*prints out comment and frames it*
I don't intend to deviate much in terms of visuals or sound at this point, so you can expect more of that! Gameplay variety will increase as I add some more content and a couple of mechanics missing from the demo, so hopefully you'll like that stuff too! See you next Demo Day!
Seeing people play the game helps me a TON, so thanks a million!
One of the priorities for the next demo is finding a way to better suggest things the player should mouse over and inspect. I will likely include a few pop-up arrows and text boxes for a first-timer to explain how to proceed. I also plan to add a shimmer effect to anything that can be inspected / provides info when moused over during the command phase (when you can do stuff like cast spells, click GO, etc.)
I have already made a number of edits to the talent descriptions to make them easier to understand, such as specifying the Wasp's Deadly talent only affecting attacks dealt, not taken. I'm also going to add an animation for parting clouds when you land a cloudy mystery space on the travel board so you don't have to infer what you just landed on from the effect.
Watching you play the game and figure it out despite the fact that you're not super into Roguelikes is very encouraging to me. I'm likely going to include additional content for Story Mode in the next demo, which will be more your bag as it's a persistent party-based RPG mode rather than the Roguelike Classic Mode. Keep an eye out next Demo Day!
tl;dr:
DoAdd crashes have been fixed, first space being weird will be fixed
Tutorial shit's coming, seems more necessary due to feedback
and fucking THANK YOU this feedback helped alot (I'm retarded but I'm working on it!)
The bug you encountered with the crashes (specifically the ones with the DoAdd bit) were fixed in the current build. Ironically, I can tell this is the previous build because the newest build has 101 spaces in Classic mode (I'm retarded despite my efforts!) which I've also addressed in my current working build. I should really just have the version number in a corner or something.
Classic mode is meant to be the tutorial for the game, but I'm probably gonna have to do a short, easy Prologue mode to roll out the mechanics slowly and more explicitly. Defense will get a mention (it's not particularly complex to explain) and maybe a mouseover description.
The run where you picked a spell immediately was a bug. I recently made the game do a soft reset instead of a hard one on defeat, but because of that some things got overlooked like clearing out the first space on the Travel board, so by chance you got a spell selection one shuffled into the first space. The spell selection menu in classic mode writes to a specific spell slot, not just the next available, so you got an almost-a-feature-like bug on stream and it was honestly kinda funny as shit. I fixed this issue immediately upon seeing it, so thanks again!
You can click the party members to switch to them during the player command state (when you can cast spells, see descriptions, click GO) and they have different MP talents and spells. Story mode is unbeatable without swapping characters.
I wouldn't say you need to git gud so much as just slow down a little, but you're playing and streaming a ton of games (seriously, what the fuck is with all these games in demo day now???) so I don't blame you for getting a bit impatient. The game isn't very forgiving in the first place but it's very surmountable given some practice. Though one could debate the existence of design failures at all, they certainly wouldn't be failures on your part as a player; either I failed to communicate it, or a failed to make it competently. Finding these flaws is the whole reason for putting out a demo for a mongolian basketweaving static vidcons communications hub in the first place.
I agree, and there's an oversight atm where the normal enemy spaces and strong enemy spaces have the same sprite, which I'm fixing as we speak, but that definitely lends to the repetition. There will be different "bonus" spaces that count towards a stage's objective-completion count which will equate to a better rank. They'll also require / give items towards that same purpose. Stuff like a chest, trapped chest, mimic, altar, trader, bargaining NPC, troll under the bridge encounter, etc. They'll all have something to do with dice, of course.
Glad the core of the game speaks for itself,. I'm trying to nail the correct balance between what info is available vs. what the player needs to figure out.
Classic mode is trying to do two things: Introduce the most barebones version of the game as not to overwhelm a new player, and to mimic the game this is based on, Tenmei Dice Battle. That's why the enemy design is so different (more HP, cares about dealing with the enemy more than lining up your own plays, etc.) There will be a Hero mode which is just a longer Classic mode but you pick spells AND talents more frequently, and the enemies get much harder towards the end to deal with your bullshit. Story mode is entirely my own design and Hero mode will lean much more heavily towards how it does things.
This game doesn't currently have any talents / effects you inflict on enemies, but it will have quite a few talents you can slot onto your own party to setup combos and synergies (this is implemented but not unlocked right now as it relies on beating bosses for progression items). I think sticking to this is a better strength than muddling the mixture with more potential UI clutter.
I originally allowed clicking anywhere to progress dialogue and I see no reason not to go back to it but that's low priority. Same with spell cancels.
Full screen is gonna get fixed.
Item descriptions are there but I'm changing them so they're disabled for now. The short version is that maxing out an item will count towards stage ranking but when a character is KO'd you will consume some to revive them, which effectively lowers your rank for that stage.
CRT effect is gonna get more presets and some sliders in the upcoming options pane.
Great finds, I hadn't tested the spells or fullscreen on other resolutions on my own. You're also not the only one to mention the size of the dice icons, so I'm making bigger varieties for that element right now as well.
Audio settings are on the feature list when I get around to the Options panel, the variables controlling volume as such are implemented so it'll be pretty soon but probably not the next build here in a bit.
