itch.io

Managed to walk outside the level... not sure if glitch, or an intentional part of the game.

I have been trying for the 5 turn win for months using pretty much the strat you describe here. (Got 5 turns on the previous version of the game... but Summoners were Tier2 then)

Was amazed to see someone get it.... and then saw you had twiddled the market probabilities. (Still very cool, but also is a bit of cheating)

Congrats. Great reasearch and investigation.

Despite everything, it's still you.

Okay, nope, I've come back and checked it out:

Did my best to crash the game only using rats, summoners and funny bones (no skulls)

Turns out, for this set up even if my rats get shot and the row overflows, the game can handle it.

So... whatever error is going on, it appears to ONLY apply to Skulls with Funnybones on them.

Not sure why that is, but hope it helps.

EDIT: (That, or there's something special about dude's being shot in row one as opposed to row three... but this seems less likely to be the cause.)

It's the case of Skulls AND funnybones item stacked on top.

Probably you would get similar problems with Summoners or rats with Funnybones (I can try to test this if needed) - something about the row being full, and both the unit AND the item trying to summon at the same time seems cause the crash (cuts directly to black screen)
EDIT: I've done the experiment (see below). Looks like its only skulls for some reason.

Pretty sure it happens because the skull tries to "unpack", and if there is no space in the row, the game crashes.

Something about how that is handled is different to Summoners or rats, (if they don't have enough space, you just lose some of your summons)

Good to know! This makes sense.

Yo... so I just got an email saying you updated... but there is nothing in the Devlog.

....just wanted to check in, is this an actual update (would love to hear new schemes!), or is it potentially the same issue as 3 months ago?

Double Archers murder my Skulls+Bones, tries to explode into a full row, game crash. :(

It's pretty hard!
I've got to the stage of  "kind of Consistent 7/8", but getting below 7 is *really* hard.

Generally speaking: 

You want to do 4 or 5 damage on turn one (2 skelletons, 2 skulls is best opening).  and 8 or 9 damage on turn 2,  11-12 castle damage turn 3.
Skulls and bones are the way. (Two skulls and one bone is three purchases and gives 5 damage to castle).  Teir 3  Summon book also pretty critical if you are trying to do a rush. 

The other critical thing:  If you are trying to race, Life is a resource. A resource to be spent.  When in full rush mode, I often end up leaving an entire row empty in round 5 or 6, meaning I take 5 or 7 damage that round... but pushing through 20 damage in exchange. By the time I START the king fight I'm often on only 1 or 2 hp.   So long as the king dies before I do, its a win.

... With that said, leaning heavily on the "rush only" strategy can be less fun (you just ignore a whole bunch of fun and cool units because they are not part of the "max damage every round" game plan.

If you want a challenge, see how *fast* you can do a run.

The best I've got on the current version is a 6 turn run (5 turns used to be possible, not sure if it is any more)

Beutiful game. Thank you for making this.

Yo, quick crash report:
On the browser, with a stacked row, my Skull (with bones) got killed (in the top row) and tried to summon a skull and a funny bone.
There was no open space behind, and then the entire screen went black, between damage and new summons appearing.

So, comments so far:
Oh god oh god, the Cpu requirements on this one as the fire grows.
Holy cow.  
The SOUND starts lagging.
Surely there is a better way.



Also: The Host can use items at the end of their turn... but apparently I can't? (The "turn arrows" vanish when I pick up an item, so I have to store it, and then try to use it next turn. Very frustrating if Host is holding a crowbar)

My personal headcanon:
You should be able to charm the king, but only with a lvl3 succubus... and there should be an alternate ending if you do.

Oh! I didn't spot the note in the description!

Derp.  :P

Very nice. Much enjoyed.   Bloody hard though, with some of the enemies having a higher max altitude and velocity.  Am still trying to be round 4.

Okay, so I gotta ask, how much of this is riffing on the classic Arcade game "Joust" 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joust_(video_game)

Cause like... it certainly feels that way (bird mounts, jousting, wrapping domain, etc), and I am totally digging it.

The game is fun, but I feel sad because Dino was not with me when I claimed victory.

Yo - nice tune. Lovely ambiance, and makes me want to metroidvania my way through a cave or some such.

Push off mate!

3 months is a REALLY SHORT TIME to upgrade a piece of work like this.  And probably Stop signal has a whole other life and work and stuff going on.

Making stuff is difficult!
Making stuff takes time!

Why's everyone getting all antsy these last few days? Good things take time.

Bam, 6 turn victory.

God damn these things are difficult.

Thank you so much!

Thank you kindly! Hope the game leads you to many wild adventures!

Yo, this is a fabulous and very cute game.  The blue Reveal on Level 10 is fabulous, and made me smile.

Any possibility of a Linux version?  
Would love to play.

Okay, having had more time to think, and you asking about deck types that are different but have depth:

I think you could get really far with a bunch of dudes who "Eat mana", in the sense of "When you target me with a spell, I get +1/+1"   "When you target me with a spell, I create a minion"  "When you target me with a spell I get a free attack" and the like.

Then, replace the various curse/summon/protection spells with ONLY spells which target your dudes. Maybe a healing spell? MAybe a "+1/+1 bonus" spell, maybe a teleport spell that swaps two of your units... or maybe a "Manaflare" spell which doesn't target anyone, but activates ALL "mana eater" abilities (or... activates an entire row at any rate).

It makes it a little less "Auto", but I think the monster-spell back and forth could work in a cool and interesting way much like the Bard/summoner back and forth.

Maybe even have a monster who refreshes a spellbock on death (If in row one, is book one, if in row three is book three).

The other thing I can image is having monsters that get boosted from deaths in their row. In a like "On kill enemy, get +1/+1" (Great vs sneaks),  Or "If an enemy dies in this row, deal one damage to the backmost enemy"

And... in terms of other ideas:
Traps.
Like, things that you put in your backmost column, and then, if an enemy reaches them, SOMETHING happens (Maybe 5 damage to the first enemy to reach them? Maybe 1 damage to the whole row if an enemy reaches them? Maybe summon charms first ally to meet them, who knows)

Okay, this swapping back and forward tango sounds cool as hell.

Okay, so, first off: thank you so much for such an amazing game. I love it, it is special. I am still trying to get a 6 turn win with the new updates.

In terms of ideas for decks: I reckon a frankenstien deck to go with the necromancer deck (Zombies instead of skeletons. Tech instead of magic. Lighting rods and shit, little green/turquise hearts instead of pink ones?). I can also imagine a "Shadow summoner" deck, or a ghost deck.  (Yes, they are all undead, but hell, the whole cutesy/spooky you have here is a VIBE)

In terms of gameplay ideas... I am going to spitball a million billion ideas, none of which are particularly thought out, and maybe one of them will be useful.

I really do believe that a teleport spell would be amazing gameplay.

In terms of deck archetypes, I think the main thing with the skeleton deck is that there is very low interaction BETWEEN rows.

I can imagine having a monster/effect which boosts everything in a particular COLUMN, and playing on inter-row interaction. That or monsters which like... zoop around between rows somehow? Or monsters that can ONLY be placed in the top row (Zepplin?) or have some other restriction of that kind?  Basically, something which breaks the symettry between rows, or makes rows more interactive with one another.

I think you could build a deck around this, without having it be "Single strategy".

I can imagine having a deck with monsters which take Two spaces (Horses?) Not sure of gameplay, or if is possible in your engine, but is a possible design space.

I think having monsters that explode for damage on death is  a mechanic you haven't used, which could belong somewhere... or a monster which is bad in combat but deals bonus damage to the castle. Or bad in combat, but steals gold from the castle. Basically "On castle" effects seems like an area which you could use, but probably not the basis for a deck.

(Maybe even "On hit castle, deal one damage to king?")

Monsters with an On purchase effect could be interesting. As a base example, having some bats with "On purchase, Spy" could work.

I think you could have some strategy (possibly woven into a larger deck) which interacts on spells more.  Possibly with minions such as "On death, refresh one page from this rows spell book" so that you get more spell uses.  Or... alternatively "On kill, harvest souls, gain spell uses"?

Another possibility is... an army which gets to permanently screw with the battlefield? Like, when your spike gremlin dies, it leaves behind spikes which damage enemies this battle, and for many battles to come?

Potentially, having a unit which is undercosted, and overpowers and.... only lasts for one battle. Its there, and then gone. (Is that bad? Is it a newbie trap? Don't know).

Or... units with a different movement rate (Probably double speed). Not sure what the speed does for the game, but its something that could exist.

I kind of like the idea of a unit with zero damage, but lots of health, and then units that blast damage when they are NOT moving (like, units that like to be stalled).

If you wanted to get really different and weird, I guess you could have a Kaiju style deck, where you start with a single monster, and you just strap more and more stuff to the one big monster you have, and then use it to smash everything?  ... Hmmm... that sounds cool, but probably doesn't match the actually gameplay you've got going on so well.

In terms of new enemy's... Maybe a Wizard tower? With mages, and apprentices, and lighting? 

Or a Church/cathedral come down to smite you for being a Necromancer, and you instead of a castle its a big gothic cathedral, and instead of a king its a... big priest?

Whatever you do, I look forward to seeing it, it is all amazing. Thank you thank you thank you.

Glitched into the ground at first ladder. :(

Ohhh- looking forward to playing with these changes. Should be cool.

Me and the brother once did it in 5. (This was BEFORE the recent update, so probably impossible now).

I got reasonablly reliable at doing it in 7. You probably want to focus on rats, and loading up flying skulls with Funny bones (creates a chain of skulls and bones)

Nah, there's a fair few ways to beat him.

I've taken down The King using an straighforward armor+Sword build (Just let the spikes slow down, and with spikes of your own beat regen), an Arrow build (Who cares about spikes if I am long ranged!) and a Metal Wand/broken ring build. It's doable, just a bit tricky and weird.

Very nice. A good two hour game, lots of fun characters, I managed to nail the killer on my second guess. The reveal at the end was lovely, and I got to put a hammer to good use. Wonderful.

Very nice.

A good two hour game, lots of fun characters, I managed to nail the killer on my second guess. The reveal at the end was lovely, and I got to put a hammer to good use. Wonderful.

EDIT: annnnndddd... I didn't post this on the main page. Never mind

So, as a follow up for this tip: for me "Enough lives" was around 100. 

WELL...

I have just finished the "special level", burning through ~70 lives in the process... and can I just say: This game is sick. Truly the result of a diseased mind. The difficulty ramp up is perfect, starting out "Sure fine", and ramping up to... uhhh... truly deranged levels.     All the hidden knooks and crannies feel great, and reward exploring. The various "key coins" are hidden in great spots. And the story elements from the orginal video are woven in nicely.

Gotta say, did take me a while to figure out what the controls are the controls. (Up is speak? "Special" is both roll and used mid jump to "pop")

Very cool. Very nicely done. There is so much I love here, and so much I hate (God damn those Drop platforms in the special level with the roll-jump-hop needed).

Thanks for a great game.

Went to settings menu to select fullscreen.
No "Return to main menu" button. Became trapped forever.

RIP

Not sure if Glitch, or just oversight, but either way, something didn't work.

Wait.... WAIT....

Your character, has perpetual bad luck and Bad Juju.    
Runes tells us that its 1000 years of bad luck to talk about "it".

... is that the explaination. Did we literally get told the grand plot? In some past life or whatever, our chatacter talked about something and earned themselves 1000 years bad luck?

Cause like... that would be hilarious. The entire plot revealed in act one, by the joke character, as part of a joke