itch.io

Thank you once again for a valuable piece of feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed the game!

I completely agree with what you are saying - that is indeed my intention going forward. I have some story/context/gamefeel changes in mind - quite the number of them, in fact - and knowing what is the biggest pain point in player experience right now does help me direct my efforts.

As for the interface - could you highlight some of the worst things about it? 

I was, unfortunately, unable to watch you play due to our timezone differences, but I would hapily watch it on record if you are planning to publish it!

Hey, your key art doesn't do your game justice. Everything actually looks much more beautiful and stylish in the game itself!

The visual style of the game is great, I love it. The only downside would be, it struggles with visual language sometimes. Certain level elements blend too much with the background, sometimes it is hard to tell a wall from a decorative background element. This also goes for projectiles passing through some obstacles but being stopped by others, in a seemingly random fashion.

Controls are great and smooth. Enemy attack and movement patterns leaves desire to have directional attack options (firing at certain angles, up and down, not only left-right). Also, I wanted to find a proper combination of dashing and dodging enemy attack - especially on tough drone battles at the end of the level - and I feel like sometimes avoiding damage wasn't possible at all. No matter how quick I was, there is a number of situations where I felt like getting hit is unavoidable. You might want to look into that. It would't be a huge problem, but extremely satisfying if done right. 

The tutorial helps a lot to understand what's going in the game, but I would advice to space everything out a little. It's hard to pull off properly (and I'm guilty of overlooking tutorial issues myself :) ), but you could entertain new players much better if you would integrate all those hints into levels more seamlessly, letting the player actually get to the game as fast as possible, only showing them when they are absolutely necessary to progress (dash over a pit, shoot to fight off a monster, etc.). I must say you did a good job presenting in the way it is, though.

Sometimes, it necessary to die to actually return to a previous part of the level to collect something instead of going for exit portal. Once again, not a huge problem, a lot of other games do that too - but felt like a little bit of an oversight for me.

I played through ~4 levels and I love it so far. Keep up the good work!

Hey, your key art doesn't do your game justice. Everything actually looks much more beautiful and stylish in the game itself!

The visual style of the game is great, I love it. The only downside would be, it struggles with visual language sometimes. Certain level elements blend too much with the background, sometimes it is hard to tell a wall from a decorative background element. This also goes for projectiles passing through some obstacles but being stopped by others, in a seemingly random fashion.

Controls are great and smooth. Enemy attack and movement patterns leaves desire to have directional attack options (firing at certain angles, up and down, not only left-right). Also, I wanted to find a proper combination of dashing and dodging enemy attack - especially on tough drone battles at the end of the level - and I feel like sometimes avoiding damage wasn't possible at all. No matter how quick I was, there is a number of situations where I felt like getting hit is unavoidable. You might want to look into that. It would't be a huge problem, but extremely satisfying if done right. 

The tutorial helps a lot to understand what's going in the game, but I would advice to space everything out a little. It's hard to pull off properly (and I'm guilty of overlooking tutorial issues myself :) ), but you could entertain new players much better if you would integrate all those hints into levels more seamlessly, letting the player actually get to the game as fast as possible, only showing them when they are absolutely necessary to progress (dash over a pit, shoot to fight off a monster, etc.). I must say you did a good job presenting in the way it is, though.

Sometimes, it necessary to die to actually return to a previous part of the level to collect something instead of going for exit portal. Once again, not a huge problem, a lot of other games do that too - but felt like a little bit of an oversight for me.

I played through ~4 levels and I love it so far. Keep up the good work!

Hello!

You're off to a good start!

Several thoughts:

+ There are some cool ideas, each level offers something new

+ controls feel smooth and responsive

+ Switching characters to move forward is interesting

- Glitchy interactions with slopes or moving objects (character can be pushed into terrain or glitches while standing on the slope, constantly twitching)

- a lot of backtracking to switch characters on lvl 2 (lvl 4 was OK in that sense)

- everything is tiny, some thin walls or elements are hard to notice and blend with the background. I didn't notice there's another character to play with until I accidentally touched it

- Stuff is functional, but there's very little feedback for player's actions - character switch/death/interactions are not highlighted at all

- Some level elements are hard to navigate (not in a fun challenging kind of way)

There was no visible error or crash report, the game just stopped.

Sure, I've joined your discord and will be sure to check out what's new from time to time! I have a server too, but it is still empty, I did a basic set up but haven't put my mind into bringing up a community yet

Thanks for checking the game out again!

I agree those are the biggest pain points the game currently has. All of them (blocking portals before reward is collected, sounds for rewards and UI) are in my backlog, and I'll be sure to look into them in the coming weeks.

As for the music - this is one of my biggest concerns. I am working with a composer right now, and iterations are taking too long. There's definitely room for improvement.

Thanks for playing! I'm glad I was able to leave a good impression :) If you don't mind sharing - I would be happy to know what gave you an initial idea you wouldn't enjoy it! That could help a lot.

To your questions:

1. This is something I thought about, haven't found a proper place for it in UI. There is a selection in the bottom menu, and there is a picture in the right panel with all the details, but I do understand it's not necessarily when the player is looking at that moment. I'll try to make that screen more obvious
2. There's nothing in the game that explains it right now. Tutorials/Tooltips are one of the things I'm going to focus on next. Those icons indicate rewards - Extra Loot (Exp), Morale (Extra lives) or Elemental Rewards ("Attuning" an ability or upgrading trinkets). This one is mentioned a lot - I'll look into making reward choices more clear.

Also, I am working with a composer on the music, but the stuff is taking a lot of time. I will definitely introduce something there - it does feel empty without proper soundtrack. 

Again, thank you very much! Your feedback was very helpful!

I played the demo on Steam. This is an awesome game you have there! I am happy I found some time to try it. The focus of the game is clearly the atmosphere and story, and it is handled very nicely. 

• I would agree with other feedback, that the sound is a bit sharp at times
• Takes some backtracking without an Instaport. Not too much, but level transitioning takes some time, and it adds up in the long run
• Could only open two safes. I have collected two other notes (the ones that partly reveal the combination - I assumed they both hint on the same safe, but haven't tried it). Hunting for clues is fun. having "code" option before "explosive' option might be more comfortable - right now there's a risk to blow up the safe if you click to fast, even if you know the code
• The game waits for a very long time before it starts actually revealing combat mechanics. I wouldn't say that's something you would do "by the book" - the first impression the game makes is story-only puzzle game (like To The Moon or OneShot) without any combat encounters. A person that has less that 30 minutes to check the demo out might get it wrong. Then again, there are games that play much bigger tricks on players like that one card game :) Since the focus of the game is much more on the story then it is on combat, this is probably not an issue
• That being said, combat mechanics are quite promising, I see a lot of potential with debuffs and reactions
• Bonus points for being able to befriend a cat
• The game seemed to crash at some point when switching levels (happened some time after I purchased a pet item from the trader and returned back to the entrance of the factory)
• I haven't found any ways to upgrade my basic attack yet, not sure if I'm supposed to. I'm quite curious what you have in mind in that regard - My initial thought was the progression is strictly horizontal (just adding more options), but some abilities did offer direct damage upgrades

You have a great game on your hands, keep up the good work! I really enjoyed my time playing it, and I wish you the best of luck!

Nice update!

"Next Level" button seems to be broken on all campaigns except first (it always moves to levels from first campaign)

New additions are interesting and add variety. Level generation for those tiles would probably be tricky :)

Hey, glad to see you here again!

I played the latest version, here are some thoughts:

• Melee fighter is good in terms of damage, but as soon as artillery starts spawning - he does not have enough mobility to handle it in time. Even if all enemies had 1 hp, he won't be able to get to everyone in time
•  I spend more time trying to reach POIs then I am fighting for rewards. The timer is prety harsh an applies a lot of pressure, but the time is mostly spent on movement. I can barely get to an enemy camp when the next wave is announced. 
• Melee fighter's Jump ability has a fixed range, and it's not very obvious where I am going to land if I use it on enemies that are not in a melee range. I would like use this ability to catch up to distant foes, but he ability does not help me with this - I feel like the most effective way of using it is just short-range AoE
• Using both mouse buttons at the same time breaks aiming (As a ranged unit, using a bomb withouy getting a finger off main weapon)
• Missing texture on engineer's arm
• Missing icon on the notification about the picked up key (square thingy that drops from bosses)
• Engineer's Flamethrower effective range seems to be shorter than its VFX
• I thoroughly enjoyed playing an Engineer, turret starts OK but seems to be very OP after some upgrades.

Hope that helps! Keep up the good work, and good luck to you!

Hey, glad you like it!

• Settings are supposed to be auto-detected, will investigate
• Curious find regarding resolution, I'll have to try and reproduce it on my end. Also, the list of resolutions should be adaptive and offer options suitable for your machine. Will look into that as well
• Yup, competely agree with morals behaving weird. I am thinking about reworking the system completely, right now it barely serves its purpose. The initial idea was to have crabs joining/leaving the squad all the time, but I see many issues with that approach, and the current system does not help.

Thanks a lot for playing and providing great feedback!

Hi! I was actually looking forward to playing this game for quite some time now. It seems like a ton of effort has been put into it.

UI:

• UI tooltips are great and explanatory. The coloring of them makes the window content a bit hard to parse, though - most of the screenshots explaining stuff (specifically menu-related) blend in with the background and each other, making it a bit hard to read. Overall, some UI elements (and even elements on the map) blend in with each other - I know the intention was probably to limit the amount of colors on the screen, but as of now it makes everything to appear on one "layer" - it is sometimes hard to tell which objects are interactable, which are not and what is the current state of things
• A bit too much info dumped 
• In battle, tooltips get underneath the turn order bar
• In battle, some enemy minion tooltips also cover the movement area highlight
• Cards UI is a little bit slow to appear/disappear - I feel like making it toggle on click could be more comfortable
• Overall, using UI is a little bit rough on the edges - some elements like selections and highlighs are not readable very clearly
• Moving/exchanging unit positions works a little bit inconsistently between screens - for example, you can switch unit positions by drag'n'drop in hero screen, but you can't do the same thing in hero interaction screen (at least between heroes)
• All that being said, this is a very complex game and you have already done HUGE work of making it understandable! for every such comment there is a huge number of UI features that really serve their purpose of making the game understandable and fun
• I couldn't help but notice that there are sounds on UI interaction, but either they had some sort of delay, or they were blending in with the background music - but I felt like they are a bit offset in time from my actions. I could not tell if that was intentional or not, got some mixed messages.

Gameplay:

• I utulize the following tactic: max out Leadership skill and then use 1-unit squads to "bait" enemy retaliation attacks before attacking with the powerful stack - kinda like it is regularly done in Heroes games. If feel like without this tactic the loss of units becomes too big to manage
• I feel the balance of enemy armies is a little off: the boss I killed had like 3 times less troops then the enemy pack guarding a pile of resources on a previous screen
• I destroyed a key artifact because I did not want to drop any other artifact from my hero, and the inventory was full. I did not expect the item to be destroyed - this effectively breaks the progression through the game
• When a hero is defeated, he disappears from the screen completely. It was a surprise for me I could actually interact with the fallen hero to transfer artifacts - that was nice. However, defeated hero still takes space on the map - in my case, it was a 1x1 square, so he effectively blocked part of the map for me
• Gold ended up being the most lacking resource, and I found the game a bit too hard until I picked up and artifact that gives 500g per day. The difficulty became much more manageable then. Feels like it breaks the current balance, though - it effectively eliminates gold as a limiter of anything.
• It seems like if you get 5 cards in your hand, you stop receiving daily cards completely (even after you use some of them)
• Units with "taunt" tiles are a little bit weird to utilize since it is very easy to play around them (they won't taunt an actual player, since you can move out of them easily) but they are absolutely awesome to use as 1-unit squads to protect the big damaging packs

I spent several hours playing, and I haven't unlocked any of the side areas - because the only time I got to the key I accidentally destroyed it - So I don't know how much more content is there. That being said, there is a TON of content already, enough to be replayed several times. I feel like this would be the best time to refine existing content, UI, difficulty and whatever issues there are. The game is quite addicting and I definitely had tons of fun - it has the vibe similar to old Heroes games (Heroes II was still my favourite).

I hope this feedback helps you make the game even better!

Good luck! I'll be looking forward for more!

Thanks for playing! A lot of great feedback!

• Glad you could beat the boss! I was trying to balance him to be hard to just zerg rush, but fairly easy if you pay attention to his mechanics - in the same way most MMO bosses work
• AoE was there the last time, but much less visible, and there was another random even I removed, that was turning the game into a slog
• I have more enemies planned (some are even inspired by what I saw in your game =P)! Healers are there, the green ones. They were quite annoying the last time around, so I tried to make them less fast and twitcy this time
• Thanks for reporting Extra spawns are supposed to be destroyed when the boss dies, right now it seems broken. 
• Group controls: Still considering in! I have my reservations about it, but I hear you! One idea I had was to implement an extra on-cooldown command that would tell everyone to gather around one place
• Reward pick-up: I implemented a quick fix with the notification to pick up the reward, but I agree blocking doors until it's collected would be better
• Icons: I would say, I intentionally left some ofbuscation there, so it can be observed and learned. They mostly corespond to "Elements" that give you reward, each offers Sttunements (Abilities) and Trinkets of that element. In the meantime, I intend to rework the rewards themselves, to be more logical and obvious

Thanks for your kind words! I'd be happy to improve the game further!

Hey, glad to see you here! I could've missed the event if it weren't for your tweet! :D

This version of the game is quite addicting! I like all the improvements you made!

• Tutorial is great, gives a nice kick-start into the game. It does not explain everything, but it gives enough to start playing and making informed choices
• One time I ended on the map full of rocks and less than 10 trees. Having some way of trading resources could be cool, to play around situations like that
• I've played several times before, and only now do I finally understand that Quarry and Lumber mill do not give you resources, only gold
• Overall progression through the map felt much smoother this time, giving enough low-level and mid-level fodder to fight with. I do agree with @cryy22 here: if you don't progress through the 10..20 power gap quickly, you can get stuck there. Maybe I just got lucky this time around, but last time I played I remember it being an issue.
• After power level 20 enemy abilities become quite annoying. There is a lot of them, and there were situations where I could not place a single block without being affected by something. The problem is not the difficulty (in fact, I think it's quire reasonable), but the fact that the constant flow of abilities slows down the game and starts to annoy you
• Given how much monsters spam the abilities, I would actually like to use abilities more often myself. Cooldowns feel quite long
• Got absolutely obliterated by a fortune teller. She made me forget abilities two times in a row (which is quite rough), and was cursing me with negative consequences so violently her crystall ball finally broke in the end lol. What a story, though!
• Started actively using combos this time around, and it's fun! It's an alternative strategy for tetris gameplay - focusing on hitting a line with each figure quicky rather then carefully placing everything. Would like to see more reforms/artifacts/skills that emphasize on the combo mechanic to make it more achievable and effective

That being said, I spent several hours playing late into the night. You're building a cool game, I can't wait to see what you'll improve next!

Good Luck!

Hey, thanks for playing!

The game is in the early state, so I haven't built a proper tutorial yet, focusing on core gameplay. I do have plans for it, though!

As for the "group control" - you're not the first one to mention it, I am considering it. Right now, it is as you said - strategic positioning is the big part of the game, and I would not want to take away from it. I do hear you, and I would like to address the situation from the different angle - by introducing more mechanics that utilize individual controls and help to maintain formation.

I am happy that you find this game fun! Makes me want to work harder to improve it!

A very nice little puzzle game! What you have here already is really solid, I see no potential issues to give feedback on! There's nothing out of place - the art, the music and the gameplay all fit well with each other. It definitely offers a way to entertain oneself, but there's little here other than that. Not to say that this game needs to be something more - it feels finished and perfectly fine as it is. 

If you would like it to be more than that - some sort of progression might be welcome, or a story mode like others mentioned. This somewhat reminds me of Dorfromantik - which has very subtle progression with unlockable tiles and stuff

Good luck!

Hey, that's some great progress you made! Name change is nice, too - first time around my first impression was "It's some kind of horror game" :D 

• The balance feels much better overall - Almost never it felt like the situation on the playfield is "solved for good". I haven't moved some of my appliances until the very late game, though
• Turret variety is nice, base appliance progression feels good too
• Fridge feels pleasantly OP in both modes. 
• When they finally got me, was around wave ~40-50. The swarm of little pink guys got me. Weren't able to max out any turrets, I had a number of them and spread metal between them evenly
• In the endgame, there is a small period where keeping appliances static is not an option any more - you have to constantly move them during a monster wave. Feels quite difficult but also fun. If that's the skill you would like your players to develop - this time frame feels really small, most of the time just keeping appliances in the same spot works, and after that stops working and you have to reposition during the wave - in about 5-10 waves repositioning the appliances would not save you any more. That's the feeling, at least - I haven't played many times to confirm this. The fact is, the game pushes you to constantly utilize relocation tactic at some point.
• The core gameplay feels quite solid. Might want to start thinking of making it more replayable, adding more variety between different runs

Once again, the game feels smooth and understandable, as it was the first time around. Good luck upgrading it further!

Thanks for your feedback!

I recently uploaded a build that has graphics settings that might help with the performance, and I did correct some of the issues with controls.

I already noted to myself that I need to explain the game better to new players, and it will definitely be one of my priorities going forward.

Thanks for giving it a go on your stream! I watched you play and it was really helpful!

In the recent update I introduced a hint to collect the reward and fixed the issue with it being unclickable while a crab stands behind it, but for the next one I am considering blocking doors until the reward is collected.

As for the music - 100% agree with you. I have a track in production, but it didn't make it into this demo, unfortunately.

Thanks for checking it out and sharing your thoughts! It really helps a lot.

I've been investigating performance today and I actually know what's going on. I'll be sure to add performance settings so all that shiny UE5 stuff can be easily turned off to greatly reduce GPU load.

Hey! Thanks for giving this game a go on your stream!

As for performance - I'll definitely explore optimization options. I'm on i7, and have no issues recording the game footage with OBS, but there is a slight possibility of me not turning off some of the RTX features that might strain certain GPUs and CPUs, or I could potentialy set up one or two performance landmines for myself :) I haven't done any profiling yet, seems like the time has come

What I got from all this is that I really need to be explaining controls better and give more guidance to players who touch the game for the first time. I've been brewing in it a lot and I've grown to ignore some of the critical issues the game has. One thing I noticed is you stopped collecting the room reward after couple of levels (that big orb in the center once arena is complete) because of a bug I haven't fixed (can't colect when a crab is standing beneath it), and those actually contain a big chunk of content the game has to offer right now. That being said, there is indeed a need to focus on improving the first 10-15 minutes of the game, since a lot of people seem to quit before getting to the part where encounters actually become more challenging, demanding and somewhat more fun. Seeing you play the game gave me a lot of useful information to process!

Thanks for you feedback! I really appreciate it!

Square enemies are totally a placeholder, I wasn't able to replace them befor the quest. I'll let the artist I work with know that everyone likes the crabs! 

I do have an intention of making the game deeper and more strategic, and I'm not quite happy with what is there yet. My main inspiration came from raiding in WoW, so I would like to implement more boss-like mechanics and patterns in the future. There is also a plan to add "roguelite" progression on top of it between the runs - I just wanted to polish core gameplay a little bit more before I got to that. I was also thinking about adding narrative to support the whole thing (probably not much, just some basic worldbuilding to set the tone and set a goal, as you mentioned)

Anyway, all good points and suggestions, it confirmes to me the importance of certain things I'm planning to do and gives something to think about!

Hey, thanks for playing and sharing your feedback!

I see the suggestion of controlling all crabs in one go is a recurring one. I didn't want to implement that initially, since I want to emphasize on control of crab's positions against each other, and also convey this feeling of actually issuing commands. I have some UI planned specifically for that, and I even though of introducing a cooldown for commands - to require player to be more strategic with commands and avoid click-spamming micro. But, if that approach fails, I'll definitely consider adding group control! The feedback is invaluable in any case to better understand this issue and move the game in the right direction.

This is great! Simple yet quite intriguing.

• Tutorial says I have to go to the Temple to gather components. I've never been to a Temple, yet collected two. Guess that last enemy in the area drops a component?
• It is quite hard to understand what I am choosing after meditating/reading. I do not mean the upgrade itself - that is quite clear and predictable. But when the game ask me "path is unchanged, do you want to remain" - I have absolutely no idea what I am choosing
• Spell that increases Ruby Mastery temporary persists from one battle to another, don't know how intentional that is
• Got one-shot by a mage at full HP and shields in the third region (direct HP damage, left shields intact). Guess it's not a big deal since I get to keep all my stats and improvements, and I'm probably not supposed to complete the whole game in one go.
• Kinda hard to remember which spell does which, especially when longer spells kick in
• Getting new spells and buffs feels pleasantly OP

Anyway, a really interesting retro game that definitely has its own style.

Good Luck!

Hey! This is an interesting and cute "Survivors" take

• Visualization of incoming attacks is really good, I might even want to implement a similar solution for my game after seeing it :)
• Visual style is quite nice,
• pick-ups are very inviting and fun to collect

Attack telegraphing

While telegraphing visualization is nice, telegraphing itself does not seem to do its job most of the time. It should warn player about something that is about to happen to be able to react in a meaningful way. However, attacks happen so fast that there is only two possible outcomes:

• You already move fast enough to dodge - telegraphing is not necessary
• You are not moving yet, and you won't be able to dodge the attack even if you react instantly - telegraphing is not necessary.

This is particularly true for enemies with fast melee attacks. It's fun to dodge when enemies are jumping at you from the distance, and it's one of the few  cases wher it actually does its job (along with lingering AoE)

Playable Characters

I've tried playing both a chicken and a cat. I like how different they are, but there are still some things you might want to consider:

• Cat (played on "green" level):
  • Most of the attacks are front-directed, but the majority of time the enemies are behind. You have to turn towards them - but then you won't be able to dodge any more. It could even be fun if enemies movement patters allowed for maneuvers like that, but most of the time you just get surrounded by enemies before you can deal considerable damage - and you have to run again. And even though I felt like I have no way to use my weapon successfully, I still completed the first level without issue. I must say, though, it all became significantly more meaningful when the boss appeard - I could properly dodge and use my weapons.
  • This is VERY Subjective, but in a setting like this I find kunai and surikens much less fitting than, say, pies, tomatoes or some other farm-related non-lethal stuff. I like how chicked defeats everything with eggs :)
• Chicken (played on "Halloween" level):
  • All attacks are directed backwars - which totally solves the problem of facing the right direction while running around. But then, since everything is self-targeted, All I had to do was run around dodging attacks. I didn't feel like anythig except moving around mattered - just dodging was enough to ensure survival and steady flow of experience. 

In both cases, weapons did not feel meaningful - in one case, the game did not allow me to use my weapon efficiently (except against the boss), in other case there's no way to use weapon inefficiently (Fighting a boss didn't feel any different, I barely noticed there was a boss), which kinda makes using it meaningless. I feel like the gameplay wouldn't change if I just ran around dodging AoE all the time, with no weapons at all.

I feel like everything I mentioned is a matter of balancing. What you have looks really good, I totally get the idea. I'd be happy to see which direction you take it next.

Good luck!

Thanks for even more feedback! Once again, everything's on point and will definitely help me make the game better!

Reward icons - I do rely on the player to memorize some of it, but I agree hints won't hurt. I might have to rethink my approach on Attunement conditions, too: the idea initially was to require certain trinket for Attunement to be offered. This part might change, and I'll definitely keep an eye on this one in further playtests.

What you experienced with monsters suddenly dying could be a different room objective - in some rooms, you have to survive for the duration. In those rooms mosters tend to spawn outside the screen and walk into the arena. Also, there is a small widget at the edge of the screen telling you to either defeat several monster squads or survive. Thanks for bringing it up, I kinda forgot about this thing not being explained properly, it's just a tiny widget in the corner that is probably very hard to notice.

Thanks for the feedback, all good ideas!

Controls: they are supposed to be on number keys, not on numpad. I do need to have a proper intro that would present all control options.

Updated enemy art and a music track are both in the works! And I completely agree with the point about telegraphed attacks - that is indeed my plan, along with adding more random events and explaining the existing ones properly.

As for the difficulty - this information is very valuable right now, I've been tuning and re-tuning it back and forth recently, will be sure  to take all that into consideration while working on next updates!

I actually did discover chain dash! That's an interesting one. I can't say I like the fact that last jump lacks inertia and animation-locks you, but chaining jumps and dashes is kinda cool!

About cooldowns - you may consider introducing them, specifically for balance purposes, if that's your biggest concern. As for slots - switching might complicate things, but increasing the number of those could be an option. Or, you can allow to pick up abilities only into the slots. This way, you won't be able to hoard anything, and will be forced to pick up and use whatever gets available to you, and keep it in in your arsenal until a better option is available or until it's all used. You might also give enemies specific drops when they are hit by an ability of certain color, to encourage the use of abilities over the main weapon, making it preferable to always attack with spells. Wold be kinda hard to explain it, though

•  Adding indication for turrets would be great, that's what I thought, too
• I found two, but could only access one (at the edge of level 2). I noticed a door on Level 1 but haven't been able to get there.
• As for the spell usage - it indeed seems like a tricky thing to solve. The way I see it now - I'd like to get a certain "build" and focus on it, while discarding/selling/dismantling abilities that don't fit the build I'm going for. Some sort of progression for abilities could be interesting - turning unnecessary abilities into materials for the ones you need. If you have mana/health costs or cooldowns - I don't think you have to limit the ability quantity, since you have tools to prevent abuse already - you can't use it indefinitely without fighting or opening chests, which is exactly what you want your players to do. If it's too powerful - you can increase the cooldown, so you can only use it so many times per fight. Or, you might want to introduce "colored" mana/ammo that fuels abilities of the same color and is easily collectible, while abilities themselves just use the variable amounts of it - kinda like guns in Gunfire Reborn. However, mind this: right now ability charges fill a lot of space as rewards. If you take them out and make them rechargeable or permanent, you might need to put something in reward pool to compensate. Or, you can go the same way Dead Cells did - each ability is an "item" with its own modifiers
• This is of cource my personal opinion, but as a roguelike/RPG player I like sick combinations that ruin the game's balance :). Or at least find items that perform together better than they do on their own. If I want to create a build that relies on Projectile ability - I'll have to find a way to keep that ability available to me when needed - and I don't feel like I can restock it controllably to rely on using it in every combat. This is fine if you want the player to "juggle" abilities and switch from one to another throughout the run. In that case, however, there might be another problem - a player has to regularly break the game flow to get into the menu and select another ability. I personally find the idea of switching from one ability to another very compelling if there's a fun way to do it on the fly during combat.

Or maybe I'm making this whole thing up and that's not the problem at all. It might as well be how you envisioned it. It's just one player's opinion, anyway :) It all depends on how you want the abilities to be used, what is their role. There are multiple ways to do it, the solution to go with would depend on the emphasis you would like to put into them - are they an addition to the gameplay or a main part of it? What is the prefered way for player to attack in any fight? Start with this, it might show you the way

• Looks really good
• Feedback on actions is very pleasant
• There is a slight lack of air control and tiny little things that make controls themselves unresponsive at times (like getting off the rope after climbing up). 
• Played with a keyboard, it took me several minutes to figure out how to jump :) The default mapping does not feel comfortable for me personally - I would go with Space Bar or W for Jump and Shift for Dash. Jumping on J is the last thing I would think of, no way of "getting" it without checking out key binding settings.
• First ever options to purchase fron the "shop" were costing around 12500 - 16500 coins. It's a minor thing, but it's much easier to perceive and compare smaller numbers
• "Always Run" option could be useful, since walking is rarely needed
• It gets repetitive after a first couple of deaths on the second level - I have to solve same problems on the first level again with mostly the same tools
• Turret's targeting algorithm is not very clear, I took me some time to figure out that I shouldn't be dodging the rocket itself, but the point where it would land.
• There seem to be a number of limiting factors on casting the abilities (number of uses, mana, life cost, cooldowns) but I can't see the reason why all of those should be in place, since casting abilities is one of the coolest things in the game, and switching abilities requires you to spend some time in the menu). Even though I have enough uses of abities available, I still feel like I'm pressured to preserve them and use the main weapon more oftern.
• There seems to be a lot going on with ability colors, since "multicolored" was mentioned in the intro, and all abilities are color-aligned. However, during an hour or so of gameplay I only encountered "Affinities" that slightly decrease mana usage, that stood out to me in terms of synergies and builds. Overall, it feels like the game has a lot of awesomeness to offer later on, but the player has to persevere through the repetitive stuff in the beginning in order to experience it. The first thing that is offered to a new player in the first level is basically recolors of the same abilities. It does a disservice to a variety of abilities you actually do have in the game - I only got to the third level and I've seen there's actually much more than I initially expected, after playing through the same first level with the same abilities over and over. Something tells me that I haven't got to the best part of the game yet - in this case, it might be a problem to keep players interested long enough to get to the most fun stuff. 

Overall, all theese are QoL issues, the game itself is quite interesting and promising. Reminded me of Unepic and Iji. Graphics are nice, shooting and using abilities feels satisfying. 

Good luck with this game!

I actually did beat the boss, although my screen was covered by the shop menu at that time :D! Fully upgraded main weapon did its job, it's quite satisfying to use (did it as a ranged unit, the one that has a gun and deploys mines)! 

I enjoyed playing it! The game loop is fun and easy to understand, apart from a couple of minor frustrations.

• Wrong hotkey indication on QWERTY (I see "A", but the ability is used on "Q")
• Parkour encounter (the one with the wooden ladders & platforms) is slightly tricky since it requires pressing both direction keys at the same time. Could be intended
• Artillery enemies seems to do a ton of damage and are pretty hard to prevent - even if you have the radar
• Since there are two loose conditions (core destroyed / character destroyed) - it is sometimes hard to keep track of both. I could use "low health" indication that would bring my attention to the one that is in most danger. Maybe it's there, but I haven't noticed.
• Opening show when the wave ends leaves shop menu being stuck
• There is no indication that a new enemy will spawn when clearing the camp, and they attack right away as soon as they are spawned, giving no time to react
• Some enemies are quite tricky to dodge (especially wasps or explosive grey thingies). There is a lot of situations where I as a player feel like I could've prevented te damage, but the dodge window is either very small or nonexistent, and there is no attack telegraphing

Good luck with this game! It is quite promising!

Thanks you very much for honest feedback! This confirms some of my suspicions and gives me several things to double check. 

Regarding Controls: have you tried using hotkeys (1-3) to select crabs? This is an option one of my friends proposed, and I feel like it makes controls much better, but it's not explained enough in the game and is easy to miss. I initially only had drag'n'drop on crabs themselves. Judging by what you mentioned, you happend to use the least comfortable control method there is (using info widgets to start a command) :) I should really work on making other options move obvious.

Regarding difficulty: have you happened upon an encounter with big sand-colored dudes? I'm curious because several people mentioned to me they are a significant damage spike, and since you found the game easy and lacking danger - it would be useful for me to rebalance things

•  A very nice retro RPG! Haven't played much, only got to the boat part, but it looks quite interesting so far, and everything seems to be in place - except for the proper intro, that is. I was honestly not expecting that much content to be there with such a placeholder for the intro :) A pleasant surprise for sure
• When you select an action, sometimes enemy gets to act before you. It means, sometimes when you are low on HP what you select is actually meaningless - you can't do a "last shot" or heal, you just die whatever you choose. EDIT: figured it out, it depends on the Speed parameter. Still, feels a bit weird at times when you select an action and don't get to perform it.
• Skeleton enemy is a big power spike compared to others in the very beginning - it stops to matter pretty fast, though, so no big deal. You might say their purpose is to show you what happens when you fall in battle, and that it is actually not that scary.
• First boss (Lucky Devil) - he keeps dropping your attack, and after a couple turns you can only damage him with Fireball effectively. It takes MP, though, and there are no MP restoration items available at that moment. Being dropped to 1 damage per attack is not fun, but I like how this boss requires you to use different tactics - although, it feels like there's not enough tools to actually employ those tactics and counter his behavior (by restoring attack back or hitting with spells), since those things rely on MP that can't be restored. Also, I didn't use "Trikill" against him because I had no way to know much ATK I'll get from it after being debuffed.
• Buff and debuff spells/items mention percentage, but it's not very obvious how useful the result will be. We don't see our stats or stats of our enemy in combat - only "status". I would say showing actual stats as they are at the moment would be more useful, at least for the player

Good job, and good luck expanding on it!

• A very clever approach to level design!
• Controls feel quite comfortable, although landing on one-square platforms is a bit hard
• Wall jumping and sliding feels nice
• Smoothed camera movement contributes to the game feel nicely
• World 2: Was able to skip some of the green squares and go for the last one, don't know if that's intentional
• Found a couple of glitches (dying on a jump pad sometimes kicks you up when you respawn, there is a way to stand on a moving jump-pad platform) - but they are very hard to encounter and generally do not spoil the fun

Good luck!

• Nice and simple platformer
• I found levels that have portal on the complete opposite part of the map more fun - it's much better of a challenge this way. Seing a big level when you need to traverse only like 20% of it feels a bit strange, but I totally see why you did it and it's quite clever! You can fix this thing by introducing pickups with score and additional time, that will make the whole level work even if the portal is easy to reach.
• Controls feel pretty good at first, but are a little bit problematic in two situations:
  • First, you have a really high acceleration, which makes it hard to maneuvre around small elements. It is very hard to land on a tiny little platform sometimes. Inertia and air contol all feels good - it's just the matter of being able to be more precise
  • Second, headbumping into the ceiling. There's where inertia falls short a little bit, and the character starts moving down pretty much instantly. This can be okay if you could control the height of your jump - in many games like this the jump is not actually and instant action - It keeps pulling you up as long as you press the button, and leave you the the inertia when you release it. This opens a lot of options for precise controls and introduces a skill to be good at

I don't know how familiar are you with the game called N (latest installment being N++ on Steam), but it has controlls figured out perfectly for a game like this. Even without complex physics and wall jumps, just a basic jump feels really cool there and gives you a lot of control, specifically - headbumping into ceiling and jump height controls. My initial impression of your game was very similar. It also handles the timer and level design very nicely, so I strongly advice you to check it out - although, I somehow have a feeling you have already :)

Good luck!

•  It would be more comfortable to do all actions with one button, since most of the actions are far from each other and there is never a need to perform two different ones simultaneously
• A bit frustrating to figure things out at the beginning - the game does not tell you if you do something obviously wrong - like buying seeds if you don't have inventory space
• Right now, the gameplay is pretty repetitive and there is no further development. The timings line up and there's no randomness and variety, so you can't deviate from the cycle by more than a couple of seconds - otherwise, it's a guaranteed failure (since you generally do everythin in threes, including failures). The first time you plant 9 seeds is exactly the same as the 100th time you plant 9 seends. 
• There is a choice to sell to a customer, but he only buys 1 item from you, making you break the 3-by-3 cycle of doing things for a very small additional reward that you don't actually need since there's no rush. Also, the way he appears and disappears is quite unpredictable - so you can't plan ahead and make a meaningful choice here.

I'm focusing so much on the choices here because it is one of the most engaging aspects of a game. It must be meaningful and somewhat informed. You have a decent base in your hands to build something like that.

Another thing you might be interested to look at is introducing a clear and interesting goal. Right now the goal is to "not fail", and you succeed in it by not doing anything at all :) Sure, you can say that the goal is to earn as much as possible. Even then - the slower you do it, the more effective you are at "not failing" and the more boring it actually becomes. Itroduce something that gives the player a reason to risk and collect more money faster, and a to feel good about when achieved.

Hope I was helpful! Good luck!

I don't have a Mac, and I haven't set up Linux build yet. I'm afraid I can only share Windows build for now. Still, thanks for the interest!

This is actually very good!

• Got stuck in Campaign after discovering Ship Storage - game tells me to move to and adjacent room, but there's nothing I can interact with there. I have energy cannon, but don't have rockets yet - probably missed them somewhere (found two rocket racks, but not the actual launcher). At this point I have to go through every other room to see if I missed something. I cound use some hints in this situation
• It seems like I'm only at the beginning, but the story feels nice so far. The dialogs are minimal and give just the right amount of info to stay interested.
• "Demo" felt a bit better at onboarding that the campaign itself - unlocking modues and ramping up difficulty feels more natural there
• Played on "standard" difficulty, and it feel on point. Not too easy or hard. I expected it to be a little easier, since I play similar games from time to time. "Fast" enemies give me the most trouble so far, but I like how each enemy makes you adopt different moving and dodging pattern.
• Metroidvania aspect is fun (apart from the fact that I got lost a bit)
• There's a little bit of a mismatch between movement and visuals - you see a flyghing vehicle, but it does not feel like you control one (unless you use "boost" - that feels more accurate). The gameplay is still fun, though.

Good luck!