in line with the cards, and the proportions reflected the way the overworld sprite look so everything was more cohesive.

I don't think the proportion change is actually the issue, as the guard doesn't look weird at all to me. I believe it's the way you shade the hair with a lot of small lines instead of bigger masses of colors, and some of the details like the stray hair. If you take the character sprites in a vaccuum, the faces are more pixel dense than the rest of the body. Perhaps the guard isn't as dissonant because he's got no face details at all.

I though my files were corrupted, but It is not possible to continue the game with the save carried over from First Layer via Continue>Second Layer, you need to go through Start>Second Layer.

Interesting and engaging story. Presenting evidence during battles really does help make the themes cohesive with the gameplay, it isn't just a reskin of roguelite card systems. The backstory tying into the starter deck is a nice touch and the cards you get from it are sensical. I don't feel like the type of response selected in minor events really reflects the type of cards you gain from these encounters, however.

The battles themselves feel a bit too slow, and it's easy to fall into long loops trying to build up ressources while preventing the opponent to do so at the same time. This is especially true when experimenting with decks on first runs.

I tried various combinations and backstories and ended up with a lot of different save files, I haven't been able to delete them so there's a lot of clutter in my menu. That said, Second Layer comes out in a few hours so maybe all of this will be a non issue in the update.

Kad et Olivier jumpscare 10/10

Bards and looping summons with the funny bone item is really funny. I managed to beat the king with only two hearts left, but two remaining ennemies on the other lines reached me. It still counted as a win on the results screen but I don't know if that's intended.